dhis2-devs team mailing list archive

[Jim Grace <jimgrace@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Jason,

Here's my idea: Add one extra field to ValidationRule, a reference to
DataElementCategoryCombo. If this is null, it means no change from the
current validation rule. If it's not null, it means that the validation
rule should be applied to all option combos within the category combo, for
any data element(s) reference in the left and right side expressions.

On the New Validation Rule screen, add an option right below "Rule type"
that selects whether or not this will be a "template" rule. (Except don't
use the word "template" -- too technical.) Maybe like what you said, or
"Apply rule to category combinations" (by default "No"). If "Yes" is
selected, another option pops into visibility just below to choose a
category combination. Once this is chosen, it is used to filter the list of
data elements that will be available to the editor in "Edit left side" and
"Edit right side". Perhaps the "Edit left side" and "Edit right side"
buttons should then be disabled until a category combination is chosen.
Otherwise the UI is left the same -- just the addition of these two fields
and the data element filter. The user is free to make any expressions they
want, but the data elements used on the left and right side must all have
the same category combo.

>From the software point of view this could be done much more simply in a
single dropdown of category option combos; it's a matter of the art of UI
design to make this all somewhat intelligible to the user. The semantics
would be that if you choose a combo, the data elements will be restricted
to those having the combo and the rule will be multiplied by every combo
option value. Using our pop-up contextual help feature on this screen (as
well as in many other areas of the product) would assist usability a lot!

At validation rule execution time, some pre-processing is done
in ValidationRunContext.java (to avoid processing things that are common to
a validation run for each org unit / period). We could add an extra private
method to this class that we could take each validation rule with a
category option combo, and "multiply" it to make an in-memory validation
rule (not persisted) for each category combo. This would be done by taking
the left and right side expressions, looking for the data element tags
inside the expression, and adding each category option combo, respectively,
onto each data element tag. Then the validation run could proceed without
any further modification.

Let me know what you think. I'm also happy to do the implementation if that
makes sense; I'm familiar with the code and it should be pretty quick.

Cheers,
Jim



On Fri, May 23, 2014 at 9:10 AM, Jason Pickering <
jason.p.pickering@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Hi Jim
> Yes, I think I agree with you, but a still a bit fuzzy how it could happen
> with the current UI.  I think the user would have an option like "Apply
> this rule to common category combo options", and they would then select a
> left side, and the right side would only show data elements with the same
> category combo. The user would not select individual data elements.  An
> operator would need to be selected as well, obviously.
>
> For the use case we are dealing with, it is always comparing two data
> elements, one which is typically a subset of another, which is quite common
> in HIV M&E. Number counselled <= Number tested <= Number positive <= Number
> receiving results.
>
> Regards,
> Jason
>
>
>
> On Fri, May 23, 2014 at 1:44 PM, Jim Grace <jimgrace@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> I like it. A couple of ideas:
>>
>> - I suggest that this be a new property of validation rules, rather than
>> a third type in addition to "Validation" and "Surveillance". It could be
>> potentially useful for either of these two rule types.
>>
>> - When selecting this option, the user could choose from a list of
>> category combos that then appears on the add validation rule screen. (We
>> could even present a list of category combos that are actually *used* by
>> data elements.) This list could be used to filter the data elements
>> available when creating the left and right sides, to make sure they all
>> have the same combos.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Jim
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, May 23, 2014 at 3:55 AM, Jason Pickering <
>> jason.p.pickering@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Lars,
>>> Finally got around to creating the blueprint here
>>>
>>> https://blueprints.launchpad.net/dhis2/+spec/atomic-validation-rules
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Jason
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wed, Jan 15, 2014 at 6:36 PM, Lars Helge Øverland <
>>> larshelge@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi Jason,
>>>>
>>>> yes I think this makes sense. One could make a special kind of
>>>> validation rule, with a constraint that all data elements on the left and
>>>> right side expressions share the same category combination, and then tell
>>>> the system to validate each and every category option combination. Feel
>>>> free to write a blueprint.
>>>>
>>>> regards,
>>>>
>>>> Lars
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Jan 14, 2014 at 3:52 PM, Jason Pickering <
>>>> jason.p.pickering@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Hi Devs,
>>>>> I came up against an issue today when looking at implementing a legacy
>>>>> database in DHIS2. In the old system, there are about 75 rules. The rules
>>>>> in the past have been applied at the atomic level, meaning that each and
>>>>> every data element category combination value is compared with a counter
>>>>> part. As an example.
>>>>>
>>>>> Number of persons currently receiving ART (including pregnant women)
>>>>> is greater than or equal to
>>>>> Number of individuals NEWLY initiating ART (including pregnant women)
>>>>>
>>>>> Each of these data elements are disaggregated by Gender and three age
>>>>> groups, and the validation rules need to be applied to each respective
>>>>> category combination options (not the totals).
>>>>>
>>>>> Although I do not know exactly how many rules we would need to to
>>>>> this, it is surely at least several hundred. I have not really come up
>>>>> against this before, and need to see if anyone has expericience with how
>>>>> the system behaves with "large" numbers of rules.
>>>>>
>>>>> I think it would be good to think about how to we could make the rules
>>>>> be applied within category combo options , without having to explicitly
>>>>> define each and every rule. Thoughts?
>>>>>
>>>>> Regards,
>>>>> Jason
>>>>>
>>>>>
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>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
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>>
>