Midterm Progress Update

Progress has been slow and steady. I'm on track to finish however! What's done:

• Reports can be entered, saved, and the values entered will be reloaded into the proper form fields. If edited and if the values have changed -- the old values are voided and new values are saved (retaining the old values in the database for auditing purposes).

What's left:

• Management pages See this and this for what it will ultimately look like.
• Still need to get the "View Only" pages working; in theory it should work. The "View Only" will be the answers but no form fields present.
  
• The UI to create the report, questions, sections, etc.
  

Ultimately, I think this shouldn't be too bad.

The overdue progress report

Apologies for not blogging as much as I should. I've focused on getting what needed to be done, done.

Tasks that have been completed thus far with a target milestone of using a mock Form, enable persistence of Questions and Values to the database:

• Mock out a report form using the domain classes
• Using the mocked up schema, generate a simple report form
• Design the SQL Schema (for just FacilityDataValue and FacilityDataQuestion)
  
• Write Hibernate Mapping files (for just FacilityDataValue and FacilityDataQuestion)
  
• Write Data Access layer (for FacilityDataValue and FacilityDataQuestion)
  
• Write Service layer (for FacilityDataValue and FacilityDataQuestion)
• Refactor the rendering logic to use the JSP and write EL function(s) to check types using instanceof.
  
• Allow a simple the mocked form from Week 1 to save the question answers.

Tasks that are are in progress, soon to be finished with a target milestone of removing the code used to mock up everything from the first few weeks; ability to use the saved schemas for rendering the report form:

• Design SQL Schema for the rest of the domain classes
  
• Write mappings for the rest of the domain classes
• Support loading the previously saved values for a form/startdate/enddate/location into a page for viewing or editing
  
• Write methods to save the rest of the domain classes in the data access layer
  
• Write methods to save the rest of the domain in the service layer

Now that I have summarized work completed and in progress, let's explain the overall design:

1. FacilityDataFormSchema serves as the overall representation of the report form in the system.
2. FacilityDataFormSection is simply that, sections on the form, e.g., monitoring equipment status, stock status of vaccinations, number of people vaccinated, etc.
3. FacilityDataFormQuestion holds metadata regarding a question.
4. FacilityDataQuestion is the question itself; it specifies the datatype; it is subclassed for each question datatype; if not subclassed, then the question is considered to be "freetext" -- in other words: just simply a text-based question.
   
1. CodedQuestion is a question that has a coded answer. This too is subclassed for each coded question datatype.
   
1. StockQuestion is exactly as the name says, to track stock of items such as vaccinations. The coded answers are: "not_stocked_out","stocked_out","expired","not_applicable"
   
2. BooleanCodedQuestion is a simple "yes","no","not applicable" type of thing; e.g., "Was there mobile clinic today?"
2. NumericQuestion is a question which has a numeric answer, e.g., "Number of Adults Vaccinated."
   
5. FacilityDataValue is what holds the values entered in the report forms for each question.
6. FacilityDataReportFormData is a non-persisted class used for retrieving the answers for a specific report for a specified period.

Hopefully this makes up for my lack of updates.

The long overdue progress report

This is gonna be short, sweet and to the point:

Week 1:

1. I wrote a mock report form with 10 questions (screenshots in a later post)
2. I then wrote up some code to render it approriately for each question type.
   

Week 2 (still ongoing):

1. Designed the SQL schema, and wrote the service/database layer classes for 2 of the classes.
2. Wrote in the functionality to save the report data to the database.

Will explain the design at a later date.

Ciao!

Open Everything NYC Recap

I attended Open Everything NYC on Saturday. For those who do not know, Open Everything is an "un-conference" which is a conference where the participants run the show. There are several open sessions, and a few keynotes.

Some of the open session topics were on education, Open Source Software licensing, and even relationships! The Open Relationships talk was really interesting. I find it amusing how many people wind up creating alter egos to prevent employers from finding out things about them.

(Some of) the keynote speakers were amazing:

Schuyler Erle, a guy who wrote some code for UNICEF, utilized text messaging as a means to track distribution of Bed Nets to prevent malaria via a web application, among other things. If you want to research this it's all on the wiki.

Robert Steele, a former spy (yes a spy!) whose talk in my opinion was pretty much utterly useless! I saw diagrams which were well.. horrid. His talk had ZERO flow planning, it seemed to be a bunch of conspiracies, one after the other. Let alone the fact the guy is abrasive. After his talk, I went up to him to let him know that his site (which he linked in his talk), was down; his response was condescending and RUDE. I turned to some people behind me as I was leaving, and said that there was no way I could have summarized anything that guy said (I was writing notes for the wiki); they agreed. The consensus on Robert Steele was pretty universal: Conspiracy nutjob.

The final speaker, Leslie Hawthorne, a woman I have a lot of respect for gave a talk that was short, sweet, and to the point. She disussed how open source software development can be used in a common sense way to solve complex problems we face. OpenMRS, solving the problem of the HIV/AIDS crisis in the developing world; Sahana for the disaster relief management in areas devastated by floods and such. Amazing talk! Best part, she did not use any slides!

John Britton, the conference organizer gave the closing talk, and he took notes as to what should change next time. Longer open sessions etc came up. Additionally, we found out: it's possible to do this ongoing, I'd REALLY enjoy that. I met some freaking awesome people.

We were to screen RIP: "A REMIX MANIFESTO" at McFaddens Bar and Pub by the UN, but the owner didn't allow us to do it; which was stupid. We wound up sitting around half price drinks/appetizers and had some good conversations and fun.

Overall, I had fun and would do it again. I went into this not knowing what to expect.

Accepted into Google Summer of Code 2009

For the second year in a row, I was accepted into Google Summer of Code!!! I will be working with OpenMRS on the Facility Data Module.

My project will focus on developing tools for collecting and ultimately generating reports for aggregate data from external sources.

Groovy Forms Module is NOT dead

Hey folks!

I'm still alive and not dead. The Groovy Forms Module is not a dead project, and WILL be finished. I plan on getting work started back up on it soonish. School is back in session for me. I'm sorry for the long delay.

That is all.

GSoC wrap-up

The program officially ended on August 18^th. I'm awaiting the arrival of my t-shirt!!

Now, I didn't quite have time to finish my project prior to that date since my uncle suddenly passed away on August 10^th.

The project itself is about 80 percent completed. All that is left is to get the rendering working and finish up the management page to edit the form metadata as it appears in the system.

My time is now limited since school started up again for me, so as much time as I can I'm going to devote to finishing up this project.

I'd like to thank the following:

• Burke Mamlin for helping me and answering all the questions I had and guiding me when I was lost.



• Ben Wolfe for putting up with me and helping me when Burke was MIA.



• OpenMRS and its wonderful worldwide network of developers for making this project into what it has become.



• Paul Biondich for encouraging me (along with Burke) to apply for summer of code.



• Last, but certainly not least, Leslie Hawthorn for managing this program and every problem that popped up. She must have super human powers or something.

The list can only be so long, I feel like I'm accepting an academy award here. It was a great experience, and I will definately continue to maintain my project in whatever free time I can find.