Regional Connections Established as Unconference Training Wraps up

Thursday was the last full day of training. In the iHRIS tract, we started with an amazing presentation by Dr. Ly from Mali.

We have not been working with the MOH in Mali, and we learned earlier this week that he found the iHRIS software, and together with his team was able to customize it quite significantly including adding French translations, a Self-Service model, and other new functionality.

Following this, Prof. Kayode Odusote , Director of Human Resources Development, West African Health Organisation , presented the customizations performed to iHRIS Manage for Togo, and iHRIS Qualify for the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria.

I followed this with a discussion of translations in the iHRIS System, explaining both the underlying mechanics, the allowances made for country specific language and terminology, as well as how people can easily translate the software through Launchpad.

Next, we had an updating and iHRIS trouble shooting session. Participants updated the iHRIS software from version 4.0.5 to 4.0.7. The only problem was that we all forgot good project management practices and didn't backup the database first!

After returning from lunch, we had our "coding" sections. This began with some more explanation of form and field system in iHRIS, which solidified some of the discussion we have already had as well as prepared us for our next session on how to create a module and add new forms and pages to iHRIS. We closed out with a session on how to use launchpad and the version control software , bazaar.

Local developers now have a very solid foundation for implementing and customizing iHRIS in their countries. Of equal importance, by linking these developers together, we have created a regional support network so that we can have true South-South collaboration.