Hi all,
DHIS version 2.15 is out. We have a great set of new features for you:
- Event reports app: We have a completely new “event reports” app for analysis of events. This app lets you do aggregated analysis of events directly without building aggregation queries and create pivot-style tables, where you can use data elements as individual dimensions together with periods and org units. All dimensions can be placed on columns, rows and filters. The app also lets you query on events using filters on all data elements, org units or periods. It lets you save tables as favorites and share them with others. You can also download your favorites to many popular formats. This app replaces the old tabular reports. You can check it out on the demo by browsing through all of the favorites.
- Event capture app: A new app for capture of events. This app makes it easy to capture events efficiently, view the list of events capture so far and update existing events. It lets you configure and select the columns to show in the list of events. The app works offline, meaning that you can continue to enter events even if connectivity drops during your working session.
- Tracked entities: In tracker you can now define any number of tracked entities, representing things you want to track. Tracked entities can be commodities, lab samples, buildings, wells, drug batches and persons, or anything you want. This makes the system more flexible and applicable for tracking most stuff beyond just persons. A program is associated with one tracked entity. We hope that you will be creative and take advantage of this new level of abstraction. You can define tracked entities from persons and programs > tracked entity.
- Data approval levels: You can now configure the levels for where approval of data should take place. For instance, you can require that data must be approved at the facility and provincial org unit hierarchy levels, omitting approval at the district levels. An approval level requires that the data must be approval by some user linked to the specific level for it to be considered valid and be available in data analysis. Approval levels are configured under settings > approval.
- Data approval in analytics: Data approval now takes place in reports module > data approval. Approval of data is now respected in data analytics tools such as pivot table and visualizer, meaning that data which has not been approved will not be part of the aggregated values displayed in reports. This implies that data can be hidden until it has been approved by the appropriate persons. In other words, the aggregated data in analysis apps will be based on approved data only.
- Data access control in org unit hierarchy: User’s access to data can now be controlled in the organisation unit hierarchy. This is done by assigning data view root organisation units per user. The existing association between users and org units represent access to doing data capture. The new association for data view organisation units controls for which organisation units a user can view analytical data in the analysis modules such as pivot table and visualizer.
- Category option groups and group sets: Category options can now be further classified by assigning them to category option groups and group sets. An example where this is useful is when representing various projects as category options and there is a need to classify these projects by funding agencies/donors. The group sets are available as dimensions in all data analysis modules. You set these up from data elements and indicators > category option groups / group sets.
- Top menu: We have added a new, more flexible top menu. This menu displays all apps that is available to the current user, including both standard apps and installed, external apps. It works well on touch-based devices due to the large icons. You can organize your apps by clicking on “more apps” link and drag-and-drop your apps into the order you would like. Note that your first nine apps will be displayed in the drop-down menu. You can scroll down in the top drop-down menu to view all apps, too. Check it out on the demo by hovering the “apps” icon in the top menu.
- User account invites: A new feature for inviting new users to the system has been added. An invite is similar to an account, except that instead of specifying username and password, an email is sent to the invited user, who can pick username and password herself before logging into the system. This is useful to avoid insecure password generation such as standard or simplistic passwords, or passwords being known by other than the user herself. Check it out in the add new user screen by selecting “email invitation to create account” from the top drop-down menu.
- Std dev and variance aggregation operators: Data elements can now have new aggregation operators which includes count, standard deviation and variance. These aggregation operators can also be specified directly in analytics web api queries. This allows for more advanced reports and aggregations.
- Org unit group counts in indicators: In indicator formulas you can now include the number of org units in a specific group. This count of org units intersects with the org unit hierarchy based on the org unit requested for aggregation. As an example, this lets you use the number of public facilities in a specific district in indicators. This is useful e.g. when creating facility infrastructure surveys and reports. Check out the
- Custom range axis in visualizer: In data visualizer you can now specify a new set of options for the range (y) axis, namely the max and min value, the number of ticks to use, and the number of decimals for the axis values. This is useful when e.g. you want to “zoom in” on the upper part of a bar chart in order to highlight differences between org units. Check out the demo chart which shows immunization coverage between 70% and 110%.
- OpenID authentication: The system can now be configured to authenticate users through OpenID. This is useful to avoid forcing users to create yet another username and password. OpenID is an open standard that allows users to be authenticated through identify providers, such as Google and Yahoo. The OpenID provider can be specified from settings > access.
- CSV meta-data import: From import-export module you can now import meta-data in CSV format. Supported objects are currently data elements + groups, category options + groups and organisation units + groups. CSV import is quite handy when doing ad-hoc imports from spreadsheets and the like.
- More dynamic attributes: You can now assign dynamic attributes to data sets and organisation unit group sets. This is useful when you need to capture additional meta-data information beyond what is offered as fixed attributes on these objects.
- Unit intervals: Data elements now have a new numeric value type called unit interval, which is a continuous number between 0 and 1. This is useful e.g. when you require users to enter a percentage in data entry without having to specify validation rules for each data element.
- Standard comments: Data elements can now define option sets for data value comments. This means that you can use an option set to define a standard, common set of comments to data values, and let users choose an option by clicking inside the data entry cells and using the regular comment field. You can check it out on the demo for the “facility assessment” form for the “facility infrastructure” data elements.
- Extended sharing: The sharing paradigm has now been applied to a new range of objects: org unit group set, data element group, data element group set, category combination, category, category option, sql view, user role, validation rule group, option set, tracked entity attribute. The sharing solution enables you to give objects public/private access for reading or writing, and share objects with other groups of users.
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Minor new features:
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Data sets have a new setting for forcing users to enter a comment for missing data values before clicking complete.
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When importing events you can now specify the organisation unit identifier scheme, such as code.
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Data visualizer now discriminates between missing values and zeros - missing values are displayed as dashes.
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DHIS 1.4 import now includes import of validation rules.
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A new six-monthly period type with start in April is now supported for data capture and analysis.
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This version brings a lot of improvements to the Web API, which is now richer, more stable and better documented. We have continued on our path of making all system aspects available through the Web API, while rewriting our own clients as light-weight apps.
- Flexible property filtering: When requesting lists of meta-data objects, the API now allows for flexible filtering on any meta-data property, using any number of filters per query.
- CRUD: All API resources now directly support create, update, get and delete operations, allowing for modifying resources directly instead of going through the meta-data resource - makes the API more in line with REST principles and more convenient to use.
- Meta-data inclusion / exclusion: For each resource you can specify precisely which properties and collections you want to be serialized and included in the response - useful e.g. to avoid loading big collections unnecessarily for objects.
- Tracked entity instance query: A new resource for querying and searching tracked entity instances (e.g. persons, medicines) has been added, which supports free-text queries, queries on specific attributes, programs, program status, events and more.
- Data value set templates: You can now generate data value set templates for specific data sets, making it simpler to create data entry clients.
- JSON data value sets: Data value sets can now be rendered as JSON, in addition to the existing XML support.
- Maintenance: Certain maintenance functions are now available through a maintenance web api resource.
You can download Live package, WAR file, sample data and source code here:
http://www.dhis2.org/downloads
You will find documentation and javadocs here:
http://www.dhis2.org/documentation
The demo application can be found here:
Full list of features can be found at the Launchpad page:
https://launchpad.net/dhis2/+milestone/2.15
Enjoy the new features. Feedback is appreciated.
best regards,
the DHIS 2 development team
*"HealthInformation Management - Making a World of Difference”