Get Stoked - End Poverty. One Line of Code at a Time.

We've announced the seven students we've selected as interns for the 2014 Google Summer of Code. The coding period begins May 19.

2014 Google Summer of Code - Get to Know Mifos

We're looking forward to participating in Google Summer of Code for our fourth year. In 2013, we successfully graduated four amazing interns from across the world who are continuing to make substantial contributions to our community. We hope to continue building our next generation of contributors who are joining in our movement to fight poverty through open source software. We want you to be part of our mission of creating a world of 3 Billion Maries.

Students in 2014 will have the option to work on a variety of projects related to Mifos X - our core back-end Java platform which provides a full set of RESTful APIs to deliver financial inclusion, our front-end Community App built on top of the AngularJS framework, and a variety of other apps including our Android-based mobile client.

Guidelines

Getting started Read about setting up the code and understand the basic concepts around MifosX.

Expectations

Students working on Mifos X will be expected to:

Use the mifos-developer mailing list
provide patches
follow the Mifos coding standards
document their work
have access to reasonable bandwidth, ie: have a fast, reliable Internet connection
track and report on progress daily

Prerequisite Skills

Basics

Quick learner
Troubleshooting Wizard
Passion for writing beautiful code
Excellent communication skills
Knowledge of developer tools
- such as: a text editor, source control, how to build software
- experience with specific tools will also help, such as: Eclipse IDE, Git

Mifos includes wide variety of technologies, we do not expect a student to be expert on all of these. But it will be helpful if you have some experience in some of these. Helpful skills (specific technology requirements vary with project chosen):

MySQL,Jersey, Hibernate, Spring,
HTML, CSS, JavaScript (JQuery), AngularJS
JUnit, REST-assured

Hints

When you need help, ask for help! Do some searches before asking, please. We are very excited for you to join us, but we need to know that you're willing to put in the time and effort required to do your part. When you do ask, ask well.
Not sure if you are qualified? Download and build the code, then run the Platform and the reference user interface. Instructions for doing so are available at Getting started - Contributing to MifosX.
Email the mifos-developer mailing list with your questions and project ideas.
Install Skype for (generally infrequent) video calls. You'll need a headset for Skype, too.

Mentoring

Mifos folks are constantly working remotely (mainly using Skype), especially in supporting remote contributors. We often do video calls and desktop sharing If possible, we'd love to meet you in person! Specific mentors for each project will be listed below.

Mentor	Location	Time Zone
Michael Vorburger	Switzerland	CET (GMT +1:00)
KojoG	Ghana	GMT
Vishwas Babu A J	USA	PST(GMT -8:00)
Anuruddha Premalal	Sri Lanka	IST (GMT +5:30)
Nayan Ambali	India	IST (GMT +5:30)
Sander van der Heyden	Netherlands	CET (GMT+1:00)
James Dailey	USA	PST(GMT -8:00)
Markus Geiss (Deactivated)	Germany	CET (GMT+1:00)

Project Ideas

All 2014 projects will be on the new Mifos X platform, this the brand new version of the Mifos software that we launched in 2012. Mifos X is a true platform in which the back-end is cleanly separated from the front-end and all core platform services are exposed through an API making it easy develop new applications on top of the Mifos X platform.

Integrate Data Import Tool with Mifos X platform

Mentors	Nayan Ambali
Overview & Objectives	Data Import Tool was a 2013 GSoC project; it is standalone web-app and used for importing bulk data like clients, groups, loan and saving accounts and transactions into the system. Code from this projected can be migrated to Mifos X platform to provide seamless integration.
Description	At present data import tool is standalone and one has to deploy it and connect it to Mifos X platform to use it for importing data. It will make the tool more readily available for all users to migrate the code from this project to Mifos X platform and give seamless integration. Advantages of merging the code with platform: 1) Bulk upload API will always be in sync with platform APIs. 2) Easy of build UI for bulk upload inside Community-App. 3) Import will be much faster as we are eliminating one tier. Apart from integration, we'll also be adding in additional import functionalities beyond clients, loans, and savings accounts: 4) And we will be adding other essential import options such as CoA, Code/Code Values, Offices and Data tables.
Helpful Skills	Java (Spring/JPA/Jersey), SQL , JavaScript , Git
Impact	It has many impacts This drastically reduces the time to set up of initial configuration/data of Mifos X for organization adopting this system as MIS. For data entry operator, this feature can be used as bulk creation option (such as import bulk loans, import clients) These templates can be used as offline store. And once user has internet connectivity can upload these templates with captured data.
Other Resources	GSOC 2013 - Data Import Tool GSoC 2014 - Data Import/Export feature

Workflows Engine

Mentors	Binny Gopinath Sreevas (Unlicensed)
Overview & Objectives	Workflows can be used for adding additional data/surveys for capturing data or adding checklist to a pre-defined workflows at certain points of the workflow (scope does not include adding custom workflows).
Description	In most of the cases MFI wants to capture additional data during certain workflows (example: during client closing, wants to conduct exit survey, capture PPI during loan creation) and this requirement can fulfilled by adding option to attach datatable/survey/question group to the pre-defined workflows as certain points (example: during loan creation, during approval time or during disbursement etc). And same can be achieved by integrating workflow engine.
Helpful Skills	Java, SQL , JavaScript , Git
Impact	Helps organization to streamline their data capture process in the MIS and as well as in the field. And this leads toward more measurability of the MFI's impact in the field and more transparency.
Other Resources

Inbound SMS Integration

Mentors	Nayan Ambali(plus Michael Vorburger, as needed)
Overview & Objectives	MFIs have requested the ability for both inbound and outbound SMS communication. This project will focus on Inbound SMS Integration, as part of client protection, client has right know about her/his account information at any time any where.
Description	In outbound SMS notification MFI decides when and what information need to be sent to client, but as part of client protection, client has complete rights to request for information about her/his account details(any time any where). Using inbound SMS client can query for her account details such loan amount, status of new loan application, outstanding loan amount.
Helpful Skills	Java, SQL , JavaScript , Git
Impact	Transparency and client protection.
Other Resources	See SMS Integration and Outbound SMS

Client Impact Portal

Mentors	Sander van der Heyden
Overview & Objectives	Microfinance institutions usually work with various external parties, such as funders or investors. Using the data that is available in MifosX we would like to offer those stakeholders a seperate portal showing accurate and high-level information about the institution that would otherwise be reported manually by the institution. This information helps them in their decision making processes, but also enables them to assess the broader impact they are having with their funding.
Description	To develop a portal that aggregates information from different Mifos X deployments and report on predefined social and operational metrics Objectives: Implement back-end logic in MifosX required to make information available to the client impact portal Implement UI and back-end logic of the Client impact portal
Helpful Skills	SQL, Java, Javascript, Git, Web Services
Impact	Funders and investors are vital for almost all MFI's, providing them with accurate information on the impact they are making with each of their MFI's is something they highly value and that enables them to assess whether they want to further support the MFI's moving forward to enable growth of the MFI.
Other Resources	Data Analytics & Client Insight - Are we making an impact? (Client Impact Portal demo) Client Impact Portal POC - (mifos/password are login credentials)

Credit Bureau Integration

Mentors	Nayan Ambali
Overview & Objectives	Because of regulatory reasons or to do background check of a client (risk management), MFIs depend on credit bureaus. As part of it, MFI must submit client details to credit bureau and also need to pull client information from credit bureau before approving any new loans to a client.Mifos X can be integrated with a popular CBs in India and from other regions (based on the demand).
Description	This will be an optional module inside Mifos X, and this module can be turned on/off based on the institutes requirements. And will be flexible to configure with different CBs (may not be practical to integrate with all CBs). The major functionality will be sending the data to CBs on regular intervals in the format CB expects. And option to pull the client’s information from CB whenever loan officer/branch manager/ user wants to view the information for a particular client.
Helpful Skills	SQL, Java, Javascript, Git, Web Services, Big Data (Hadoop, Hive)
Impact	The credit report shows account information such as repayment record, defaults, type of loan, amount of loan, etc. of the customer. This information facilitates prudent decision-making when the credit underwriter processes the loan application. This help MFI to reduce the risk of bad loans and reduces the multiple lendings to same person from different MFIs.
Other Resources

Clean Energy Integration

Mentors	James Dailey
Overview & Objectives	MFIs are interested in becoming a channel for clean energy products - such as solar home systems, water purifiers, or improved cookstoves. With international partners like barefoot power, dlight, or MicroEnergy Credits, or local partners like Grameen Greenway or HUL, MFIs need a way to take orders and hand off data to appropriate partners for order-fulfillment, warranty management, and after-sales service. Integrating a single customer view including their financing of specific clean energy products.
Description	Build a module that extends loan product definition to include specific physical product ordering - e.g. a clean energy loan associated with a specific solar product. Create a daily batch process to send data in JSON or XML to appropriate third party system (e.g. MEC Tracker). Extend this to include "down payments" on the product purchase - i.e. only partially financed. Build a supplier ordering/invoice & financial reconciliation process and transfer funds directly to "Supplier Account" upon fulfillment of order. Create reports on aging of orders, fulfillment timing, and geographic spread.
Helpful Skills	SQL, Java, Javascript, Git, Web Services
Impact	MFIs become more capable of integrating with third party systems for management of deliveries, after-sales service, and carbon tracking.
Other Resources

Pay as you Go Solar Module

Mentors	James Dailey
Overview & Objectives	Pay-as-you-go mobile phones have revolutionized access to telecom, the same can be done with solar energy access. Off-grid installations of PVC panels and batteries can be pared with a mobile payment mechanism to allow clients to purchase power "as they use it". This functionality will allow organizations to become involved with 3rd party providers of solar systems.
Description	Create a pre-paid account mechanism as an account type or account option in Mifos (perhaps extending existing classes), zero fees. Create a new API for consuming pre-paid account balances. Create a simple external model that mimics consumption by a household on a daily basis - imagined as a set of data received from solar panel (watts used, time of day, volts present). Load up pre-paid account by account transfer in P2P interface (my phone to your account) or via trusted agent - i.e. trusted agent receives cash and loads account on Mifos.
Helpful Skills	SQL, Java, Javascript, Git, Web Services
Impact	Providers of pay-as-you-go solar can use MIFOS for their operations. MFIs can become such providers.
Other Resources	Mobile project on MifosX

Business Rules Engine

Mentors	Nayan Ambali
Overview & Objectives	A business rule system enables these financial institutes policies and other operational decisions to be defined, tested, executed. Rule engines typically support rules, facts, priority (score), mutual exclusion, preconditions, and other functions. This module will enable MFI admin to add, remove or modify the business rule against pre-defined work flows in the application.
Description	As financial institutes, the business process of the institute is governed by local regulatory, and internal rules and rules defined by other other stake holders. And MIS should have provision to define these rules in the application to achive the objectives of these rules defined by various stake holders. Example: Insurance company does not provider insurance to any person above 65 age. In that case in the MIS if users tries to attach a insurance feed to a client's loan account whos age is more than 65 years then "business rule engine" should prevent that action with appropriate message.
Helpful Skills	SQL, Java, Javascript, Git
Impact	It helps MFIs to follow the compliance set for regulatory and various stake holder. Also reduces the fraudulent cases
Other Resources	Business Rules Engine

Automation of Conversion of AngularJS Community App into Chrome App

Mentors	Nayan Ambali
Overview & Objectives	At present MIfos X platform is shipped with Community-App (SPA) as default UI, but initial load time of the application high. And for users on narrow bandwidth internet it takes a considerable amount of time to load the app. Instead of loading the app every time, we can convert the Community-App into a Chrome App and user can download them once and install it ion the machine, and it can used as thick client.
Description	Community-App is completely developed on top of JavaScript, CSS and HTML. And Chrome apps are also written in same stack. Using grunt we should be able to repackage Community-App(SPA) into Community-App(Chrome App)
Helpful Skills	Javascript, AngularJS, Grunt
Impact	Users with slow internet connectivity can use this app (Installed on the machine) instead of loading Community-App (SPA) on the browser. Users will also have a continually updated app. This will also allow MFIs to potentially use Chromebooks as field-based devices for their branches.
Other Resources	http://developer.chrome.com/apps/angular_framework.html

Basic CRM Functionality - Inquiries/Complaints Module

Mentors	Binny Gopinath Sreevas (Unlicensed)
Overview & Objectives	Right now Mifos X contains core client management functionalities including tracking basic demographic information, know your customer information, document management, and survey collection through data tables. As financial institutions serving the poor begin to offer a more in-depth and diverse range of financial inclusion products, the need for more robust client management and in-depth client understanding has grows. Their core system needs to provide more and more CRM-type functionality that complement the portfolio management and financial/social reporting the Mifos X provides. This project will work to deliver the initial set of customer relationship management functionalities including a module for tracking inquiries, complaints
Description	This module will have a request management functionality. A request can be of 2 types: Complaints and Service Requests. Each request must be against a customer and optionally against an account of the customer. Each request will go through a simple workflow. Actions that can be performed on a request: Assign -> will change status to "assigned" Start Work --> will change status to "in progress" Close --> will change status to "closed" (with a sub-reason code) At each step user can enter comments. The customer summary screen will have a link to view the requests of the customer - along with a summary and current status - with option to click-through to get the complete history of each request.
Helpful Skills
Impact	Deepening the client relationship and ensuring fair, responsible, and transparent financial services to the poor is a core piece of the industry's roadmap for financial inclusion. Providing customers the ability to voice their concerns and feedback about the services they're receiving provides a simple yet powerful tool to protect the client. Empowering the financial institution with the ability to track these inquiries and overall maintain a more holistic relationship tracking entire lifecycle of their clients gives them a much better ability to understand their clients and respond to their needs with appropriately designed services and products.
Other Resources

Security Penetration testing

Mentors	KojoG
Overview & Objectives	We believe the Mifos X platform is super secure and impenetrable. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to prove us wrong, and help close gaps you may find.
Description	Beyond a one time exercise, you should integrate (some of) the tools you've used into our build chain so that, even after you've gone, tools flag up future newly introduced potential vulnerabilities.
Helpful Skills	Candidates applying for this project would ideally have prior experience in penetration testing, and document this in their application.
Impact	Re-assuring the more Entreprise-y type Mifos clients that they can safely bet on Mifos X as an MFI platform.
Other Resources	https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Main_Page https://code.google.com/p/zaproxy/ http://wapiti.sourceforge.net Run FindBugs & related tools for some serious static code analysis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penetration_test

Scalability testing, reports, infrastructure for ongoing test, documentation

Mentors	Vishwas Babu A J
Overview & Objectives	During last year's GSoC 2013, star student (and GSoC 2014 mentor) Anuruddha has greatly contributed to the scalability of the Mifos X by adding server-side pagination and distributed caching to the platform. This project's goal is to measure just how well we really scale - with concrete scenarios and hard numbers, and produce documentation about this helping organization who are evaluating Mifos. Beyond a one time exercise, you should set up infrastructure we can keep using, and integrate the tools you've used into our build chain so that, even after you've gone, help us to keep up good perf.
Description
Helpful Skills
Impact	Re-assuring the more Entreprise-y type Mifos clients that they can safely bet on Mifos X as an MFI platform.
Other Resources	http://twitter.github.io/iago/ http://www.loadui.org (by the good people behind SOAPui) Selenium WebDriver https://jmeter.apache.org/ http://grinder.sourceforge.net/ http://opensta.org/

UI meta modeling, making screen adaption a configuration instead of coding activity

Mentors	Michael Vorburger
Overview & Objectives	The AngularJS-based Mifos X UI, like most of today's AngularJS-based or really most web apps, is "coded out" with JavaScript & HTML partial views. This project aims to explore and deliver at least partially working solution, based on and applied to Mifos X UI as a "case study", how web UI of modern SPA web applications can be "modeled" (described), and "generated" (at build, or better, runtime right within the browser). Advantages of such a model driven (MDA / MDD) approach incl. that less technical users can change screen definitions themselves, and that changes to the underlying technical architecture (e.g. AngularJS version and other JS frameworks used) ideally only affect the generators, not the functional screen models.
Description	You could base this on ongoing explorations in https://github.com/vorburger/MUI.js, and using EFactory / ESON as model syntax (see https://github.com/vorburger/efactory; ESON a JSON-like EMF Xtext technology which is currently being incubated as a formal eclipse.org project). The goal and expected outcome of this project isn't some write up, but actually running code.
Helpful Skills	Conceptual Modeling, JavaScript, advanced AngularJS, curious and creative mind, capability to actually deliver
Impact	Enable the Mifos X UI to be much more easily customized and adapted by end-users
Other Resources	see links above

Extend Community app to run on Mobile devices with Offline Support

Mentors	Vishwas Babu A J
Overview & Objectives	MIfos X platform is shipped with a Community-App (SPA) as the default UI which is optimized for Web Browser display on large screens (Mobile, Laptops and Tablets). We need to extend the same to support mobile views (with minor changes to workflow) and provide offline functionality
Description	Community-App is completely developed on top of JavaScript, CSS and HTML. Also since there is a clear separation between the view and the Controllers in Angular JS, we should be able to spin up mobile views fairly easily reusing the same Controllers and Services. As it is quite common for Mobile users to have intermittent data connection, we should also support offline functionality,
Helpful Skills	Javascript, AngularJS, Apache cordova
Impact	Field officers can access MifosX from a Mobile optimized view, capture data offline that can be synced back to the server when an internet connection is available. It also becomes easier for the community volunteers to maintain the mobile view ( as we reuse most of the code from the Community app) as opposed to maintaining a separate Android app.
Other Resources

Web-based Ad Hoc Query and Reporting Tool

Mentors	Nayan Ambali
Overview & Objectives	To run any business successfully, you need the insight of the business and that is possible when you have information system in which you can get the information in the format your business analysis team needs. And in current world business are very much market adaptive and market scenarios changes very rapidly. To cope up with that good MIS need to have Ad-hoc report builder. Easy-to-use, drag-and-drop report designer builds crosstabs, tables, and chart-based reports using a standard browser.
Description	The ad hoc reporting will be based on a logical mapping of Mifos data elements to business entities (like customer, loan account, savings account, loan transactions, savings transactions etc.) and business attributes (like loan approved date, loan amount, loan outstanding amount etc.). An end user will be able to configure and generate reports based on these business entities and business attributes. Reporting fields and reporting criteria will support basic derived fields like "days overdue", "amount overdue", "customer total outstanding amount", "customer total relationship value" etc. The reporting will support basic functions like summing up totals, sorting based on different fields and grouping based on different fields.
Helpful Skills	SQL, Pentaho reporting, DW concepts.
Impact	Business analysis team, funders, management or operational users can get the required data in real time instead of depending on someone to develop reports. Helps in taking quick decisions as data is available immediately.
Other Resources	http://community.pentaho.com/faq/waqr_faq.php

Actionable notifications/alerts/status updates in Mifos X

Mentors
Overview & Objectives	For better usability system needs to have notifications to the logged in user about actions he/she needs to perform in the application.
Description	Build real time notification system in application to notify to users about pending/new actions she/he needs to take. Example if branch manager login to the application and 3 new loans are created and pending for approval then system should notify him/her about the pending actions. This involves both invoking and triggering these notifications based on these actions or activities as well as the extension of the user interface to support the display of the notifications as well as the ability of the user to take action upon the notifications.
Helpful Skills	Javascript, CSS, HTML5. AngularJS and Bootstrap (CSS framework) is plus
Impact	Better usability. improve the productivity of users and actions will be taken on time.
Other Resources	Usability and Design

Batching Requests in Mifos X

Mentors	Anuruddha Premalal and Markus Geiss (Deactivated)
Overview & Objectives	This feature should not be confused with Spring Batch. Adding the ability to batch requests similar to the one at https://developers.facebook.com/docs/graph-api/making-multiple-requests/ would greatly improve the performance and ease of consumption of MifosX Api's in apps that require bulk processing, syncing of offline data etc Some of the simplest use cases would involve a) Disbursing Multiple JLG loans in a center on a given meeting day b) A flexible collection sheet, where we could query for all loans that have a scheduled repayment on a particular day, update the actual repayments and post the data back to the platform c) Batch operations like approving multiple checker requests at a time
Description	Abstract Batching allows you to pass instructions for several operations in a single HTTP request. The Batch API takes in an array of logical HTTP requests represented as JSON arrays - each request has a requestId (the id of a request used to specify the sequence and as a dependency between requests), a method (corresponding to HTTP method GET/PUT/POST/DELETE etc.), a relativeUrl (the portion of the URL after https://DomainName/api/v1), optional headers array (corresponding to HTTP headers) and an optional body (for POST and PUT requests). The Batch API returns an array of logical HTTP responses represented as JSON arrays - each response has a requestId, a status code, an optional headers array and an optional body (which is a JSON encoded string). First Step & POC The workflow of an agent acting in the field will be used as a POC. For the first step we should focus on the following use stories: As an agent I want to create a new client for an existing office. As an agent I want to update client specific information for an existing office. As an agent I want to apply a loan to an existing client. As an agent I want to apply a savings to an existing client. As an agent I want to collect client charges for a loan. It should be feasible to implement all this by using existing commands. This solution will include dependency resolution, e.g. adding a new client and apply a new loan. Definition POST https://DomainName/api/v1 Request Body Expand source [ { "requestId" : 1, "method" : "POST", "relativeUrl" : "clients", "body" : "{ \"officeId\": 1, \"firstname\": \"John\", \"lastname\": \"Smith\", ... }" }, { "requestId" : 2, "method" : "POST", "relativeUrl" : "loans", "body" : "{ \"clientId\" : \"$.clientId\", \"productId\" : 1, ...}" }, { "requestId" : 3, "method" : "POST", "relativeUrl" : "clients", "body" : "{ \"officeId\": 1, \"fullname\": \"Pocahontas\", ... }" }, { "requestId" : 4, "method" : "POST", "relativeUrl" : "savingsaccount", "body" : "{ \"clientId\" : \"$.clientId\", \"productId\" : 1, ...}" } ] Response Body Expand source [ { "requestId" : 1, "statusCode" : 201, "headers" : [ { "name" : "Content-Type", "value" : "application/json; charset=UTF-8" } ], "body" : "{ \"officeId\": 1, \"clientId\": 1, ...}" }, { "requestId" : 2, "statusCode" : 201, "headers" : [ { "name" : "Content-Type", "value" : "application/json; charset=UTF-8" } ], "body" : "{ \"officeId\": 1, \"clientId\": 1, \"loanId\": 1, ...}" }, { "requestId" : 3, "statusCode" : 201, "headers" : [ { "name" : "Content-Type", "value" : "application/json; charset=UTF-8" } ], "body" : "{ \"officeId\": 1, \"clientId\": 2, ...}" }, { "requestId" : 4, "statusCode" : 201, "headers" : [ { "name" : "Content-Type", "value" : "application/json; charset=UTF-8" } ], "body" : "{ \"officeId\": 1, \"clientId\": 2, \"savingsId\": 1, ...}" } ]
Helpful Skills	Java (Jersey, Spring, JPA) , Javascript, CSS, HTML5. AngularJS and Bootstrap (CSS framework) is plus
Impact	Friendlier API's would accelerate the development of Offline Modules and bulk processing workflows
Other Resources	https://developers.facebook.com/docs/graph-api/making-multiple-requests/

Business Analytics (OLAP)

Mentors	KojoG
Overview & Objectives	Develop ETL scripts to create OLAP cubes (fact and dimension tables in MySQL). This will allow managers to perform ad hoc slicing and dicing of their data to answer important questions about their operations. Create ETL scripts and tests Create a Mondrian schema to work with Saiku Analytics
Description
Helpful Skills	Database Management Systems, MDX, SQL,
Impact	Data drives a microfinance institution - the more powerful and robust analytical tools management has, the better they can tailor their services and outreach to impact the poor most effectively.
Other Resources	Saiku Analytics Demo - demo.analytical-labs.com Wikipedia OLAP Article - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olap Introduction to OLAP - http://www.db-class.org/course/video/preview_list Gentle Introduction to MDX - http://www.iccube.com/support/documentation/mdx_tutorial/gentle_introduction.html

Mifos ID/Profile - Single Sign On for Community Infrastructure

Mentors	KojoG
Overview & Objectives	This project would seek to create one unified ID/login and profile for community members similar to the OpenMRS ID. It would achieve the following two primary objectives: One unified profile and identity for community members in which they can share with the community who they are and also build reputation and recognition. This ability to discover and self-identify with other community members is difficult when we have so many different tools and profiles to maintain. Single Sign On for our various collaboration and community infrastructure tools listed below.
Description	Identifying a single sign-on authentication protocol that ties together authentication of our various community collaboration tools: 1) Atlassian Studio - JIRA, Confluence, JIRA Agile, 2) Social Q&A - AnswerHub 3) Mailing Lists - Mailman (administered through SourceForge 4) Source Code Version Control - GitHub 5) Continuous Integration - Jenkins 6) General Community Website (mifos.org) - Wordpress 7) Partner Directory This could be built out independently, tie into some OpenID protocol, or leverage one of our existing tools for this authentication - Atlassian Studio/Crowd or AnswerHub or another common OpenID protocol. Design and implement a dashboard to handle the creation of this unified ID Design and create a common profile tied to this ID with basic information and photos that is searchable by the community. Design a profile Extra Credit: Gamification/Reputation Building - Tie into Open Badge system like Mozilla Open Badges http://openbadges.org/ or Ushahidi Badges: http://ushahidi.github.io/Badges/
Helpful Skills	LDAP
Impact	Impact is two-fold: Common unified profile and identity can help to grow collaboration and participation in the community. By being able to simply share who you are or discover who's in your community, we can deepen the bonds of community which motivates each member to participate more often and invest personally in the health of the community. Building reputation and recognizing efforts of each type of community member (users, partners, volunteers, etc) in a tangible way also helps to increase participation. Single sign-on will it make much easier for community members to collaborate and communicate. Right now there is often a high barrier to signing up for the various tools - SSO will make that process easier but also encourage others to more regularly be involved.
Other Resources	See OpenMRS ID - http://id.openmrs.org/ and https://wiki.openmrs.org/display/RES/OpenMRS+ID Code for their ID project - https://github.com/openmrs/openmrs-contrib-id Previous attempt at creating a Community Directory with community profiles on mifos.org (powered by Drupal profiles and views) - click in righthand sidebar at: http://mifos.org/community

Make Mifos X DB-Agnostic - Flexible configuration allowing other databases, incl. tests & doc on Oracle

Mentors	Anuruddha Premalal
Overview & Objectives	Initial version of Mifos X was not designed to be database agnostic. Goal of this project is to make it so, and test this out in practice by running it locally on Oracle, make sure our test suite runs against Oracle as well as mysql, and well documenting how this can be set up by end-user clients, if they wish to go for this deployment.
Description	To make this possible, all business logic has to be concentrated in the middle tier with the database being as dumb as possible. This means the platform does not rely on any database specific stored procedures or on the database to generate unique keys. And also application heavily use prepared statements (Spring jdbctemplate) for retrieving data and need to make sure all these queries use full JOIN syntax, and bracket the JOINs so that each join is between a single table and bracketed expression.
Helpful Skills	SQL, Java
Impact	MFI with large client base can use the application with Oracle or any other commercial databases.
Other Resources	Mifos has abstraction from underlying database using: Hibernate as ORM (must have good experience with Hibernate) Liquibase as Database refactoring tool DbUnit as test dataset maintenance

Self-contained standalone package, Linux/*ix & Windows Installers, incl. Embedded Database

Mentors	Anuruddha Premalal (plus Michael Vorburger, as needed)
Overview & Objectives	Primary objective of this project is to build a standalone installer for MifosX platform. Standalone installer is a great way to evaluate and explore MifosX platform quickly. We want: Possibility of Mifos self-contained demo package Simple / easy launch of integration/acceptance testing, without requiring an external DB Development without manual MySQL installation
Description	Standalone installer will consist of an embeded apache server and a DB. It should also ship with the latest mifosx build war file which should automatically deployed on to the embedded server at the installation time. 1. Develop the installer as an executable jar format so that it will support many platforms with JRE. 2. Provides a simplified installation option with an embedded data base and a server. 3. Develop GUI and command line base installation modes. GUI MODE OPTIONS ================ Tomcat Port This is the port at which to run tomcat. MySQL Port This is the port at which to run mysql File > Quit This menu item stops tomcat and mysql and then closes the application. File > Launch Browser This menu item opens the MifosX login page for the current web application context. File > Clear Output This clears the output log in a user interface text area. But does not clear the log file which will written on the file system. Start This button runs tomcat, which will automatically start the mysql database engine if it was not already running. For the embedded mysql, the first connection automatically starts the mysql engine. Stop This button stops tomcat and then also stops the mysql database engine, without closing the application. COMMAND LINE OPTIONS ==================== -mysqlport Use to override the mysql port in the runtime properties file. -tomcatport Use to override the tomcat port in the runtime properties file. -start Use to start the server. -stop Use to stop the server. -browser Use to launch a new browser instance. This sub-project would port / apply our MIFOS-5157 Installer-free simple launcher from classic Mifos to Mifos X, and then look at how to extend such a package to run without any existing external database as planned in MIFOS-4926 (which MIFOS-5157 doesn't cover). The first thought that comes to mind is to achieve this with a pure-Java in-memory database such as H2 or Derby. However, in order to avoid maintaining & supporting 2 different databases for Mifos, we'd like to base this on https://github.com/vorburger/MariaDB4j. While we are at it, we should also replace the classic GPL mysql driver by the LGPL MariaDB Client Library.
Helpful Skills	SQL, Java, Javascript, Git, Build scripts (Gradle/Maven)
Impact	For many microfinance institutions who lack technical skills, installing Mifos X is a burden that prevents them from using this software to more efficiently serve the poor. Often they get lost in the installation process when having to separately install java, their web server, MySQL, and then deploy Mifos. A self-contained package acting as a simple one-step installer for Mifos would help make the software more accessible to more organizations and allow for MFI to more easily test the software and see the immense value it provides.
Other Resources	https://wiki.openmrs.org/display/docs/OpenMRS+Standalone https://github.com/openmrs/openmrs-standalone https://github.com/openmrs/openmrs-standalone/tree/master/src/main/config See Linux Installers wiki page

Mifos X on "Enterprise Stack" - IBM WebSphere and Oracle WebLogic tests & documentation

Mentors	Michael Vorburger
Overview & Objectives	Mifos X today is typically used on Tomcat (with Jetty known to work). For a certain class of users, testing it on "Enterprise Stack" application servers (meaning IBM WebSphere and Oracle WebLogic) is desirable - this project would properly test Mifos X on these configurations, make any adaptations to the code which may be required, and produce easy to follow documentation or even small tools helping future users how to go about this.
Description	This project could be combined with and taken up by the same candidate as the Enterprise database project.
Helpful Skills	Java, Application Server configuration, WAS classloading crap tricks, documentation writing. Use Cargo, Arquillian etc. for automated testing against WAS & WLS containers?
Impact	Enable Mifos X to be considered by users wanting it to run (only) on an Enterprise stack
Other Resources	Vendor pages

Mifos X SDK

Mentors	Michael Vorburger
Overview & Objectives	The Mifos X platform as of today is a well structure but monolithic code base - one Git repo, one build, one WAR. This has worked out well for us, but as we grow, it could be interesting to introduce a proper SDK and plug-in concept, allowing contributors to build individual JARs that can be dropped into a certain directory of Mifos X to augment the core platform on well defined extension points and hooks. These modules would be loaded at run-time, not require rebuilding Mifos X, and would remain compatible when a customer upgrades their core platform version. We currently see the SDK as something more relevant to the Java back-end, so in this project you would likely work less on our AngularJS UI (barring some configuration UI for the plug-ins probably); but if you do have any ideas how to make the front-end more modular and extensible as well, we would love to hear from you.
Description	This project will have three axis/phases: 1. platform infrastructure framework kind of work, based on a very simple or fictitious example extension; 2. identifying the functionally which could require / be sensible to extend in Mifos X, extracting clear and documented Java APIs from it, and then make changes to existing functional platform services to make them extensible by plug-ins; 3. well document this - such plugins will only be written if it's easy and clear how to do this. Note that the more technical part 1. should only take about 1/4 of your project, the focus will have to be putting the "theory" from 1. into "practice" in phases 2. & 3.
Helpful Skills	Java, modularity, API design, dynamic class loading, OSGi-like concepts (without any plans to actually move Mifos X to running on an OSGi kernel; it's unnecessary complexity, for this)
Impact	Developers from partnering organisations would be able to more easily extend the core Mifos X by extension code running in-process the platform (as opposed to REST-based
Other Resources	Many other Java-based platform have such mechanism, and you would be expected to draw at least conceptual, if not outright technical inspiration (re-using code, if feasible) from things like the Eclipse Plug-In architecture (or similar non-OSGi based ones in other IDEs), research if Spring itself or some extension from someone has anything useful for this (think like Guice Multibindings plus ServiceLoader API as discussed on this StackOverflow, or this blog, or these Mycila Guice Extensions; but without going all the way to OSGi-based Spring DM / Dynamic Modules; again, overkill, here), get inspiration from drop-in add-on modules extension capabilities in enterprise software such as e.g. Atlassian plug-in framework, and learn how e.g. our friends at OpenMRS do this (see OpenMRS SDK doc and OpenMRS project).

Mobile Field Office Planner

Mentors	Nayan Ambali
Overview & Objectives	To allow field-based staff to manage their daily schedules and to ensure that their supervisors are able to review these tasks and to plan field operations and bring in more efficiency and transparency for field operations. To meet the requirement, Android based app need to be developed to cover these uses cases. And this app will be an extension to MIfos X mobile client.
Description	Field officers typically have a predefined set of tasks to follow, for example: Do survey for a locality, Conduct Group Trainings, Conduct Group Tests, Do Center Meetings and Collections. Each could have a task code to make operations streamlined. Field officers manage their calendars by selecting an activity and specifying a center, date and time for which this activity is planned. This becomes their planned activity for this slot. A simple workflow to manage each slot – when field officer starts the activity, status of the slot is changed from “new” to “open” and when the activity is completed, it is set to “closed”. It would be ideal to manage this workflow using a mobile tool – preferably an inbound SMS message. For example: an SMS from the field officer’s phone with the text “OPEN 1430” will change the status to “OPEN” of the field officer’s activity that was planned for 2:30pm. Field officer may change his plan up to a certain time prior to the start of the activity. Auditors and branch managers will review the activities and track the field officers’ planning and efficiency.
Helpful Skills	Java, XML, SQL , Git, SMS integration, Android app development is plus
Impact	Field efficiency and operational efficiency
Other Resources	See SMS Integration and Outbound SMS

Web UI quality cross browser non-regression testing

Mentors	Michael Vorburger
Overview & Objectives	While the Mifos X Community App front-end UI based on AngularJS-based currently does already have some JS unit tests, we lack a full UI level web tests which continually non-regression test common scenarios. We believe having this could add value in terms of quality, including ensuring automated cross browser testing.
Description	Possibly building upon a extremely limited small scale existing POC (if you find it to be a useful starting point), your mission, should you chose to accept it, would be to build out comprehensive UI walk through scenario test coverage for the Mifos X UI. If you can build more such tests faster and more maintainable (= less code) by using any of the existing frameworks listed below or others you know of / will find, or build useful such infrastructure yourself as part of this code, we're eager to hear from you! Keep in mind that the main deliverable of this project is not (only) a foundation framework, but must actually include an extensive suite of running tests integrated into the Mifos build.
Helpful Skills	Candidates should demonstrate serious interest and basic know-how by accompanying their application for this project with pull requests to the existing mifosx-ui-selenium-webdriver-tests POC.
Impact	Continuously verified and cross browser checked quality of the Mifos X UI.
Other Resources	http://docs.seleniumhq.org/projects/webdriver/ https://github.com/vorburger/mifosx-ui-selenium-webdriver-tests https://github.com/vorburger/webdriver-runner https://saucelabs.com or https://browserling.com https://github.com/FluentLenium/FluentLenium http://www.gebish.org http://www.thucydides.info

Custom Fantastic Mifos Project

Is there something missing from this ideas list that you want to do? Let us know! Send your project proposal(s) to the developer mailing list.

Timeline

Official GSoC 2014 timeline

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