Recent discussions (August 2011) have highlighted the need for a mobile interface for mifos. This could result in increased efficiency for MFIs using mifos.
There are other sources on the wiki which relate to mobile interfaces for mifos:
This page is used to describe a possible project that members of the mifos community can start and implement.
Binny has provided some broad requirements around what MFIs are looking for in this area.
In general, a subset of the core functionality of mifos will be provided but some MFIs may prefer to do all operations on mifos through mobile/handheld ui rather than invest in computers in all branches.
Examples of this would be:
Any collection data that is sent from the field should not be updated into Mifos collection tables immediately. Instead, it should be held in an intermediate state. Only after the Loan Officer brings the money back to the branch, and this money has been verified against the data captured from the field, should the data get committed to Mifos as “actual collections”.
A screen should be provided so that cash verification against mobile entries are possible in an easy and quick manner. Can be similar to collection sheet entry page, but with entire branch data for the day, with option to filter by loan officer (and with more compact HTML tables for ease of viewing). It should be possible to correct data in this screen.
Branch manager/hub manager should have facility to real time see what data has been sent from the field via mobile devices (hub = a group of branches). This is to facilitate the person in charge of collections at branch to follow up quickly with Loan officers and Group leaders in case of any new defaults/arrears
At the beginning of the day, Mifos send out an SMS to Loan Officers stating which centers they need to visit for the day, their location and time of meeting. After a center meeting, Loan Officer sends an SMS to Mifos <Center Name/ID>, “FR”, <Amount collected> – when all payments are fully received <Center Name/ID>, “CNC”, <Reason> – Could not Collect and the reason why collection could not be done for this center. After X amount of time (ex. 1 hour, which can be configured) after center meeting time, if Mifos does not receive an update via SMS for a center, then it sends an SMS to the Loan Officer in the following format: <Center Name/ID>, <Meeting Location>, <Time of meeting> – “No data recvd” On receipt of SMS, Mifos will respond with one of the following: <Center Name/ID>, “Received”, “Full”/”Partial”/”No Collection” – the value of the third field depends on if Mifos received a full, partial or no collection SMS from the LO |
The mobile application will allow Loan Officer to view the task-list i.e. list of centers (or list of groups if center is disabled) to be collected for a day (user can selected any date within 1 week of today). The task list will include a separate link for viewing individual members, who have installments due on this date Loan Officer selects a center (or group). Application shows the list of groups in the center (or members in group) with total amount due from each of them. Groups can be expanded or contracted on the UI LO submits with: A preview page with the summarized collection is shown before it being submitted to Mifos |
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