v2.1

Release Notes

Target audience: Mifos specialists.

These release notes contain important information about Mifos version 2.1 (code name:Elsie F) and higher. Mifos version 2.1.x is a release that includes variable loan installments, new interest rate type in loan products, and early repayment of fees. In addition to an overview of the major changes since the previous major release, known issues and other information are addressed here. Please read this document before you begin using Mifos.

Requirements

Hardware

See Mifos System Recommendations for hardware requirements.

Software

Software requirements are described in the INSTALL file included in the release package.

Configuration

See Configuring Mifos for details on how to set up Mifos

Browser

Mifos recommends using Firefox with this release. Mifos supports the following browsers:

Firefox

Firefox 3.6

Internet Explorer

IE 7.0
IE 8.0

New Features and Enhancements

Variable Loan Installments and Cash Flow comparison - ability to configure a loan to have variable installments and also enter in client's cash flow details
New interest rate type - Declining Balance with Interest Recalculation - Interest is recalculated based on when the client pays
Early Repayment of Fees - ability to pay client fees before the next meeting, and also partial payment
MPESA Integration - support for importing disbursals and disbursement fees from MPESA into Mifos
New permission for adjusting only last day's transactions
Improved Tally integration in Mifos

Upgrade and Important Notes

If you are upgrading from a previous version of Mifos, please see Mifos 2.1 Upgrade Instructions for important information that might impact your upgrade.

Other Known Issues

Deployment Isolation

There have been unconfirmed reports that deploying multiple instances of Mifos inside the same Tomcat installation may cause problems. We advise isolating deployments by only deploying a single instance of Mifos inside a single installation of Tomcat until further notice.

Loans

Minimum/Maximum days between disbursal and first repayment: These settings are not optional. Use the default values (1 for Minimum and 365 for Maximum) as a workaround. MIFOS-2005
Repaying complete loan and then applying adjustment on the transaction repeatedly on loans with misc fees and misc penalties causes erroneous behavior. MIFOS-4126.
If Cash Flow is enabled for Loan creation, details of Cash Flow cannot be edited once saved past the page. MIFOS-4658 .
Grace periods do not work for Loan products with Variable Loan Installments or with interest rate type - Declining Balance - Interest Recalculation. MIFOS-4742.
Collateral Notes are not being saved in Loan Creation. Workaround is to edit the loan after creation to add the collateral notes. MIFOS-4914. Fixed in 2.1.1.
Redo Loan does not work in non-English locale. MIFOS-4913. Fixed in 2.1.1.
Principal for loans written off is not being calculated correctly, the installment following write off is not being included. MIFOS-4948. Fixed in 2.1.4.

Savings

If Client Approval is automatic, savings accounts created during client creation will not work. Workaround is to create the savings account after client is created. MIFOS-2806. Fixed in 2.1.3.
GenerateMeetingsForCustomerAndSavingsTaskJob is not recreating entries for new Saving accounts. MIFOS-5107. Fixed in 2.1.5.
After updating mandatory amount for a savings account, it is not reflected in the UI and saving_schedule table. MIFOS-5104. Fixed in 2.1.5.

Memory and Performance

Additional permanent generation space may be needed: The Mifos web application may require more permanent generation space than the default. See PermGen Out of Memory for details.
10+ concurrent users may have trouble viewing center/group/client account details pages in Mifos. MIFOS-4953. Fixed in 2.1.3
Slow access to center / group / member page on large database. MIFOS-5108. Fixed in 2.1.5

Reports

Our standard reports assume a generic default database connection for the MySQL mifos database of user "mifos" and password "mifos". If your database is different than the default, you need to change your standard Mifos reports for them to connect to the right database. See MIFOS-2840 for more information.

Other

Holidays are not changeable: Once you add a new holiday to Mifos, it cannot be edited or deleted. Use caution with this feature. MIFOS-1398
Some translations are incomplete and will include some English. MIFOS-4264
After editing one user, you must log out to edit another user. MIFOS-4815.

Current list of known bugs (http://mifosforge.jira.com/secure/IssueNavigator.jspa?mode=hide&requestId=10044\)

Fixed Issues

Use the following links to see which issues were fixed:

Acknowledgements

The project owners would like to thank those who have been actively involved in the Mifos community. Your many contributions for this release help make Mifos a stronger solution for our users and their clients.

A big thank you to the Mifos community!