Google Summer of Code 2016 Ideas

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




2016 Google Summer of Code - Get to Know Mifos

We're looking forward to participating in Google Summer of Code for our fifth year. In 2014, we successfully graduated seven stellar 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 2016 will have the option to work on a variety of projects related to our front-end Community App built on top of the AngularJS framework, and a variety of other apps including our Android-based mobile client. 

  

2016 GSOC Mentors

We have a talented and passionate group of mentors from across our global community who are eager to help guide the next generation of HFOSS contributors. These mentors come from various backgrounds - partners deploying Mifos, financial institutions using Mifos, volunteers, and even former GSOC students but they all share a common goal of ending poverty one line of code at a time!

These are the current mentors for the 2016 program. Please reach out to them if you have any questions. Projects they're leading will be finalized later on.

Mentor

Project

Location

Time Zone


IndiaIST (GMT +5:30)

CameroonWAT (GMT +1:00)

IndiaIST (GMT +5:30)

IndiaIST (GMT +5:30)

IndiaIST (GMT +5:30)

SwitzerlandCET (GMT +1:00)

USAPST (GMT-8:00)

IndiaIST (GMT +5:30)

USAEST (GMT -5:00)

USAMST (GMT -7:00)

PortugalWET (GMT)

Sri LankaSLT (GMT +5:30)

CanadaPST (GMT -8:00)

KenyaEAT (GMT +3:00)

IndiaIST (GMT +5:30)

India

IST (GMT +5:30)


IndiaIST (GMT +5:30)

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:

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.

Project Ideas

All 2016 projects will be related to the Community App, our Android apps, or any additional tools or modules. These apps and modules are built on top of the Mifos X platform, the world's only open platform for financial inclusion and is banking delivered as a service via the cloud. 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. 

REST API "live" documentation (Swagger, SpringFox)

Mentors
Overview & Objectives

Mifos (Fineract) of course has a documented REST API already. It currently has two limitations:

  1. It's source is simply a HTML file that is maintained manually in parallel to the source code which actually defines the REST API, and therefore can be out of sync
  2. It's not "live", that is one currently has set up a REST tool such as e.g. Postman & Co. to "explore" it; contrary to the approach you can see e.g. on the Swagger Petstore example and (increasingly) other sites offering REST APIs.

The goal of this project is address this by using Swagger (now Open API Initiative OAI), most probably combined with SpringFox in for Mifos (Fineract), and replace the current apiLive.htm.

Phase II: once the Swagger live documentation is working it would be interesting to use the Swagger descriptor to generate client libraries (e. g. Java, Angular2). Nice to have optional add-on ideas for the end of the project: Add a paragraph to this new REST API Doc explaining how to easily import the (latest) Mifos Swagger into Postman, and perhaps add a Run in Postman button?

Someone suggested a potential alternative to using Swagger & SpringFox may be to instead use Spring REST Docs; if you feel that is better suite to fulfill the requirements above, please do feel free to explain this to your mentor and pursue in that direction.

Description
  • familiarize yourself with Swagger + SpringFox
  • create working v1 code demonstrating feasibility of approach
  • propose it to the community (mailing list), and react to feedback
  • don't loose any documentation that's already on the current (manual) REST API doc, maintain it's human readable comments (by moving that into JavaDoc/annotations in code which SpringFox/Swagger exploit), the "sections", etc.
Helpful SkillsJava, Spring Framework, REST, Git, Gradle
ImpactEasier to consume Mifos REST API for front-end/mobile etc. developers.
Other Resourcessee external links inline above
JIRA Task
MIFOSX-2699 - Getting issue details... STATUS

AngularJS Community App Enhancements (Completed)

Mentors
Overview & Objectives

Our AngularJS Community App is the standard application on the Mifos X platform that provides all the core functionality for the most common methods of financial inclusion and products and services. It's also the starting point for any partners looking to customize or extend the UI. It's constantly being improved based on user feedback, better performance, and to integrate new design standards.

Description

The project will involve the following:

  • Update the AngularJS version to 1.5.x
  • Performance improvements by introducing on demand loading
  • Implement a new skin for the app
  • Migrate the stylesheets to Sass
  • Upgrade to latest version of http://angular-ui.github.io/bootstrap/
  • Upgrade all plugins to versions compatible with Angular 1.5.x
Helpful SkillsJavascript, CSS, HTML5. AngularJS and Bootstrap (CSS framework) is plus
ImpactEnhanced User Experience, Intuitive application design
Other ResourcesUsability and Design

Browser-Based Offline Access (In Progress)

Mentors
Overview & Objectives

For this project, we require an intern who is qualified and willing to work core HTML5 offline functionality. If we able to add offline support in community-app then we can have same application working on all browsers with offline support and need of a desktop app will not be needed.

Description

The project will involve the following:

  • We can use IndexDB for storing data offline and once connected synchronize it, store actions that happened in same sequence and then fire against server.

  • We can store some data in JSONs as key-value pair and offer pre-sychronize which will fetch data as JSON for creating clients and other actions in offline mode.

  • Currently, HTML templates load from server everytime we refresh our application. As, discussed we should have some sort of template caching with expiry headers.

  • We can make some template made available offline using application cache.

  • With Template cache which is angular component. It looks for template in cache if not in the cache, it will load from server and then put in cache.

  • Mimic synchronization back and forth mimic how you store, how you date it out.
Helpful SkillsJavascript, CSS, HTML5. HTML5 Offline support knowledge i.e - Service workers, Sw-toolbox, IndexedDB wrappper - Dexie.js
ImpactOffline Functionality to Community App
Other ResourcesMore Information on Project

Android Field Operations App Version 3 (Completed)

MentorsSatya Narayan
Overview & Objectives

We have released several versions of our Android app for field officers to go out in the field to process transactions, create clients, etc. Most recently, several outreaching interns added in significant new enhancements including refactoring, implementation of material design, offline, surveys, and new functionalities taking it from Version 1 to Version 2.

This project would continue that work and transform it into Version 3 - by following the refactoring design standards, providing a design refresh, and adding in new functionality.


Extend our existing Android Field Operations App from Version 2 to Version 3 with:

  • Extending offline support throughout the app
  • Redesigning some of the navigation and workflows
  • Implementing major new functionalities like collection sheets for savings and loans at the group and individual, staff notifications, and more.

This would all be on top of the corresponding APIs on the Mifos platform.

Helpful SkillsAndroid development, SQL, Java, Javascript, Git
Impact

Allows staff to go directly into the field to connect to the client. Reduces cost of operations by enabling organizations to go paperless and be more efficient.

Other Resources

https://github.com/openMF/android-client

Architecture overview: 
Code style conventions guide:

 Self-Service - Android App development (In Progress)

Mentors
Overview & Objectives

We have recently released a full set of client-facing APIs to enable self-service channels for clients to interact with their own data and transact in a self-service manner. Previously all Mifos operations were performed by back office staff. Now clients can authenticate themselves, view and edit their account details. and make repayments or transactions between their own accounts.

It is now possible for them to have direct banking apps that they can utilize including smartphone-based mobile banking, USSD-based mobile banking, and online banking via a web app.

Description

Develop Android Screens:

  • Login
  • View Own Profile and Data Tabs
  • View Own Accounts (deposits and loans)
  • View Own Accounts' Transactions (deposits and loans)
  • Initiate Transfers from own account
  • Fill up Questionnaires

Integrate with the corresponding APIs on the Mifos platform.

Helpful SkillsAndroid development, SQL, Java, Javascript, Git
Impact

Allows a member/client in having a self-service channel allowing them more direct control and visibility into their financial livelihood.

Other Resources

Customer Self Service

Customer Self Service - Phase 2

 Self-Service - Web/Hybrid App Development (In Progress)

Mentors
Overview & Objectives

We have recently released a full set of client-facing APIs to enable self-service channels for clients to interact with their own data and transact in a self-service manner. Previously all Mifos operations were performed by back office staff. Now clients can authenticate themselves, view and edit their account details. and make repayments or transactions between their own accounts.

It is now possible for them to have direct banking apps that they can utilize including smartphone-based mobile banking, USSD-based mobile banking, and online banking via a web app.

The focus of this project would be designing and implementing a clean and simple Meteor.JS application that can be used as a reference web & hybrid mobile app for financial institutions to directly deploy and offer to their customers or for our our support partners to customize and enhance to the local needs of their market.


Description

Develop MeteorJS Online Banking Interface:

  • Login
  • View Own Profile and Data Tabs
  • View Own Accounts (deposits and loans)
  • View Own Accounts' Transactions (deposits and loans)
  • Initiate Transfers from own account
  • Make Transfers to other accounts
  • Make Repayment to Loans
  • Fill up Questionnaires
Helpful SkillsAngularJS development, SQL, Java, Javascript, Git, MeteorJS
Impact

Allows a member/client in having a self-service channel allowing them more direct control and visibility into their financial livelihood.

Other Resources

Customer Self Service

Customer Self Service - Phase 2

 Integration of Egalite Agent Banking App

Mentors
Overview & Objectives

Agent Banking has become a key new delivery channel to increase reach, lower cost, and broaden the depth of services available. We will be taking over the Egalite codebase that's being donated to the Mifos Initiative by BFSI Consulting - it's a fully functional Android-based app for agents that works with any core banking system. This project would involved extending the application so it fully integrates with and works on top of the Mifos X platform

Description

The current codebase is stand-alone and can integrate with any core banking system. This project will involve converting it to work on top of Mifos X by leveraging the Mifos X APIs for all functionalities that exist in Mifos X and adding in APIs for the functionalities that aren't present in Mifos X but in Egalite. The project will consist of the following:


1) Integrate the existing web service into Mifos X
2) Extend the webservice to use Mifos related data
3) Modernize the front end by using Material design
Helpful SkillsAndroid, REST, Java,  
Impact

By enabling branchless banking, the costs of serving the poor are dramatically lowered, outreach can be extended to rural offerings, and brand new products and services that are more relevant can be delivered.

Other Resources

 Self-Service - USSD App Development

Mentors
Overview & Objectives

This has a dependency on the Self-Service backend API's being available 

Description

Develop USSD App that allows clients to:

  • Login
  • View Own Accounts (deposits and loans)
  • View Own Accounts' Transactions (deposits and loans)
  • Initiate Transactions from own account (repayments, deposits, transfers)

1. Loans

  • Apply loans
  • Check loan balances
  • View summary of last few transactions

2. Savings

  • Check balance
  • Withdraw (To mobile money
  • Transfer

3. Other Services on the USSD menu

  • Can add the service that is useful to the mifos users/customers


Helpful SkillsUSSD, Java, SQL, Finite State Machine (FSM)
Impact

Allows a member/client in having a self-service channel allowing them more direct control and visibility into their financial livelihood. Enable members of the society on-demand access to their.financial records even with basic mobile handset

Other Resourceshttp://mycloudcode.com/category/ussd/

 Mobile Money Integration - East Africa (In Progress)

Mentors
Overview & Objectives

Mobile money is rapidly transforming financial inclusion by providing more immediate, impactful, affordable, and secure financial services to the client. Mobile money platforms like M-Pesa offer the client unparalleled value in terms of convenience, security and the possibility of new services and products that are more in line with real-world financial habits.  For financial institutions and their clients to fully scale mobile money and leverage its potential, it needs to be fully integrated with their core-banking system.

Description

Based on the extent of the APIs available through the various mobile money platforms, the level and seamlessness of integration can vary from real-time to end-of-day file-based integration.  This project would work to provide several file, message, and or API-based reference integrations with leading mobile money platforms, including

  • M-Pesa
    • File-based integration
    • API based integration
  • TigoCash
  • OrangeMoney
  • AirtelMoney
Helpful SkillsWeb Services, Java, SQL , JavaScript , Git
Impact

Great efficiency, reduced risk for clients, more impactful and relevant products & services.

Other Resources

Mobile Money Integration - South Africa

Mentors
Overview & Objectives

Mobile money is rapidly transforming financial inclusion by providing more immediate, impactful, affordable, and secure financial services to the client. Mobile money platforms like M-Pesa offer the client unparalleled value in terms of convenience, security and the possibility of new services and products that are more in line with real-world financial habits.  For financial institutions and their clients to fully scale mobile money and leverage its potential, it needs to be fully integrated with their core-banking system.

Description

Based on the extent of the APIs available through the various mobile money platforms, the level and seamlessness of integration can vary from real-time to end-of-day file-based integration.  This project would work to provide several file, message, and or API-based reference integrations with leading mobile money platforms, including those from Zimbabwe and/or Zambia

Helpful SkillsWeb Services, Java, SQL , JavaScript , Git
Impact

Great efficiency, reduced risk for clients, more impactful and relevant products & services.

Other Resources

 Mobile Money Integration - West and Central Africa (In Progress)

Mentors
Overview & Objectives

Mobile money is rapidly transforming financial inclusion by providing more immediate, impactful, affordable, and secure financial services to the client. Mobile money platforms like Orange Money and MTN Mobile Money offer the client unparalleled value in terms of convenience, security and the possibility of new services and products that are more in line with real-world financial habits.  For financial institutions and their clients to fully scale mobile money and leverage its potential, it needs to be fully integrated with their core-banking system.

Hence integrating Mobile money and Orange money to Mifos X in Central and West Africa will give the MFI an edge over their competitors and assist the client to carry out secured distance transactions. The end product of this project should allow a client to save from his mobile money account to his MifosX account, request or withdraw money from his Mifos X account to his mobile money account using probably a small mobile application to carry out these transactions. The Client self service API will be used in its fullness to accomplish this Tasks. Other APIs could be developed and used if the present Client self service API are not able to this these.

Description

Based on the extent of the APIs available through the various mobile money platforms, the level and seamlessness of integration can vary from real-time to end-of-day file-based integration.  This project would work to provide several file, message, and or API-based reference integrations with leading mobile money platforms, including

  • MTN Mobile Money
  • OrangeMoney

Helpful SkillsWeb Services, Java, SQL , JavaScript , Git
Impact

Great efficiency, reduced risk for clients, more impactful and relevant products & services.

Other Resources

Outbound and Inbound SMS Integration

Mentors
Overview & ObjectivesMFIs have requested the ability for both inbound and outbound SMS communication. This project will focus on Inbound SMS Integration as well as advanced outbound SMS functionalities. As part of client protection, client has right know about her/his account information at any time any where. In 2014, through web hooks we built the initial outbound SMS module with a proof-of-concept Twilio integration as well as the Mifos X Messenger which was built by the community. This project will built out additional connections with SMS gateways for outbound SMS campaigns and event-based messages.
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.

This topic has traditionally been of interest to end-users, and one thing you could do is start an email thread on our Mifos end-user and developers mailing list, and perhaps on the chat room, to ask for input from others for Inbound SMS requirements, and add that to the Wiki, and then create a project proposal based on what you've learnt.

See https://goo.gl/1LrC9w for additional details on work in scope of Outbound SMS and Indbound SMS modules.

  • Outbound SMS
    • Event-based Messages
    • Reminders Campaigns
  • Inbound SMS
    • Send out information based on short code request from clients.
Helpful Skills Java, SQL , JavaScript , Git
Impact

Transparency and client protection.

Other Resources

See SMS Integration and Outbound SMS

Client Impact Portal Phase 2

Mentors
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, Scripting (Bash/Perl/Ruby), Regexes & Parsing
ImpactFunders 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

2014 GSOC Client Impact Portal Project

Vision for Generic SPM Framework for Mifos X (PPI)

Background on Client Impact Portal

Credit Bureau Integration (In Progress)

Mentors
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 ResourcesDetailed requirements https://goo.gl/aZWMZa

Clean Energy Integration

Mentors
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
  1. 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.
  2. Build a supplier ordering/invoice & financial reconciliation process and transfer funds directly to "Supplier Account" upon fulfillment of order.
  3. 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 

Collateral Management Module

Mentors
Overview & Objectives

As financial inclusion evolves, more loan products are collateral-based and require more detailed tracking of the asset (gold, property, etc.) along with its value, and its depreciation.

Description

We have a complete specification in place and need a team to build out a new module on top of the platform that tracks the additional collateral values. The work involved includes creation of new APIs and database tables to track additional parameters for the collateral, and to build out the UI screens for this module.

Helpful SkillsHTML, Spring, Hibernate, REST, Java, AngularJS, SQL  
Impact

Clients and Small Businesses are able to take out higher value loans when they can offer up different forms of collateral.

Other Resources
  See MIFOSX-1732 - Getting issue details... STATUS

Mifos Based Social Enterprise

Mentors
Overview & Objectives

As financial inclusion evolves, complexity too, we will build an enterprise social driven platform which increases communication with focus on business and control on small but complex automation of tasks.

Description

We have a complete specification in place and need a team to build out a new module on top of the platform that will driven by the concepts of social parameters like instant chat and message based data movement and total UI overhaul

Helpful SkillsHTML, Spring, Hibernate, REST, Java, AngularJS, SQL  
Impact

Clients and Small Businesses are able to interact in a manner without making it complex.

Other Resources

Insurance Claims Module

Mentors
Overview & Objectives

A crucial part of financial inclusion is micro-insurance and the ability for clients to safely manage risk in their lives. Mifos X will not fully handle the entire lifecycle of an insurance product but it should integrate with microinsurance system and track the key parts of the process that relate to the core banking system - collection and pass through of the premium and tracking claims and processing of these.

Description

This project would involve building out a separate module that tracks claims being made by a client, likely leveraging the CRM functionality being build to track activities. It will integrate with APIs to enable processing of the claim and tracking what proceeds must be paid out to the client.

It will involve creating a new module with data model, UI screens and business logic that leverages Mifos X APIs

Tasks involved include:

  1. Implemeneting a flag at the client level to denote if a person is deceased - if deceased, all loans would go into different status where all income, interest, fees, etc should stop accuring.
  2. Utilize Data Tables to enable a user to initiate an insurance claim with details of the cliam and corresponding updates to follow up on the claims process. Must limit this data table only to the clients with the corresponding flag so it's not displayed for all clients.
  3. Processing of Claims - the insurance claim can either go directly to the client or directly to the Financial Institution. If directly to the FI, the outstanding amonst should be offset by the claim - it could be automatically applied using a new different payment of insurance claim. Corresponding accounting entries need to get passed as well.
    1. If there is money to be refunded to customer, they must have a savings account as can''t like journal entry to customer directly.
  4. Closing of Account - once claim has been processed and outstanding balance settled, should implement a different status such as Closed - Deceased or Closed - Via Insurance Claim
Helpful SkillsHTML, Spring, Hibernate, REST, Java, AngularJS, SQL  
Impact

Clients are able to lower their risk and have a much larger safety net when they have affordable access to insurance policies.

Other Resources

See http://www.openunderwriter.com/

See Insurance Product

Pay as you Go Solar Module Phase 2

Mentors
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

This project is a continuation of the initial PayGoSol foundation that was led by 2014 GSOC intern, Antonio Carella.

  1. Create a pre-paid account mechanism as an account type or account option in Mifos (perhaps extending existing classes), zero fees.
  2. Create a new API for consuming pre-paid account balances.  
  3. 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).  
  4. 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.

Work in 2015 will include adding the following features to make it an out-of-the-box solution that any PAYG hardware provider could use:


  • Hardware Integration
    • Integration with SMS "kill signal" (sms outbound) 
    • Integration with unique "enabler code" for keycode entry and SMS outbound 
    • Per time period Charge and Pay per Kwh options (via control panel) 
  • Web App & Android Client
    • Better UIX and UI work 
  • Platform Work
    • Componentized PGS server (with Mifos X as dependent jar) 



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

Mifos Android Client on MifosX


Extend Mifos Data Import Tool (In Progress)

Mentors
Overview & Objectives

Data migration can be one of the most challenging and time-consuming phases of an implementation of a core banking system. In 2013, GSOC intern, Avik Ganguly, built our data import tool for generating pre-configured Excel templates to migrate data into Mifos X. In 2014, Diunuge, extended this to other types of information in Mifos X along with integrating it from a stand-alone web app to a core part of the platform. The data import tool is now the foundation for all of our data migration tools.

This project would continue to extend the data import tool to new types of data and APIs that need to be imported, enabling office-level import, and continued integration into the platform. This project will also involve building on top of the data import tool to provide out of the box migrations from other legacy systems such as MicroBanker or Loan Performer.


Description
  • Import for other types of data not currently supported
  • Populate date using bulk APIs
  • Enable office-level imports for larger organizations who find it too cumbersome to migrate an entire organizations worth of data at once
  • Build out scripts on top of the data import tool to get data and transform it out of legacy systems like MicroBanker or Loan Performer.
Helpful SkillsJava (Spring/JPA/Jersey), SQL , JavaScript , Git
Impact

It has many impacts

  1. This drastically reduces the time to set up of initial configuration/data of Mifos X for organization adopting this system as MIS.
  2. For data entry operator, this feature can be used as bulk creation option (such as import bulk loans, import clients)
  3. 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

ETL-Based Data Migration Tool for Mambu to Mifos X

Mentors
Overview & Objectives

Data migration can be one of the most challenging and time-consuming phases of an implementation of a core banking system. It's often a barrier to financial institutions moving on to new and better more modern systems. It's critical to cleanly migrate over the historical data of a client and their transactions. Often the legacy system data needs to be cleaned up and transformed before it can be migrated into Mifos X and is one of the most costly and time-consuming phases of a deployment. We have an existing data migration tool for migrating from Mifos 2 to Mifos X that utilizes the Pentaho Kettle ETL tool.

This project would extend the existing Mifos 2 to Mifos X Kettle-based migration tool to provide a standard migration tool from Mambu - another modern system that is widely used by customers potentially looking to migrate to Mifos. It would provide one standard tool that any partner or financial institution could use for migrating from that specific system - it wouldn't require new tools to be made each time a migration is done.


Description

Extend the existing Kettle-based Mifos to Mifos X migration tool

  • Write ETL scripts to get data and transform data it from Mambu format to Mifos format
Helpful SkillsJava (Spring/JPA/Jersey), SQL , JavaScript , Git, Pentaho, Kettle,
Impact

It has many impacts

  1. This drastically reduces the time to set up of initial configuration/data of Mifos X for organization adopting this system as MIS.
  2. It widely opens the market that Mifos X is applicable for as it lessens the burden of converting from other systems.
  3. It dramatically lowers the cost of implementing a system like Mifos X by reducing the complexity of the deployment
  4. It increases transparency by ensuring financial institutions using Mifos can retain the full history for their clients.
Other Resources

http://nayan.github.io/move-to-mifosx/

https://github.com/openMF/move-to-mifosx

ETL-Based Data Migration Tool for Loan Performer to Mifos X

Mentors
Overview & Objectives

Data migration can be one of the most challenging and time-consuming phases of an implementation of a core banking system. It's often a barrier to financial institutions moving on to new and better more modern systems. It's critical to cleanly migrate over the historical data of a client and their transactions. Often the legacy system data needs to be cleaned up and transformed before it can be migrated into Mifos X and is one of the most costly and time-consuming phases of a deployment. We have an existing data migration tool for migrating from Mifos 2 to Mifos X that utilizes the Pentaho Kettle ETL tool.

This project would extend the existing Mifos 2 to Mifos X Kettle-based migration tool to provide a standard migration tool from Loan Performer - a low-cost, widely adopted system in use by hundreds of microfinance institutions throughout Africa and Latin America. It would provide one standard tool that any partner or financial institution could use for migrating from that specific system - it wouldn't require new tools to be made each time a migration is done.


Description

Extend the existing Kettle-based Mifos to Mifos X migration tool

  • Write ETL scripts to get data and transform data it from Mambu format to Mifos format
Helpful SkillsJava (Spring/JPA/Jersey), SQL , JavaScript , Git, Pentaho, Kettle,
Impact

It has many impacts

  1. This drastically reduces the time to set up of initial configuration/data of Mifos X for organization adopting this system as MIS.
  2. It widely opens the market that Mifos X is applicable for as it lessens the burden of converting from Loan Performer - a system that is widely used but not as modern and sophisticated as Mifos X.
  3. It dramatically lowers the cost of implementing a system like Mifos X by reducing the complexity of the deployment
  4. It increases transparency by ensuring financial institutions using Mifos can retain the full history for their clients.
Other Resources

http://nayan.github.io/move-to-mifosx/

https://github.com/openMF/move-to-mifosx

Actionable notifications/alerts/status updates in Mifos X (Complete)

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 near-real time notification system in the web application to notify the user about action she needs to take. For example, if a branch manager is logged in the application and a new loan is created and is pending for approval by her, then the system should notify her about the pending action.

This involves both invoking and triggering these notifications based on actions or activities in the server as well as the extension of the user interface to support the display of the notifications along with the ability of the user to take action upon the notifications.

Notes on the proposed approach to invoking and triggering these notification can be found at: https://goo.gl/SD0HgC

It outlines:

  1. Piggybacking on response header to send notifications
  2. Create a new set of database tables for notifications
  3. Implementing Queuing system like SpringXD for Notifications
Helpful SkillsJava, Javascript, CSS, HTML5. Spring , Hibernate, AngularJS and Bootstrap (CSS framework) is a plus
ImpactBetter usability. Improve the productivity of users and actions will be taken on time.
Other ResourcesUsability and Design

Basic CRM Functionality - Inquiries/Complaints Module

Mentors
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 

JPOS Integration - Point of Sale Cash Out

Mentors
Overview & Objectives

Integrate MifosX with an opensource Point of Sale (POS) called JPOS.

Description

Use case would be to get a debit transaction (cash withdraw from checking account) thru the POS device /local runtime with 2FA.  In India, the ability to get cash out through a point of sale network is provided for under RBI regulations. In production there will likely need to be an intermediate "Merchant Acquisition" or "Payment Processor" in between a single POS and MifosX Instance, but this could be abstracted out as a payment gateway only (primarily data mapping). The implementation target is the ability to do a 2 factor authentication on a POS device running JPOS (emulator ok), input account number (via some simple method), then be able to do a (cash-out) account withdrawal in real time to the MifosX account. Additional use cases would be to implement a transaction for payment for goods. i.e. enter specific goods, then do payment from MifosX account to Merchant Account (probably also in Mifos).

Helpful Skills

Familiarity with API work. Understanding of transactional flows.

Java.

Two-factor authentication - see other project idea .


Impact
Other Resources

https://github.com/jpos/jPOS/

Security Penetration testing

Mentors
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 SkillsCandidates applying for this project would ideally have prior experience in penetration testing, and document this in their application.
ImpactRe-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

Mifos ID/Profile - Single Sign On for Community Infrastructure

Mentors
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:

  1. 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.
  2. Single Sign On for our various collaboration and community infrastructure tools listed below.


Description
  1. 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
    1. 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. 
  2. Design and implement a dashboard to handle the creation of this unified ID
  3. 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:

Helpful SkillsLDAP
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

Scalable Mifos X deployment on OpenShift: Automated Continuous Delivery, Scripts, Documentation

Mentors
Overview & Objectives

Create a POC of a scalable MifosX implementation on OpenShift. Also publish a whitepaper with details of this set up.

Description

Mifos X was built to be cloud ready from the ground up. One of the most popular deployment environments for MifosX has been on Amazon EC2, however due to country specific regulation, many implementors are forced to seek alternative models that can scale as effectively. The aim of this project is two-fold:

  • Propose a scalable deployment model for Mifos on the OpenShift PaaS. Your application should highlight a starting point with some details of your planned deployment architecture, as Mentors would be not giving you step-by-step instructions in this project, just "nudge" you along; you would be expected to learn about how to deploy Mifos yourself and by autonomously using the documentation available and help from the public mailing list and IRC channel, and figure out the details of the Cloud deployment.

  • Propose how the above proposed model could be contributed to Mifos in the form of e.g. ready-to-run "configurations" etc. allowing ANYONE to deploy THE LATEST VERSION of Mifos in the Cloud themselves, and then implement this approach in practice. (Contrast this with a "one-off exercise", e.g. taking the current Mifos X WAR file, and UI, and manually making some changes to it, and then manually deploying that to some Cloud PaaS - this would not be sufficient for this project's expectations.)

  • Implement a Continuous Deployment "Devops" EXAMPLE instance of this scalable blueprint using the latest nightly Mifos build artifacts.

  • Publish a high level whitepaper of the same, which can be used as a reference for local implementors, who would additionally take care of provisioning their own hardware. This documentation should be ideally high-level, and what it described much be automated; only providing lengthy step-by-step manual instructions would not be sufficient for this project's expectations.

To prepare for this project, applying students must demonstrate at least that they have already successfully locally built and ran a Mifos X REST back-end server and UI, populated the database etc. as well as provided a simple pull request proposing some minimal deployment related improvement.

Note that we now believe that a Platform as a Service (PaaS) is a more suitable foundation for this project than a raw Cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) platform (such as Openstack, offered by public cloud provider such as e.g. Rackspace; or Azure, or raw Amazon EC2). This is because a PaaS, such OpenShift, already come with relevant features such as built-in, managed, supported and monitored HTTP load balancing (e.g. OpenShift comes with HAProxy).

We are aware that OpenShift out-of-the-box currently does not provide supported clustering for the MariaDB/mysql database used by Mifos (there is documentation for un-supported example based on an OpenShift template and suggested descriptions on blog posts, or also this one based on Severalnines.com; similarly one could deploy the commercial Percona XtraDB Cluster product ). However at this point we believe that this would not be required, and that proper configuration on OpenStack of the already existing cache facility (incl. distributed cache invalidation) available in Mifos X will add more value at signficantly less operational complexity.

You may need to develop some minor "adjustments" for Mifos X to work well in a PaaS. For example, writeable directories may be limited, and configuration changes may be needed to pick up allowed data directories from an environment variable configuration (but consider multi node distribution in this cluster setup!). Also a cloud PaaS like OpenShift may not support "always running" instances, and scheduled jobs may have to be configured to be kicked off via an explicit HTTP "wake up" request from a cron job.

While OpenShift should already take care of automatic distribution of Mifos code (WAR) updates among nodes in the cluster, you may also have to consider distributed configuration in a cluster. Normally all Mifos X configuration should reside 100% fully in the database only, and as such this may be a non-issue. If however there are any customized configuration files, then perhaps something like the Spring Cloud project could be of interest to ease distributed configuration management.

We are aware of other PaaS product similar to OpenShift, such as notably Cloud Foundry, or even Heroku (closed source..) but would suggest to use OpenShift.

Helpful SkillsContinous Integration, UNIX, OpenStack, experience with any public cloud (AWS etc) and Percona Server is a plus, plus some minor Java coding required to adapt Mifos code to be able to pick up the database configuration from the OpenStack provided environment variable (and possibly automated Cache configuration tuning on OpenStack).
ImpactImproves deployment options for Mifos. Would be very helpful for specialists in African countries who deal with strict regulatory controls in hosting data outside their region
Other Resources

OpenShift https://www.openshift.com

Old Mifos mailing list posts related to related things, search e.g. "mifos google app engine", and find as this one as well as this one.

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

Mentors
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?

ImpactEnable Mifos X to be considered by users wanting it to run (only) on an Enterprise stack


Other Resources

Vendor pages

Automation of Conversion of AngularJS Community App into Chrome App 

Mentors
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 on 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 SkillsJavascript, 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

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

Mentors
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 SkillsConceptual Modeling, JavaScript, advanced AngularJS, curious and creative mind, capability to actually deliver
ImpactEnable the Mifos X UI to be much more easily customized and adapted by end-users
Other Resourcessee links above 

Extend Community app to run on Mobile devices with Offline Support

Mentors
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,

Offline functionality is critical such because users

Helpful SkillsJavascript, AngularJS, Apache cordova, SQL
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


Business Analytics (OLAP)

Mentors
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

This project would extend off of the work of a previous GSOC intern in building out integration with Saiku

Description


Helpful SkillsDatabase Management Systems, MDX, SQL,
ImpactData 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

MIFOSX-1448 - Getting issue details... STATUS

Web UI quality cross browser non-regression testing

Mentors
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 SkillsCandidates 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.
ImpactContinuously 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

Front Desk Service Module / Experience Module

Mentors
Overview & Objectives

Before booking a loan the customer needs to require and assess the details of the loan he is enquiring for and there is no way to personally judge it, based on the parameters, Sales staff right now is using different external loan calculator and loan product schemes are not documentated we need a frontend experience service with personal match

DescriptionThe staff or customer should be able to enter thier requirements before applying for the loan , like Loan amount what kind of loan product he is interested in, and based on a questionaire he should be presented a view where loan products are personally matched based on recomendation engine and after setting basic loan parameters customer should be able to get a qoute and then will be transfered to CRM given by Ankit Sharma
Helpful SkillsANDROID UI, Integrating Backend Service,MIFOS X
ImpactStreamlined sales, Staff and Customer Better Interaction
Other Resources

https://docs.google.com/document/d/18rS0gVWkjQvNdRnNj40uKNl32zuTh-uuzNv161n6YrY/edit?usp=sharing

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 2016 timeline

See also