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

We have completed the Google Code-In program for 2014 and look forward to future participation.

2014 Google Code-In - Get to Know Mifos

After participating in Google Summer of Code in four different summers, we look forward to the opportunity to work with pre-university students through Google Code-In. As both a 501(c)3 non-profit and an open source project, our global community has a diverse range of tasks (both technical and non-tecnhnical) that will be a valuable experience for the students. Students will gain exposure to an active open source project, a widespread global community, and expand upon a wide range of discipline as they use technology to help alleviate global poverty.

Get Excited!

Watch the following videos to learn about our gigantic mission and the game-changing platform we've built to achieve it.

http://youtu.be/co5cK2cYVU0

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 and analytical skills
Passion for writing clean 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
Java
Gradle
Android SDK
Git

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	Category	Location	Time Zone
Michael Vorburger	Coding & Quality Assurance	Switzerland	CET (GMT +1:00)
Avik Ganguly	Coding & Quality Assurance	India	IST (GMT +5:30)
Gaurav Saini	Coding & User Interface	India	IST (GMT +5:30)
Ishan Khanna	Coding, Testing & Documentation (Android App)	India	IST (GMT +5:30)
Ed Cable	Outreach/Research & Documentation/Training	USA	PST (GMT -8:00)
Craig Chelius	Outreach/Research	USA	PST (GMT -8:00)
Nayan Ambali	Coding & Quality Assurance	India	IST (GMT +5:30)
Vishwas Babu A J	Coding & Quality Assurance	India	IST (GMT +5:30)
Dayna Harp (Unlicensed)	Documentation/Training	Belize	CST(GMT -6:00)
Markus Geiss (Deactivated)	Coding & Quality Assurance	Germany	CET (GMT+1:00)

Project Tasks

GCI students will have the opportunity to work on the following types of tasks:

Code: we have a range of introductory coding tasks across our Java platform, AngularJS community app, and Android mobile field operations app.
Documentation/Training: Most of the end users of our software aren't super-technica. Documentation is critical - we have a number of short how-to guides as well as training slides to work on.
Outreach/Research: As a global non-profit with a rich social mission to bring financial services to the poor, we have an enormous amount of non-coding work to get done in our community - on the marketing front this involves product positioning and collateral, donor and volunteer outreach, social media management, CRM & contact management, digital media design, as well as analysis and research of our competitors and new financial inclusion products and services.
Quality Assurance: Mifos X is enterprise-grade, mission-critical software to run a bank - quality, security, and performance couldn't be more important - as our software continues to grow, we have a range of manual and automate testing tasks.
User Interface: Since many end users of our software aren't that technically literate, an optimal user experience is ever more valuable, various areas of our app could use some mockups and wireframes.

Coding

Task: Include Mifos X release details in Community-App as about info

The About tab in the Mifos X Community App should contain the following system-related info: Mifos X version and Release Date. This makes it easier for end user to report issues about their system. See MIFOSX-1602 - Getting issue details... STATUS for more details

Tags: Javascript, AngularJS, UI

Task: Add Ability to Capture Client Image via WebCam on Community App

The original reference App ( at https://demo.openmf.org/old/) had the ability to capture client images usinghttp://www.xarg.org/project/jquery-webcam-plugin/.

We need to implement identical functionality for the community app. Angular directives likehttp://jonashartmann.github.io/webcam-directive/#/ based on http://www.webrtc.org/ could work well

Tags: AngularJS, Java, Javascript

Task: Require Confirmation when Reversing and Accounting Journal Entry

When Reverse button is clicked for a particular Journal entry, it does not ask for confirmation. For audit and internal control purposes, it's important that when reversing a completed transaction, the user be prompted to confirm that that they want to reverse the journal entry. It would also be helpful to provide a Comments field when doing the reversal of the journal entry. Currently when a journal entry is reversed it is automatically accepted, and the following message displayed: "Transaction reversed successfully. A new journal entry has been created to reverse this transactionTransaction Number : 807f0c405ee7" See MIFOSX-1575 - Getting issue details... STATUS for more information.

Tags: Java, AngularJS, Javascript, Accounting

Task: Update the +JLG Application Button to proper color scheme for Actions

Actions in the Community App have a bright blue background; however, the +JLG Loan Application action on the view group has a green background. This task would involve changing the color of the button to match that of other actions in the system. See MIFOSX-1591 - Getting issue details... STATUS for more details.

Tags: Javascript, AngularJS, UI

Task: Select an task from our list of 60+ introductory tickets in our Issue Tracker

On our volunteer opportunities page, we have more than 60 issues tagged with the introductory label that would be suitable tasks for Google Code-In. These tasks represent a range of issues, enhancements, feature requests on our java platform, AngularJS community app, and Android app. See Volunteer Opportunities for the list.

Tags: Java, Javascript, AngularJS, MySQL, Android

Documentation/Training

Task: Document Standard Reports in Mifos X with examples

Mifos X ships with a number of standard default reports representing the most commonly request, loan, client, accounting, and funds reports. We need to provide a short description of each report, the audience it's directed at, a list of the fields in the report, its available formats, and selectable parameters. For the task, you will run each report in our demo server, generate it as a PDF to upload to our wiki as an example, and add the descriptive details in the table found at Standard Reports Field Descriptions.

Tags: Pentaho, Business Intelligence, Reporting, MySQL, Documentation, Confluence

Task: Create Functional Overview slides for End User Training - System Configuration

How to configure the system - use the documentation currently on the wiki and convert to slide presentation.

Initial System Set Up (configuration)

Tags: Documentation, training, system setup, system configuration

Task: Create Functional Overview slides for End User Training - New Client

Using Mifos X procedure documentation, create a set of slides for end user training. The slides will include:

How to Log on to Mifos X
How to create a new client, upload identification documents, put in approval queue, approve
How to create a savings account
How to post a member fee
How to post a deposit

Tags: Documentation, Training

Task: Create Functional Overview slides for End User Training - New Loan

Using Mifos X procedure documentation, create a set of slides for end user training. The slides will include:

How to accept and enter a loan application
How to approve a loans
How to disburse a loan

Tags: Documentation, Training

Task : Documentation for using Android App

With a basic documentation in place, Mifos Android app still lacks documentation for some functionalities. This task would require the students to use the app and write down the steps to perform tasks using the app along with screen shots. It'll be a big plus for the community if a screen cast of the app being used can be created by the user. Ishan Khanna can guide you more on how to create a screen cast.

Outreach/Research

Task: Update and merge our contact database in Salesforce and Mailchimp

We recently migrated our CRM from Insightly over to Salesforce – we’ll be using Salesforce going forward to manage all our contacts including volunteers, customers, partners, donors, and influencers. We use Mailchimp for sending newsletters and periodic communications to our database of nearly 5000 contacts. We haven’t completed updating and merging our main contact list in MailChimp to reflect new contacts made in Salesforce and our old contacts from Insightly. This task would involve, using the Salesforce/MailChimp integration to merge our lists into one Mailchimp list and creating various segments in that list.

Tags: Salesforce, Mailchimp, Newsletters, Contact Management, Outreach, Community Management

Task: Optimize our HootSuite Account for Cross-Posting and Social Media Listening

We currently use Hootsuite for posting updates to Twitter. We haven’t yet configured it to post to our other social networks – Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn. We would also like to take better advantage of using HootSuite to respond and engage with our community and other relevant communities via Social Media. This task would involve configuring our HootSuite account for crossposting to other social media networks as well as setting up lists and alerts for better social media listening. For social media listening, we would like to track mentions and chatter around Mifos but also identify and engage with influential people in the financial inclusion, social entrepreneurship, ICT4D, and open source sectors.

Tags: Social Media, Hootsuite, Twitter, Facebook, Community Management, Social Networks

Task: Personalize Mifos YouTube Channel and Organize Videos into Playlists

We use YouTube as both a means of outreach as well as education and training. This task would involve branding our YouTube channel with images and colors for our non-profit initiative as well as optimizing the channel and existing videos for searchability. Part of this task is also organizing our existing screencasts and training videos as well as other financial inclusion videos into relevant playlists.

Tags: YouTube, Video, Training, Documentation, Social Media

Task: Design the t-shirt for our Global Mifos Summit

Each year we hold an annual conference and give out a new t-shirt to community members. We also give the shirts out to our volunteers throughout the year since this is one of our biggest incentives a developer could get :) The design of the t-shirt should have both a tech feel as well as some of the warmth of a non-profit to it. We'd like to do the t-shirt on a dark or blue background so a lighter single color design is preferable. Deliverable for this would be a high-res illustrator or photoshop file of the design. For this task, you would have the freedom to design what you want but it should communicate across collaboration, community, empowerment, financial inclusion, solidarity, innovation, technology. working on a common platform, unity, peer support., diversity given our community is completely global, flexibility and freedom of open source. It could tie in elements of technology like software code/bits and bytes, mobile phones, cloud computing. It could tie in elements of microfinance like different forms of currency, villages, microbusinesses like farming, artisanry, etc.

Tags: Graphic Design, Volunteers, Outreach, Community Management

Task: Create Mailchimp template for our Volunteer Newsletter

Volunteers are the lifeblood of our community and it’s imperative we remain in active communication with them. We would like to start sending a regular outbound communication to our pool of active and inactive volunteers (about 200 individuals) that promotes opportunities that we’re seeking volunteers for, recognizes active volunteers and star contributors, and explains and captures recent volunteer contributions. We use mailchimp for our outbound email communications which includes a bi-monthly newsletter that we send to about 4000 individuals.

Tags: Mailchimp, Outreach, Newsletters, HTML, Volunteers, Community Management

Task: Update Mifos Events/Conferences Calendar

Mifos sits at the crossroads of a number of different industries – financial inclusion and microfinance, mobile banking, financial services, cloud computing, open source technology, HFOSS (Humianitarian Free and Open Source Software). We attend events regularly to promote our mission, educate about our technology and identify new volunteers, customers, donors, and partners. Having a comprehensive and up-to-date calendar is important for our staff to plan out what events to attend as well as to inform our community of events they can attend. Internally, we track these events via a Google Sheet and also publicize the ones relevant to the community on our public community calendar.

This task would involve updating our current calendar with the dates/times for events that we’ve followed or participated in during the past as well as researching and adding new events to our calendar.

Tags: Events, Community Management, Google Sheets, Google Calendar, Research

Task: Research hosting partner programs & terms of service

The primary channel to market for the Mifos software and other solutions is our global network of certified partners. We currently have deployment partners (who distribute and support our Mifos X Community App, Platform Solution Partners (who develop and distribute their own systems, solutions, and products on our platform. A significant customer need is for trusted and reliable hosting and maintenance of Mifos X in the cloud. We are in the process of implementing a Hosting Partner Program and need research done to help us define the standards/requirements of being a Certified Hosted Partner along with the benefits. This task involves researching and documenting hosting partner programs for other cloud-based enterprise software (accountin, ERP, CRM, core banking systems, MIS, etc.). Major areas to document include requirements of being a hosting partner (both financial and technical), terms of service, as well as benefits conveyed to the providers. Deliverable will be a spreadsheet matrix or Google Doc summarizing key findings.

Tags: Research, Sales Channels, Partners Network, Cloud Hosting, Community Management, Business

Task: Research Pay as You Go Solar Companies that could use our PAYG Module

During this past Google Summer of Code, one of the projects was a PAYG module for implementing and tracking Pay as You Go Solar energy systems. We are currently looking for partners (both financial institutions administering a program as well as the solar hardware vendors) who would need our PAYG module to scale their operations. This research project would involve documenting the different PAYG providers including the countries they operate in, their current client outreach, details about their hardware and their business model. A good place to start is the CGAP research on PAYG providers in operation. Based on this research, student would make some recommendations on which partners are good target based on need/geographic fit to promote our solution to.

Tags: Research, Clean Energy, PAYG, Digital Finance+, Financial Inclusion

Task: Research our Major Competitors and Complete Matrix on Financial Inclusion Technology Providers

There are a number of different software solutions available to manage the operations of a financial institution serving the poor. We track our competition so we can be aware of new trends and latest innovation as well as help to inform our partners and their respective business development strategies in their markets.

Competitors to research: Mambu, Cloud Lending, OpenCBS, Temenos, Bankers Realm, Loan Performer
Comparison Areas

Functional Depth

Loan Products Supported
Savings Products Supported
Insurance Products Supported
Payments Products Supported

Mobile Delivery & Enablement

Mobile Money Integration
Mobile Application

Technology

Deployment Environment
Hosted offering?
Technology Stack (language, database, etc.)
APIs available
Offline Access

Business Development Model

Support
Partner Network
Pricing Model

Basic Company Info

Total Customers & Clients Reached
Market & Product Positioning
Countries/Geographies of Focus
Date of Latest Release
Annual Revenue
Size of Company
Recent Major News

Tags: Research, Competitor Analysis, Business Development, Google Sheets, Due Diligence, Finance, Support Models

Task: Research Donation/Online Payment Processors

Currently we only use Paypal for our online donation processing. We want to move towards a more comprehensive online payment processor with lower costs and more functionality around donation pages and fundraising campaigns. This task involves researching various donation payment processors and completing a matrix comparing various aspects that are important to us. Payment processors to compare include: Convio, Paypal, NationBuilder, Network for Good, and iATs.

Parameters to compare include: Fees, Donation Page Creation features, Minimum donation amount, Level of salesforce integration,

Tags: Online Fundraising, Donor Management

Quality Assurance

Task: Automated Testing of Mifos Android Application (Unit Tests)

This task involves coding of Functional and Instrumentation tests (Unit Tests) for the latest Android App. Since it is a fresh code with no prior tests in place, this would be an awesome opportunity for the intern to learn Testing of an Android App using Instrumentation Test Runner on Android inside out. This would be an ideal task for Google Code in students as the tests have to be written with a certain pattern, therefore no prior knowledge about Mifos wouldn't be a major blocker.

Tags : Android, Java, Unit Tests, Testing, Git

Task: Set up integration tests for Client APIs via Rest Assured

All functionality in the Mifos X platform is exposed through RESTful APIs so that third parties can easily build new applications and solutions on top of the platform. We need to build out and expand our integration test suite for our Java APIs using Rest Assured . Rest Assured makes Testing and validating REST services in Java as simple as doing it for dynamic languages such as Ruby and Groovy. This tasks involves setting up the integration tests for our Client APIs.