Proposal for mifos mobile application
Introduction
A proposal for how to approach providing mifos functionality through mobile phones.
Proposal
Based on the known requirements to date, I think the project should be implemented as an application in its own right (to distinguish it from notion of module or plugin). So mifos mobile application could contain the following:
- web based user interface to allow users to verify/approve group/client payments or collection sheet entries made through mobile.
- its own persistence through any suitable persistence tool e.g. MySQL
- deployed as a war like mifos
- integration with SMS Framework to support exposing services through SMS (see FrontlineSMS, RapidSMS)
- code for app on various smartphone operating systems e.g. android, iphone etc
- integration with exising mifos application which would require services to be exposed on mifos
Note: in relation to exposing mifos functionality through web services, a basic prototype was implemented for MIFOS-5060 in a branch on git named hudsonBuild-springwebservices
Why seperate application?
By implementing mobile functionality in seperate application, keeps this functionality decoupled from existing mifos functionality, as a result:
- any investment in mobile mifos will be reusable by and protected from implementation changes in existing mifos
- can be implemented in seperate git project/repository and stored on seperate source control which will allow specialisation on mobile area and reduce level of understanding of existing mifos required