GSOC 2013 - User generated documents

Project Resources

Project Overview

Overview

MFI’s typically generate client-facing documents (whose format varies from MFI to MFI) from their MIS. These documents are usually limited to the context of a Client (Client registration documents) and Loans (Loan Contracts, Passbooks etc.).

To overcome this limitation , I am proposing the following project plan to implement the document template generation module.

Background and Business Need

One of the biggest challenges for non Technical users in Using Mifos (MifosX) would be in finding local specialists to help them in designing simple client facing reports and documents (like Loan Contracts etc).

Often, small organizations would not be able to afford the services of specialists and would have to do without any custom documents.

This project would enable non technical endusers to create these simple reports using context-sensitive placeholders and a WYSIWYG-Editor, thereby drastically increasing the usability of MifosX.

The actual functionality (wherein a user defines document templates in the system) could be reused for many other related tasks like SMS Integration ( MIFOSX-119 - Getting issue details... STATUS ), E-mail integration etc.

Project Details

A Brief overview of the desired functionality is as follows:

1. A rich text editor on the Reference Client, which can be used by a user to create wysiwyg designs and upload them against various entities at different stages in their Life-cycle ( Ex: An "active" Client, A Loan "Pending disbursal" etc)
2. Expose a set of context sensitive keywords like {{client.name}}, {{loan.id}} through the API, which can be added as placeholders in these documents.
   Ex: An active Client could have a list of permissible keywords like "client.name","client.address","client.age","joining date" etc.
   An active Loan could have a list of permissible keywords like "disbursalDate", "amount", "principalRepaid", "interestRepaid", "lastRepaymentDate", "lastRepaymentAmount"
3. Java parser at the Server side would intelligently replace these placeholders with appropriate content and generate HTML reports
   (Would also need API's to be exposed from the platform)
4. The next step would be to add in advanced controls like loops etc so that we can generate content like pass books with all repayments within a specified period etc

Refer Draft Specs for User Generated Documents for an initial approach for developing this functionality

Project Status

Visit UGD_Planning

Additional Information

UGD_TechnicalDesign

Draft Specs for User Generated Documents

 MIFOSX-117 - User Defined documents ( Open)