User Management Application for DHIS 2

International Rescue Committee, 2016

2Paths worked with International Rescue Committee to design and implement a custom application for its open source health management information system (DHIS 2) to allow country teams to easily setup and configure new user accounts and permissions. With the custom application, International Rescue Committee country teams benefit from a more streamlined experience and improved workflow with less system complexity to manage. The time and expertise required to set up new users has been reported to be significantly reduced.

The Client

International Rescue Committee is an international not-for-profit organization that helps people whose lives and livelihoods are shattered by conflict and disaster.

Complex hierarchy for user account permissions

International Rescue Committee uses DHIS 2, an open source health management information system, for project reporting in the 40+ countries it works in. Due to the large number of staff using DHIS 2 globally for data collection and dissemination, International Rescue Committee requires complex multi-tiered permissioning for user accounts. The native DHIS 2 user management functionality was too cumbersome and inefficient for International Rescue Committee’s needs.

Hiding system complexity from users

2Paths worked with International Rescue Committee to design and implement a custom DHIS 2 user management application that interfaced with a DHIS 2 API. Its design successfully hides the complexity of the underlying DHIS 2 user management functionality. To do this, we implemented a much simpler workflow for user setup which includes replacing native functionality with International Rescue Committee specific naming conventions and permissions for user roles based on the multi-tiered organization of International Rescue Committee users.

The custom application has been reported to significantly reduce the amount of time and expertise required to set up new users with a greatly enhanced user experience to the native DHIS 2 user management functionality. International Rescue Committee country team users now have a more streamlined experience by tailoring user setup and permissioning to only those aspects of the native DHIS 2 user management functionality which are needed while custom building other features.

Technologies used

• DHIS 2
• Javascript/JQuery
• AngularJS
• Gulp