OpenMRS Projects

 

There have and continue to be many OpenMRS-related projects and some of the projects are documented on this wiki.  OpenMRS has participated in Google Summer of Code for several years, we have hosted OpenMRS Internship projects, and we have many implementations and organizations continually working on various aspects of the system or integrating OpenMRS with other systems.

Keeping projects well-documented is an ongoing struggle in an open source community largely based on volunteer efforts. Please understand that some projects are more accurately documented than others.

Unassigned Projects

If you are looking for ways to contribute, interested in finding/joining a project that could use your help, or want to share a description of your own OpenMRS-related project that you'd like help with, then browsing  unassigned Projects is a good place to start.

Active Projects

These are currently active OpenMRS-related projects .  Each project page should at least include a description of the project, the person(s) working on the project, the person(s) overseeing the project, link(s) to wiki pages or related resources, and names of any champions or interested parties.  We encourage anyone involved (or interested in) a project to "watch" their project page – i.e., select Tools ? Watch Page from the wiki's menu in order to receive e-mail notifications of comments or edits.

Implementation Projects

These are OpenMRS implementation-related projects  (not necessarily software programming, but involving other important aspects of implementation such as installation, administration, content management, support.

Completed Projects

Projects that have been completed (or abandoned) may be moved to this section.

Archived Projects

These are Projects that were described and may have been worked on, but nobody is actively working on them now.

Best Practices

Identify Team Members

It is important to identify everyone working on the project.

Define Roles and Responsibilities

Once the team members have been identified, they can be assigned roles on the project.  On OpenMRS projects, team members may fill multiple roles.  

The roles assigned may include:

  • Project Stakeholders

  • Subject Matter (domain) Experts

  • Project Manager

  • Business Analyst

  • Software Developer

  • Software Tester

Hold a kickoff meeting

If possible, it is effective to have everyone on one call to discuss the previously defined roles and responsibilities, project vision and to get everyone’s opinion on scope and schedule.

Define Scope/Schedule

It is important to define the following:

  • Business need: What problem is being solved?

  • Project Objectives:  How is it being solved?

  • Scope: What is being delivered?

  • Key Milestones:  How to measure progress?

  • Schedule: What timeline is expected?

Communication Strategy

The above items should be documented in a plan with the following:

  • How/what tools should be used to provide updates?

  • What information to be provided in updates

  • How often should updates be given?

  • How often should meetings be held?

Project Plan

The above items should be documented in a plan with the following:

  • Scope

  • Targeted Schedule

  • Roles/Responsibilities

  • Communication Strategy

Posting projects to Talk

Answering these questions while announcing the start of a project will help communicate its needs and goals:

  • What is the project?

  • What problems is this project trying to solve?

  • Who's doing it?

  • What's the timeframe?

  • Here's how to get involved!

Start Your Own Project

We've listed many idea for projects in the pages above, but we're more than happy to entertain other ideas if you've got 'em. The OpenMRS framework allows any developer to explore creative modifications of OpenMRS through our module API, using Spring's AOP. With modules, any developer can create a hot-swappable "plugin" for OpenMRS akin to Mozilla's add-ins.

To create a new project, either email the developer's list with your idea or copy the New Project Template into the Unassigned Projects section.

Non-Coders

Are you interested in OpenMRS and have ideas for potential projects/improvements that are not listed here? We would love to hear about them. Want to translate OpenMRS into another language? Or help with testing/mocking a new user interface design?

Please consider joining our implementers mailing list to talk with other users, and share experiences or ideas. Take a look at the contribution page for more details.