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Notes
Attendees:
Manish Kumar (MEASURE Evaluation)
Angad Dhindsa (MEASURE Evaluation)
Mark DeZalia (OGAC)
Stacey Berlow (MEASURE Evaluation)
Vlad Shioshvili (MEASURE Evaluation)
Donna Medeiros
Jamie Thomas (Regenstrief)
Jennifer Shivers (Regenstrief)
Angela Dormagen (USAid)
Vilma Thomas (CDC)
Jim Grace (HISP)
Amy Wald (CDC)
Aaron Aranas (CDC)
Jason Pickering (HISP)
Josephine Mungurere-Baker(BAO)
Rachel Lucas, Saad Khan, Krissy Celentano, Anja Buschur, Lon Gowen (USAID)
Dana Juthe (OGAC CIT - PwC)
Martin Namutso (BAO)
Cicero Nhantumbo (Mozambique USAID)
Agnaldo Dinis Guambe (Mozambique CDC)
Vincent (Zambia CDC)
Cecilia Chitambala (CDC Zambia)
Agenda:
- Country Data Import Experiences
- Summarized APR FY15 data import lessons learned
- Preview updated data import references that will be presented at DATIM field trainings
Minutes:
- Call which focuses on data import into DATIM
- Presentation from Mozambique
- Country Data Import Experiences
- Indicators and MER do not have a one to one relationship. Indicators on Mozambique's system are based on thier HMIS.
- XML Export tool based made using microsoft access.
- To run validations, they have to open a ticket.
- Use the test environment to do the test, but get errors in the live environment even when we have successfully tested.
- Ambiguous coding for the MER indicators
- Summarized APR FY15 data import lessons learned
- Validation is a complicated process.
- Scripts should allow anyone to validate their data before entering them into DATIM.
- Scripts are written in the R programming language. Will allow for validation to occur offline and on your own machine.
- Question - does the DATIM test environment run the same validations as production?
- Jason - you can run the R scripts on your own machine before transmitting to PEPFAR
- Question - How do we get the scripts?
- Jason - They are on GitHub. I have posted the link in the notes. Anyone is free to download and contribute.
- Question - Is there a forum for individuals to discuss errors and issues they are having with the validations?
- Mark - Will be tracked via the helpdesk
- Jason- Issues related to the scipts, can also be posted on the github site.
- Question - how often is the synchronization between dev and the production environments
- Jason - Right now this is a weekly process. The challenge is that if you are adding sites, they may not be there right away. You can use production org units to run your validation script without actually importing the data
- Question - What is the minimal requirement for running validations locally? Who runs these?
- Jason - Only requirement for running the scripts is the R programing language, if you can load this technically anyone can do it. ( you also need to be able to load software on your machine)
- Stacey - Where are you finding information and what type of information you need? Is there anything we can make more accessible?
- Mozambique - Documentation is clear. Knew where to find it and if we had trouble we knew who to ask.
- Invalid data elements and category options
- There have been changes and there will continue to be changes. There are checks in the validation scripts to help you with this. There may also need some changes to the guidance documents to help with the data entry screens. Legacy support can create challenges because old disaggregations are not removed from the data entry screen.
- Issues with FACTS/mechanisms
- All the mechanism information on DATIM is synced nightly via FACTSInfo
- Occasional problems with mechanism files where they are not activated. If the mechanism is not in FACTSInfo it cannot be corrected in DATIM.
- A method in the data validation script will allow for this issue to be identified earlier so corrections can be made
- Would be helpful to have SQL views under source control. Has not been documented either - should work to document what all of these views do.
- Issues with the time period.
- All periods in DATIM refer to calendar quarters, not the PEPFAR quarters.
- Documentation is being added to map the PEPFAR and calendar quarters to add more clarity.
- DHIS 2.21 is going into production, but we don't have a date at this time.
- Biggest impact will be that there are more restrictions on the type of data that are allowed to be imported into DATIM. Will only allow for 0 or positive integers for example.
- Functions are included in the DATIM validation scripts.
- SIMS data elements validation is also included.
- Question - is there a list of all the SIMS data elements availible?
- Jason - yes, it's all in the DATIM API, can also be done by creating an SQL view.
- Preview updated data import references that will be presented at DATIM field trainings
- Working on an A-Z scenario to show how data can be imported into DATIM from another non-DATIM HMIS. For a training in Johannesburg.
- Documentation that Jason will create will be availible on the helpdesk.