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VuFind Overview

Developed at Villanova University, VuFind is a portal designed to allow users to search and browse through a library’s resources. A quick scan through  VuFind’s website reveals plenty of information and features about the project, documentation about how to install and configure their software, and even upcoming events held in Germany. It appears that the project is still active; the last release was 2.4.1 back in late May 2015, but it looks like the project has a major update at least once a year. After a bit more searching, there doesn’t seem to be a clear starting point for someone looking to get involved without following a link to GitHub. For a project that is holding international meetings with German Universities, I’m surprised to see that VuFind does not host their own code. Overall, this seems like a very credible project that is far along in its development process, but it still has some growing to do before it becomes a standalone open source project.

Mifos X Overview

Its becoming my habit writing after a while from the event :P From now onwards I will try to be on time :D

First Foreign Trip and that to Silicon Valley for attending Google Summer of Code Reunion 2014. First of thanks to my Organization Mifos Initiative for selecting me a delegate for the Reunion.

Google Summer of Code is scheduled from 23-26 October. I landed to San Fransisco on 21st Morning. Me and my friend Ishan which is another delegate student from our organization has already booked an Airbnb Accommodation in Millbrae which is know by name Hacker House.

We started our trip by visiting Facebook Headquarters in Menlo Park, Thanks again to our organization administrator Edward who introduced us to Connie Yang Product Designer at Facebook.

Selfie time: Ishan, Norman, Me and Connie :D

Second Day of my day was busy in visiting Stores and trying different breakfast with so much SODA :P

Also, we visited a Spanish restaurant (Picaro restaurant) and had spanish dinner with Tapas.

Ishan, Me, Rahul and Norman :)

Best part of the trip is yet to start GSOC REUNION :D We check In at San Jose Marriot for the Reunion on 23rd and it was so amazing feeling when I entered my 5 Star Hotel Room :P hehe As this was my first time to any these type of Hotels.

GSOC Reunion started with registration and our welcome Packet (wrist-band, drink tickets, badge, t-shirt, hoodie, pens etc.). Carol Smith delivered the opening keynote. Later in evening we have our Welcome Reception and we meet people from many organizations.

Second Day was planned for a Trip to Great America (Amusement Park), which was all booked for GSOC attendees. We had a great time at the park and was enjoying with the students from many organizations. Although, my fellow friend Ishan did not have good time there :P

Later in the evening I think is the best part of GSOC Reunion. Google had a surprise for us at the Dinner Reception at San Jose Tech Museum. Google invited Linus Torvalds and Peter Norvig for the Reception and we shared some great moments there.

After that we have a after Party at Hotel Grand Ballroom. Many people were involved in their laptops also, but we were enjoying :P

Third Day, we had various sessions from morning till evening. There were some sessions by Googlers also. Best thing we got from these was Google Cardboard that too Free :D We tested Google Cardboard and listened to some of the talks. Later in afternoon we went to visit Golden Gate Bridge all through San Fransisco down town area. That day local team San Fransisco Giants finals going on, streets were filled with Orange colors. We hired Uber and went to the other side of Golden Gate and it was AWESOME :D

Day ended with a Funny Quiz and musical night back at the Hotel. Day Four, last day of GSOC Reunion. We still have something to visit and that ofcource mighty GooglePlex at Mountain View. In morning we visited Google Headquarters and Stephenie Taylor,  was with us during the visit to the campus. Unfortunately we unable to get into the offices, but yes the famous Android Sculptures were there and we all clicked so many photos.

Recently I come across a peculiar requirement of recognizing loan processing fees as income. What is peculiar in that, fees is income, and they want to account towards income. Yes even I agree to that, 

But strange thing is, paid fees is not immediately recognized as income, instead it is recognized as income as days pass, that is equally across the EMI due dates.

For example; Bank of America charges 1% of loan amount as loan processing fees. And it is collected upfront during loan disbursement.

For a loan of 1000$, processing fees is 10$, assume loan is disbursed on 1-Aug-2014 with monthly repayment and 10 installments, so on 1-Aug-2014,10$ is paid by the borrower towards bank, in cash.as processing fees, then journal entries made by the BoA in the JE transactions are

(Asset)    Cash In Hand ......................................................  $10.00  Dr

(Income) Unrecognized processing fees -----........................  $10.00  Cr

hold on, why are you accounting it towards Unrecognized ... GL account, it is already paid that too in cash.( yes even I had same doubt, when I asked the banker, he said there is no logic it is just compliance, I was not satisfied with answer, I share my finding in the later part of the blog)

Banker continued to explain the requirement saying, this 10$ should be recognized equally across the loan tenure at interval of EMI due dates.

that is , assume 1st EMI is on 1-Sept-2014, then on that day system should pass entry for 1$ as recognizing it as Income from processing fees (1$ derived as (processing fees)/ (number of installments), so that is 10$/10 = 1$) 

(Asset) Unrecognized processing fees ;............................  $1.00  Dr

(Asset) Income from processing fees         ........................  $1.00  Cr

Similarly on 1-Oct-2014

(Asset) Unrecognized processing fees ;............................  $1.00  Dr

(Asset) Income from processing fees         ........................  $1.00  Cr

by the time, loan is closed all the processing fees is recognized as income.

Can I do such configuration in Mifos X without modifying the Mifos X core code?

Yes, I am serious, it is as simple as the below approach

STEP 1: Create GL "Unrecognized processing fees", in GL sytem of Mifos X

STEP 2: In the loan product definition, go to advance accounting and add new GL mapping for "loan processing fees -LPF" as Unrecognized processing fees, so this rule will override the GL mapping done for fees and whenever LPF transaction happens it will accounted towards this GL code

STEP 3: Write batch job, that computes LPF recognized amount for loans having due date on that day and makes appropriate JE entry and also make entry into helper table with captures total recognized amount for given LPF+Loan account as of today, so that in case of loan is cloased early or written of then recognize the remain amount immediately.

A possible structure for helper table is

recognized_loan_processing_fees (as table name)

Columns are

pk,

loanId,

feeId,

feeAmount,

recognizedFeeAmount,

isCompletlyRecognized

    Let us focus on why this peculiar requirement by business, I did little investigation on this why and referred "RBI Guidelines for Implementation of Basel III" , then I realized only for me it looked like unusual behavior but from accounting practice or even if you read the basic definition of "Revenue Recognition" from investopedia.com then this practice does not look unusual practice and there is rational behind the practice. 

"An accounting principle under generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) that determines the specific conditions under which income becomes realized as revenue. Generally, revenue is recognized only when a specific critical event has occurred and the amount of revenue is measurable."

I recommend you to read this http://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/revenuerecognition.asp.

based on the above definition, and LPF definition, (my understanding of  LPF is, bank want to collect the indirect expenses related to a loan from the borrower as LPF, expenses may occur across the life cycle of loan, that is from loan application form cost to loan closer documents cost, and in between charges like cheque processing cost, sending loan statement, or making telephone call to borrower to remind the EMI dues or it can be in-case loan insured event happens, cost associated with insurance claims).

is makes sense that just by disbursing a loan does not mean bank will not have any further expenses towards that loan, it will cost bank during loan servicing, so is safe to recognize complete LPF amount at the time closing loan account instead of in the beginning or just after loan is disbursed.

Maker-checker (or Maker and Checker, or 4-Eyes) is one of the central principles of authorization in the Information Systems of financial organizations.The principle of maker and checker means that for each transaction, there must be at least two individuals necessary for its completion.

Mifos X has configurable maker (MC) for each and every action! yes you read it correct, for each and every action and that is great feature. But for now not let get into pros and cons of it, for sure I will write more detailed blog on it later.

Based on the definition of maker-checker, if MC is enabled for any action then now that action will become two step process, i.e., maker does the action and checker with permission approves/reject the action.

Now consider the example of client creation and activation workflow without and with enabling MC.

Assume the below scenario at "Bangalore" branch of Finmax financial institute

There are three staffs at three different hierarchical level of organization,

Lokesh as Loan Officer

Adam as Assistant Manager

And  Manoj  Branch Manager

Scenario without MC:

Lokesh creates the client profile and Manoj activate/reject the client.

Scenario with MC (1):

Now with help of MC, organization can define better workflow/process for client creation and activation.

Assume that organization wants put maker-checker (4 eyes) for both client creation and client activation step and creates appropriate roles with permission as below

Lokeh can create only clients

Adam can create clients, can be checker for client creation and can be maker for client activation.

Manoj can be checker for client activation.

So process will be as follows

Step 1: Lokesh creates a client called Caveri, now created client is  pending for approval from checker

Step 2: Adam approves the client creation

Step 3: Adam activates the client, but since MC is enable for both creation and activation, so client activation goes into pending for approval from checker.

Step 4 : Manoj approves the client pending for activation, so final Caveri client is created and activated in the system.

Now, how do I do this in Mifos X? below information should help you.

STEP 1: Enable maker-checker at global level

Navigate to Admin > System > Configurations

In this page enable the maker-checker (after enabling valiue for Enabled? should be true )

This means, now I have enabled maker-checker in the application, if there any maker-checker enabled per action (ex: say approve loan, create client) then those actions will go through MC workflow.

if this maker-checker is disabled, even if you have defined maker-checker at each action level then no MC check is made as this is global configuration and overrides MC configuration at each action level.

STEP 2: Enable maker-checker at each action level

Navigate to Admin > System > Configure Maker Checker Tasks

Click on Edit at right top corner on the page 

And enable maker-checker for Client creation and client activation

STEP 3: Assign checker permission to appropriate roles

Example: Monoj is manager, so make sure manage role has "client activation-checker" permission.

Navigate to Admin > System > Manage Roles and Permissions

click on the appropriate role and give checker permission

Typically in micro-finance you come across the special type of savings product called, mandatory savings account.

Why some one need such mandatory savings account

To develop financial discipline and develop small saving practice among the customers/ SHG members.

And these account act as proof of person's financial discipline and gives credibility/eligibility to get micro-loans from MFIs/Banks (usually in India, bank linkage programs gives a loan to person who has shown consistent savings at-least for 6 months )

Now coming to the point, Why mandatory savings should be extension of normal savings instead of recurring deposit?

The reasons are

Mandatory saving accounts are NOT term products, that means there is no maturity date for these accounts unlike RD accounts. And customer can keep these account active as long as she/he wants to. (so one need NOT mention the maturity date for these accounts)

These are like saving account and very much allow customer to withdraw money from their account un-like RD account, where account holder can't withdrawal partial amount. Either wait till maturity date or pre-close the account.

Mandatory amount can change with time.based on the organization needs

these attributes makes mandatory savings as spacial case of savings account and not special case of recurring deposit.

Yes, you read it right, you can get a set of Jet pack for Mifos X development. If you are looking for zero turnaround time (practically <10secs) to see the your code changes propagating to running application (without rebuilding app and restarting the app server)

jRebel is the ultimate solution!

I will be brief about how to set up jRebel for Mifos X dev environment, if you are using Eclipse as IDE.

I assume, you are familiar with Mifos X development and already have MIfos X dev env setup in Eclipse. (I use STS, is wrapper on Eclipse, for this setup context it as good as Eclipse)

STEP 1: Install jRebel plugin into IDE

To install JRebel for Eclipse, access Help > Eclipse Marketplace…. When opening it for the first time, you may need to pick a solution catalog. Select Eclipse Marketplace and search for JRebel. Click Install once found.

STEP 2 :Activation

After restarting Eclipse you most likely won’t have a license yet. The plugin will notify you about this sad fact. This happens via a popup notification:

Click the link in this popup. The JRebel activation window will immediately open. You can also open it from Help > JRebel Activation.

This window contains the following:

If you don’t have a JRebel license yet - click the link to open a web browser and apply for a totally free evaluation license.

If you have a license and want to register it - if you are awesome and already own a JRebel license then here is where you can apply it. There are three options to do this:

Paste license code from the clipboard - once you register for a free evaluation license, you will receive a license code via email and in the web browser. Paste this code here to activate it!

Choose license file from the disk - provided you bought a full license, you received the jrebel.lic file via email. Save this file in a location of your choice on your workstation and refer to it from here. Press Browse... to locate the file.

Specify License Server address - use this option if you get your JRebel license from a central license server. You will get this address from your administrator. You can enable or disable the option to use the proxy settings stored in your IDE - if your workstation setup requires this.

Press Apply or OK to store your chosen license information. Alternatively, press Cancel to dismiss the activation window.

Congratulations, you now have a fully functional JRebel installed!

STEP 3 :Project configuration

JRebel requires just one configuration file: rebel.xml. This is used by JRebel to map the running application to the workspace. The good news here is that the IDE plugin can automate the configuration for you. In fact, rebel.xml is generated automatically once you enable JRebel nature for the project.

It will generates rebel.xml at ~\mifosng-provider\src\main\resources\rebel.xml

And content of the file look similar to below xml

    <classpath>         <dir name="F:/clients/mifos/mifosx/mifosng-provider/bin">         </dir>     </classpath>

dir tag refers to the directory in that IDE compiles the java class, Rebel needs to know when any code is changed, from where it needs to pick the recompiled files :)

STEP 4 :Automatic build

JRebel does not compile Java code on its own. It relies on the compilation results from the Java compiler. For a smooth user experience with the tool it is recommended to enable the automatic build feature, also known as compile-on-save.

You can enable this option from the Project menu, by clicking Build Automatically menu item.

STEP 5 : Server configuration

Rebel need to where your application is running, since Mifos setup uses gradle task for building, deploying and starting the server. As we are not using standalone server to deploy and and run the server, In this case it is better run Rebel as javaagent.

To run jRebel as javaagent, download the current stable jRebel from here and extract the zip and locate the jrebel.jar, And then open the gradlew  (~\mifosng-provider\gradlew) file in edit mode and add -javaagent:[location of jRebel extracted]/jrebel/jrebel.jar -noverify to JAVA_OPTS

Example configuration: JAVA_OPTS="-Xms512m -Xmx512m -XX:PermSize=256m -XX:MaxPermSize=512m -javaagent:F:/utilities/jrebel/jrebel.jar -noverify" Save the file and restart the server with gradle command (i.e., gradlew clean tomcatRunWar)

STEP 6 : Confirm jRebel configuration is successful

When server is booting, first you will see jRebel logs (similar to below one) 

Yep, jRebel agent is started! Once server is started do some simple code change and wait for IDE to recompile that class and verify those changes are reflected on the running application (you may try as simple as logging "Welcome to Jetpack development with jRebel" message :)

Be sensible to jRebel, do not expect big bang changes will be reloaded without issue.

Think of below examples:

Example 1: If you modify the constructor, then do not expect jRebel will re-initialize the objects which present in JVM with new constructor, but newly initialized object will be from modified construct :)

Example 2: If add new attributes to a class, jRebel injects the that attribute to old objects also nut do not expect value for that attribute it will be just NULL.