Gleb

Mifos 2.5 (Samiha J) Ships!

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Once again a special thank you to Jakub Slawínski, Lukasz Chudy and the entire SolDevelo team for developing and proceeding over Samiha J. Mifos 2.5 is another big release that brings a strong mix of functional improvements, technical enhancements, tools for getting data into Mifos, and integrations with other systems.  Continuing with our 2012 goal of making Mifos 2.0 a functionally complete group lending MIS before we transition development over to Mifos X, Mifos 2.5 smooths out some of the core areas of the product and fills some of the major outstanding gaps.

View the release notes for a full list of all issues resolved.

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Gleb

Announcing the Samiha J Release

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Our issue and feature planning is complete and we’re ready to announce our upcoming Mifos release targeted for shipping the first week of September.  This release will be code-named Samiha J. Samiha J will provide support for daily loan repayments, ability to bulk edit existing client data, import transactions via spreadsheet, a configurable chart of accounts, and additional REST APIs

Samiha is a borrower at Al Majmoua, one of our largest Mifos users serving more than 31,000 clients in Beirut, Lebanon.  Samiha has been a borrower since 2009, taking out loans to expand her 15-year Mouneh production (food preservation) business. By expanding her business, Samiha has drastically improved the quality of life for her family through these loans – funding her husband’s medical treatment, her daughter’s education, and serving her handicapped son’s needs.

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Muciojad

FINA and MFC launch Mifos in Laos

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fina_mfcAnother one of the markets where Mifos has gone untouched is Laos.  FINA in coordination with the Microfinance Center of Laos is setting out to change that.  As of the Mifos 2.3 release, the software has been fully translated into Lao by FinA and MFC. Localizing Mifos into Lao is only one of the barriers that must be overcome. Kakhaber and his team are working to address the gaps to support the various forms of microfinance practiced by the MFIs, village banks, projects, and associations throughout Lao.  FINA is strongly committed to providing this region access to open source software and open access to financing resources for the poor.

To promote Mifos and help MFIs learn about the services available to them, the Mifos Lao language website has been launched at https://lao.mifos.biz. The website was designed by FINA and translated into Lao by MFC. Please visit the Mifos Lao portal for a tailored experience to learn about how FINA can support your Mifos needs in Laos.

Gleb

Mifos X API – Call for Feedback

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We are embarking on an exciting time as we advance the next generation of the Mifos platform, Mifos X.

Keith and John Woodlock have released the first version and published and documented the full API.

We’re seeking the feedback and questions of any past, current, and interested developers or for anyone who has ever wanted to build anything on top of Mifos. As we build out the next generation Mifos platform, we’re designing it be easy to extend and we want to know if that’s true with what we’ve shipped so far.

This API will be the foundation of Mifos as an extensible platform that can easily be extended to support the delivery of financial services to the poor. We are hosting two meetings this week to discuss and gather feedback on the API and the vision for Mifos X.

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Ollie Janders

Quipu Technology leads first Mifos Deployment in Latin America

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Latin America is home to one of the most vibrant and mature microfinance sectors in the world. Many MFIs could benefit from our technology and we could learn from the many pioneering MFIs throughout the region. Unfortunately because of language barriers in both our documentation and virtual community collaboration, the Mifos presence in Latin America has been limited to date. That is beginning to change as Quipu Technology and other service providers expand throughout the region.

Quipu Technology recently went live with the first Mifos deployment in Latin America at Fundación Inversión y Cooperación.  Under the umbrella of “Qloud Inclusion” concept for an “Integral Vision of Microfinance for Social Inclusion”, Mr. Oswaldo Lechuga, General Manager of Quipu, is looking to expand across Peru and deliver technology and consulting services throughout Latin America – we’ll detail their plans in a future post with more on Quipu Technology. Oswaldo Lechuga and Milagros Mendoza recounted their experiences deploying Mifos at Fundación I y C in the questions below.

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Muciojad

Quipu Technology leads first Mifos Deployment in Latin America

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Latin America is home to one of the most vibrant and mature microfinance sectors in the world. Many MFIs could benefit from our technology and we could learn from the many pioneering MFIs throughout the region. Unfortunately because of language barriers in both our documentation and virtual community collaboration, the Mifos presence in Latin America has been limited to date. That is beginning to change as Quipu Technology and other service providers expand throughout the region.

Quipu Technology recently went live with the first Mifos deployment in Latin America at Fundación Inversión y Cooperación.  Under the umbrella of “Qloud Inclusion” concept for an “Integral Vision of Microfinance for Social Inclusion”, Mr. Oswaldo Lechuga, General Manager of Quipu, is looking to expand across Peru and deliver technology and consulting services throughout Latin America – we’ll detail their plans in a future post with more on Quipu Technology. Oswaldo Lechuga and Milagros Mendoza recounted their experiences deploying Mifos at Fundación I y C in the questions below.

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Gleb

Mifos 2.4 (Vinolia I) is Live!

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Since the community has transitioned in leadership from Grameen Foundation to the Community for Open Source Microfinance, we’ve been pushing full speed ahead on development driven by user feedback. Mifos 2.4 (Vinolia I) directly responds to this feedback, aiming to solve the major pains felt by the community and to take Mifos one step further in ease of use and going hand-in-hand with your business processes.

SolDevelo has been the guiding force behind ongoing development and once again has done a stellar job, shipping another timely release, stewarding community contributions, and developing long-requested new features.  When we’ve asked you what causes the most pain in Mifos – the answer is almost always reporting or accounting integration.  This release addresses those critical gaps by embedding Pentaho reporting directly in Mifos and including an integrated module for simple accounting support. Mifos 2.4 also smoothes out other core functionality through streamlining mobile money integration with KopoKopo, strengthening the loan workflow, increasing efficiency through support for transfers, improve handling of GLIM loans, and better control over historical transactions. Here’s a quick list of the major features with a detailed overview and screenshots of each feature.

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Muciojad

Outreach on the Ground – May 2012

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Head over to the COSM blog for this past month’s Outreach on the Ground blog series. For May, we’re featuring stories exploring the theme of product and service development.  MFIs have a myriad ways towards delivering financial services to the poor.  We’d like to share details on the approaches of various Mifos users:

  • Housing and Water Purifier Loans at Grameen Koota
  • Transitioning to the MwaK program at Nuru
  • A Closer Look at Lumana – Rainmakers interview with Sammie Rayner
  • Missions of Hope International funding entrepreneurship through coffee
Muciojad

Specialist Spotlight: Hugo Technologies

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This month we want to bring attention to the strong work that Hugo Technologies is doing in the Mifos community. They are supporting Mifos customers and building new functionality not only in India but in multiple continents around the world. This post is part of the regular blog series, Specialist Spotlight, on the COSM blog that will shine the light on some of our top Specialists. Not only do we want to recognize them for their accomplishments, we want others to learn from the approach they’ve taken to promote and implement Mifos. Mifos Specialists are one of the most crucial links in our community – they are the driving force that is promoting and supporting Mifos worldwide.

Head over to the COSM blog to read about Hugo Technologies and their global push.

Gleb

Star Contributor of the Month – Chetan Bekkinkeri

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For the month of March 2012 and in honor of National Volunteer Week, we’re recognizing Chetan Bekkinkeri who has been leading product management and requirements gathering for our community over the past several months. For the past couple years Chetan has been part of the SunGard team contributing to Mifos in various ways; when we asked him to step into the role as product management lead for the community he did so with great energy. Keep contributing so we can shine the spotlight on you!

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