Introduction and Overview

iHRIS makes use of multiple tables in a relational database (MySQL) to store its data in. Database Structure describes several of the tables used by iHRIS, in particular the user table and the tables used for audited form data changes.

Modules

This tutorial describes the iHRIS Module Structure. An iHRIS module is a collection of various types of "code" by the features that they provide to the system. Modules serve as the building blocks of iHRIS and are grouped according to the functionality they provide.

Modules Lists are links to the various modules used by iHRIS.

File Search Paths

The File Search Utility lets you easily categorize different files and make them available to iHRIS. It also allows you to copy a file from the core iHRIS Suite into your site customization to make changes there, without having to modify the core iHRIS software. Most often this is used to customize HTML templates or CSS files.

Configuration (Magic) Data

Magic Data is a mechanism intended to handle dynamic site-level configuration data. It is the basis of much of the functionality provided by the IntraHealth Informatics Core Engine (I2CE), including how pages are served and how custom reports are made.

Magic data provides a central mechanism for configuring iHRIS. This magic data is stored in a database table. Due to frequent access of the data, a caching mechanism is needed to keep the database load down. For this reason, several magic data storage mechanisms have been created.

The Swiss Magic editors hierarchically edit and view the configuration data. This article describes the structure of the Swiss Magic PHP classes.

This tutorial explains how to how to migrate forms from previous versions that were stored in the entry table and move them to magic data storage, as well as update any mapped fields that referenced the values.

Tasks and Roles

iHRIS uses a task- and role-based security mechanism to limit access to various parts of the system. A user is assigned a role, and a role is a collection of tasks that the role can perform. This article describes how roles and tasks are defined in Magic Data and used by the iHRIS system.

• List of all tasks available in the iHRIS system
• List of all roles available in the iHRIS system

Pages and Templates

This tutorial describes the role of Pages and Templates in iHRIS. A page handles each URL request. A template is used to access the HTML elements of a page.

• List of HTML Templates available in the iHRIS system

Forms and Classes

Records are stored in the IntraHealth Informatics Core Engine (I2CE) in forms, which consist of collection fields. You can think of a form as table in a database and a field as a column of that table. This article describes the Forms and Form Classes used.

The form lists show how data are related in iHRIS. This is a list of all the classes available in the iHRIS Suite with links to the API.

The iHRIS system uses a level of abstraction to separate how data is stored in the system versus how it is organized and relates to each other. A form (and its fields) provides the organization. The data storage is handled by various form storage mechanisms.

Form Fields

This article describes the main data types, or form fields, used by iHRIS. These fields are defined in Magic Data; this page describes the details of how they should be defined.

• How to add new forms and fields
• How to add custom data validations for forms and fields
• How to customize the headers for a form field by updating the magic data associated with the headers

This page describes how to define and customize forms and fields by defining them in Magic Data.

This article describes the structure of how various limits are applied to forms.

Form Caches

The iHRIS software caches data saved in the database (or XML file or LDAP server) for faster access and the ability to create indices. These form caches are used, for example, to populate reports and drop-down lists.

Cached forms are used to save forms to a consistent format for exporting and for generating custom reports more quickly. There are a few settings you can override in your site configuration file to change this behavior. You can also see how to turn off background processes if you wish to not have the form caches update automatically.

If you've imported data multiple times, the form cache will include some of that old data. You can completely recreate all the form caches.

Miscellaneous Tutorials

This tutorial describes how to create "standardized" or "official" PDF printed forms based on the data in the system. This could be useful for generating training certificates, generating form letters on a position change, or validating who works in a facility or district.

One feature in iHRIS is the ability to look at recently changed forms. You can customize the output of the recent changes display by creating a hook in your module. This will allow you to append any output you desire to the recent form output.

Link facilities and departments: In this tutorial, we will discuss how customize iHRIS Manage so that, when editing a position, the departments displayed are dependent on the facility chosen.

When you create a custom site, you may be adding new forms and fields, in which case, the data maps for iHRIS Manage and Qualify are no longer accurate. You will want to generate your own form map.

Here is a note on Automatically Generated Integers.

Reports

Custom Reporting -- This page collects the various articles that describe how to use the Custom Reporting system in iHRIS. This includes detailed documentation about the structure of custom reports and their use in advanced iHRIS features, as well as several tutorials on creating particular reports.

Cron Jobs - Running functions on a regular basis with iHRIS.

We also have additional tutorials for Developers or Implementers.