Using Alternate Sites in Windows iHRIS

Overview

Version 3.1 of Offline iHRIS installs the default sites, but there is a command line argument that lets you specify an alternate directory to use for your site. This was added so that a country can reuse the installer and just specify an alternate site for whatever component they want. The idea is that the administator at a central office will specify their site with all of its customizations. Then they can just distribute to district offices a CD or a USB key with our installer and their site and a windows batch file to run the installer with the appropriate command line option, e.g:

      OfflineIHRIS-3.1.2 /components=ihrismanage /manageSITE=C:\manage_site /mysqlpass=something /silent

which will silently install the Offline iHRIS suite to C:\Program Files\ihris-suite and copy the contents of C:\manage_site to C:\Program Files\ihris-suite\sites\manage.

Since you are allowed to get as complicated as they want with your site module, the site can then load whatever data you need, e.g., all the positions, facilities, district information, etc. However, your site must be compatible with the standard wamp installation.

Making a Compatible Module

We will look at the changes needed to make the [Uganda customization ] of iHRIS Manage compatible for the windows installer. Let us assume that you already have a copy of these files sitting at c:\manage_site.

Changes to the site module file

The first thing we will need to do is to move the file c:\manage_site\iHRIS-Manage-UG.xml to c:\manage_site\ihris-manage-Wamp.xml.install``. Now, open the file c:\manage_site\ihris-manage-Wamp.xml.install with your favorite editor.

Change the site module name

We need to change the name of the site module to be the name of the site module that the WAMP install expects. We do this by changing the line:

   <I2CEConfiguration name='ihris-manage-site-ug'>

to:

   <I2CEConfiguration name='ihris-manage-site-wamp'>

and the line

   <Configuration name='ihris-manage-site-ug'>

to:

   <Configuration name='ihris-manage-site-wamp'>

Adding in paths=

Now we need to add in a paths to point to the ihris installation. Look for the lines

   <path name='modules'>
     <value>./modules</value> 
   </path>

and change them to:

   <path name='modules'>
     <value>./modules</value> 
     <value>WAMPROOTREGULAR\lib\ihris</value>
   </path>

Note the WAMPROOTREGULAR will be changed to the installation directory (C:\Program Files\ihris by default) by the installer.