mSupply mobile is now free and open source!
We’re thrilled to announce that mSupply mobile is now open source!
mSupply mobile is our modern mobile application that runs on an Android tablet, providing electronic medical inventory. It can be used by rural facilities even when there is no internet, and will synchronise with a central mSupply server when internet is available.
The key features include:
• Receiving and issuing goods with automatic inventory adjustments
• Stocktaking
• Forecasts of required stock based on usage
• Ordering stock from suppliers
• Viewing stock on hand
Open source means the app is free for anyone, anywhere to use, so the cost barrier is removed for any country or organisation wanting to improve their medical logistics system. We focused heavily on both usability and robustness when building mSupply Mobile, and truly believe in the benefit it can bring to pharmacists everywhere.
Open source also means that the source code is available to view, fork, and customise. This opens up a world of possibility; developers can improve the app, integrate it with other systems, or customise it for specific users – all with no restrictions or cost!
We are also very pleased to contribute to the open source community. We regularly depend on open source projects, and are incredibly grateful for that. Through building mSupply Mobile, we have contributed to five other open source projects, and created eight new open source libraries of our own! These provide valuable code that can be used by other developers to create their own apps.
mSupply mobile is already deployed in two countries (in SE Asia and the Pacific), where it has been running successfully since July 2016. Further deployments are planned in Nigeria and Kiribati, and we expect more countries will soon look to roll it out. It is easily localised to use in other languages, and currently supports English and Tetum.
Our mSupply desktop application (not open source [yet]) includes a web dashboard that can show data synchronised from mSupply mobile. An example dashboard is at outpost.msupply.org
Now it’s over to you, the software- and international-development communities. The license is MIT – you are free to use the application, or to branch and modify the code to use in your own project. The Github repository for mSupply mobile contains all the code you need. We look forward to seeing where mSupply Mobile goes next!
This project is a partnership with Beyond Essential Systems and has been enabled by the generous support of the Australian Government’s Dept for Foreign Affairs and Trade, through their innovationXchange.
Here’s a picture from the first group training in Dili in 2016
And from our initial on-site training in mid-2016. As of March 2017 these sites are using mSupply mobile every day for recording transactions, doing stocktakes, placing orders and receiving incoming goods
Where is mSupply?
mSupply is primarily used in low- and middle-income countries around the world. You can find us in more than 35 countries.