[workforce-planning] Announcing the Release of iHRIS Plan Version 1.0

[Shannon Turlington]

We are pleased to announce the release of Version 1.0 of iHRIS Plan, the
workforce modeling software. This initial version is intended to be a
proof-of-concept, in order to elicit feedback from you and in our pilot
test in Namibia next month.

You may access a live online demonstration of the software via our HRIS
Strengthening website:
http://www.capacityproject.org/hris/suite/ihris_plan.php. The
demonstration includes sample projections for a fictional country. We
invite you to log in to the demo site and play with creating
projections.

As a reminder, here were our goals for this version of the software:

1) Develop a proof-of-concept tool that will enable workforce planners
to generate projections quickly using the minimum dataset that will
yield meaningful results. 

2) Build the software on top of a simplified version of the WHO HRH
Workforce Projection Model (the John Dewdney version). 

3) Provide help, documentation and guidance inside the software to teach
basic workforce planning concepts to users. 

4) Create a simple, wizard-like user interface to simplify using
workforce projection models. 

5) Outputs should include graphical projections.

We believe we have accomplished all of these goals, although we would
like to greatly expand the help and guidance for the software in the
next version.

We welcome any feedback on this initial version. We will soon be
soliciting feedback from you in a more structured way, but please feel
free to send any initial comments directly to me or to this list. 

Following the pilot in Namibia and feedback from this group, we plan to
quickly release a Version 1.1 to fix any bugs or major issues that are
found. We intend to follow that up with a Version 2.0 in January 2009 to
include the highest priority features that are identified by this group.
We also hope to greatly expand the user help in Version 2.0.

Thank you for all of your contributions that helped us design and
develop this software. We look forward to your comments.


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Shannon Turlington
Senior Systems Development Manager
IntraHealth International/The Capacity Project
sturlington at intrahealth.org | 919-313-9131