Data model glossary

Some terminology in Iaso come from DHIS2, some from ODK which mean that it can be a bit confusing. We will highlight some equivalences that might help you.

This is not (yet) the complete Data Model, but here are the main concepts/model in Iaso:

  • Iaso is multi tenant. Tenant are called and represented by the model Account. It represents roughly one client org or country. It also represents the natural limit of right for a user.
  • Each Django's User has a linked Iaso Profile that link it to an Account and store extra parameters for the user.
  • Each tenant can have multiple Project. Projects are linked to one android version App via the app_id. We use the link to control what a user can see from that app.
  • DHIS2 is a standard server application and web UI in the industry to handle Health Data. Iaso can import and export data (forms and org unit) to it.
  • OrgUnit (Organizational Unit) is a Node of the GeoRegistry tree. e.g a particular Country, City or Hospital. each belonging to each other via a parent relationship.
  • They can have a type OrgUnitType e.g. Country, City, Hospital
  • they can belong to multiple Group, e.g. Urban Region or Campaign 2017
  • DHIS2 has the concept of Group but not Type so when importing from a DHIS2 Instance all the type will be Unknown and OrgUnit will belong to group like Clinic
  • GroupSet are Group of group. Used when we export Group to DHIS2
  • OrgUnit may have a position in space, it can be an area, the geom field is then used, or just a Point, the location field is then used.
    • It's technically possible to have both
    • a OrgUnit may have no geographical info
    • a OrgUnit may geographically be outside its parent.
  • DataSource links OrgUnit and Group imported from the same source, e.g a DHIS2 instance, a CSV or a GeoPackage.
  • A source_ref on the imported instance is used to keep the reference from the original source, so we can match it again in the future (when updating the import or exporting it back)
  • SourceVersion is used to keep each version separated. e.g each time we import from DHIS2 we create a new version.
  • OrgUnit (for their parent) and Group should only reference other OrgUnit and Group in the same version. (This is not enforced everywhere yet)
  • Task are asynchronous function that will be run by a background worker in production. eg: Importing Data from DHIS2. see Worker section below for more info.
  • Form is the definition of a Form (list of question and their presentation).
    • The model contain the metadata, the actual definition is done in a XSLForm as an attached file.
    • Form are linked to one or more Project. This is used to know which Form are presented in the Mobile App.
    • Form can have multiple versions
  • Instance or Form instance is the Submission of a form. A form that has actually been filed by a user.
    • Instance can be GeoTagged and/or linked to a OrgUnit
    • Note: We are moving to use Submission everywhere in the UI, but it is still in progress. please submit PR.
    • Submission cannot be done via the Iaso UI itself but through Enketo or the Mobile App.
  • APIImport are used to log some request from the mobile app so we can replay them in case of error. See vector_control wiki
  • audit.Modification are used to keep a history of modification on some models (mainly orgunit). See audit wiki
  • Link are used to match two OrgUnit (in different sources or not) that should be the same in the real world. Links have a confidence score indicating how much we trust that the two OrgUnit are actually the same.

They are usually generated via AlgorithmRun, or the matching is done in a Notebook and uploaded via the API.