Office Setup
Introduction
During the initial system configuration, an MFI can configure offices at the following levels. The hierarchy as well as the names of offices can be defined from the Define a new office link on the Admin tab. The middle three levels are optional.
- Head Office (HO)
- Regional Office (RO)
- Sub-Regional Office
- Area Office (AO)
- Branch Office (BO)
The head office (HO) is the main or parent office for an MFI and is automatically created by Mifos. Users can optionally create regional offices (RO), sub-regional offices, and area offices (AO), which exist primarily for managerial and administrative purposes. System users with appropriate permissions can create BOs, which are the only offices to which clients can belong. This is the level at which all client interactions take place. The office hierarchy is defined from the View office hierarchy link on the Admin tab.
Once an office is defined as an HO or BO, it cannot be changed into a different office type, such as regional office, sub-regional office or area office. However, offices of these three types can be changed to any other level except for HO.
Note: If an AO or HO wants to create clients and offer services to the clients, they need to create a “virtual branch” to which clients are then assigned.
Attributes for office creation
The rules and attributes for office creation, provided in the table below, are divided into two groups:
- Attributes defined during office creation, which can also be viewed/edited later on from the office details page.
- Attributes that can be viewed/edited only after office creation, from the office details page.
| s. no. | attribute name |
data type |
range | Default | Editable in Active/Inactive States | mandatory for "active" | description/notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Attributes During Office Creation |
|||||||
| 1. | Office Name | Alphanumeric | N/A | None | Yes | Yes | This is a unique name for this office within the MFI. |
| 2. | Office Short Name | Alphanumeric (Maximum four characters without space) | N/A | None | Yes | Yes | This short name is used for internal reports, UI pull-downs, etc. This must be unique within the MFI. |
| 3. | Office Type | Drop-down | The complete list includes: Branch Office; Area Office; Sub- Regional Office; Regional Office, and Head Office. Depending on the levels present in office hierarchy, this list changes | None | No | Yes | This is the name of the office level. This should be selected from the list. |
| 4. | Parent Office | Drop-down | The complete list includes: Area Office; Sub- Regional office; Regional Office; Head Office. Depending on the levels present in office hierarchy, and office type of the office being created, this list changes. | None | Yes | Yes | This is the name of the office this office reports to. This should be selected from a list of already defined offices. The HO does not have a parent office. For all other offices, offices above their level can be the parent office. For example, an HO, AO, or SO can be the parent office of a BO. Any offices above its level can be the parent office of an AO, based on the defined office hierarchy. |
| 5. | Address 1 | Alphanumeric | N/A | None | Yes | Yes | This is the address of the office |
| 6. | Address 2 | Alphanumeric | N/A | None | Yes | No | |
| 7. | Address 3 | Alphanumeric | N/A | None | Yes | No | |
| 8. | City | Drop-down | N/A | None | Yes | Yes | |
| 9. | State | Drop-down | N/A | None | Yes | Yes | |
| 10 | Country | Drop-down | N/A | None | Yes | Yes | |
| 11 | Postal Code | Alphanumeric | N/A | None | Yes | Yes | |
| 12 | Telephone | Alphanumeric | N/A | None | Yes | No | |
| 13 | Question Groups | Alphanumeric/Numeric/Date | N/A | N/A | Yes | No | For details, refer Question Groups. |
|
Attributes Viewable/Editable Only After Creation |
|||||||
| 14 | Status | Drop-down | Active; Inactive | Active | Yes | N/A |
HO cannot be made inactive. By default when an office is created it would be in Active state. The state can be modified later on from the Details page. |
| 15 | Office ID | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | Yes | This is the system generated ID for the office. |
Office states
By default, offices are created in Active state. New users can be assigned to offices only in Active state. Offices at all levels, except HO, can be made Inactive according to the following rules:
- A BO can be made Inactive only if all the clients, groups, and centers in the BO are in Closed or Cancelled states, and all users belonging to the BO are in Inactive state.
- Offices at other levels can be made Inactive only if all users belonging to the office are in Inactive state and all the child offices are in Inactive state.
- Offices can only be made active if the parent office is active.
- The status of an office can be changed from Active to Inactive, and vice versa, any number of times.
