Department Scoped Preferences - hmislk/hmis GitHub Wiki

Department Preferences

Overview

Department Preferences allow individual departments to customize HMIS features without affecting other departments or the entire institution. Each department can configure settings specific to their workflows and operational needs.

Key Concept: Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, departments with different requirements (pharmacy, nursing, finance, etc.) can enable or disable features independently.

Who Uses Department Preferences?

  • Department Heads/Administrators — Configure preferences for their department
  • Department Staff — Benefit from customized workflows configured by their department head
  • System Administrators — Understand scope of department preferences vs. application-wide settings

How Are They Different from Application-Wide Config?

Aspect Application Settings Department Preferences
Scope Applies to entire institution Applies only to one department
Managed by System administrators (Admin privilege) Department head/admin (Admin privilege)
Access /admin/application_configuration /admin/department_preferences
Use Case Global rules, email gateways, system behavior Department-specific workflows, feature toggles

Available Department Preferences

Pharmacy Department

Allow Disposal Issue to Same Department

Setting Key: Pharmacy - Allow Issue to Same Department

Default: Disabled (false)

What it does:

  • When enabled, staff in a pharmacy can create disposal issues within their own department
  • When disabled (default), staff can only create disposal issues to other departments

Why use this?

  • Some departments need to internally track disposal/waste management
  • Other departments prefer strict inter-departmental transfers for audit trails

Related: See Pharmacy Disposal Issue — Same Department

Managing Department Preferences

See Department Preferences — Administrator Guide for step-by-step instructions on accessing and modifying preferences.

Technical Details

Storage: Department preferences are stored in the ConfigOption table with:

  • scope = DEPARTMENT
  • department = the department entity reference
  • optionKey = preference name (e.g., "Pharmacy - Allow Issue to Same Department")
  • optionValue = "true" or "false"

Code: Preferences are queried and managed via ConfigOptionApplicationController methods:

  • getBooleanValueByKeyForDepartment(key, department, defaultValue)
  • setBooleanValueByKeyForDepartment(key, department, value)

Access Control: Modifying department preferences requires the Admin privilege on your user account.

Future Preferences

This framework supports adding new department-specific preferences as needed:

  • Finance department — payment method restrictions
  • Nursing — specific admission workflows
  • OPD — consultation room assignments

Submit requests to your system administrator for new preferences.

See Also: