E-mail
<html><head><title></title></head><body>The OpenMRS FormEntry module uses Microsoft® InfoPath™ to gather data for the repository.
Designing Forms
- The form hierarchy (or schema) created within the OpenMRS web application defines an XML Schema for data collection. Essentially, the form hierarchy defines all of the data points that will be (or could be) gathered on any particular form.
- When you download a form for the first time, the schema your have defined along with an XML template that follows the schema are injected into a starter form that contains the basic layout and plumbing for InfoPath. A downloaded XSN should be saved to disk and opened with InfoPath in design mode — e.g., right-click the XSN file and select "Design" from the context menu.
- During the design process, forms that are saved to disk are automatically altered internally by InfoPath. The [URL]s in the form are changed to point to the local file system.
- When you upload a form through the OpenMRS web application, the internal [URL]s are converted to the appropriate value based on the server's [URL] and the file's location on the server.
Submitting Forms
- When an InfoPath form is submitted to the server, an XML file containing the form data is actually posted to the server (via HTTP POST protocol, just as you were submitting a web-based form)
- The server places the XML file (unchanged) into the <tt>formentry_queue</tt> table
- A scheduled FormEntry queue processing task scans the <tt>formentry_queue</tt> table every 30 seconds and, when records are found, process queue entries. The XML is translated using the form's XSLT template to create an HL7 message to be placed in the <tt>hl7_in_queue</tt> (HL7 inbound message queue)
- If errors occur, the record is transferred to the <tt>formentry_error</tt> table and processing stops
- If no errors occur, the record is transferred to the <tt>formentry_archive</tt> table and an entry is made into the <tt>hl7_in_queue</tt> (HL7 inbound message queue)
- An HL7 processor task scans the <tt>hl7_in_queue</tt> table every 30 seconds and processes any entries that are found.
- The open source HL7API engine is used to parse the HL7 message and create the appropriate <tt>encounter</tt> and <tt>obs</tt> records.
- If any errors occur, they are logged in the <tt>hl7_in_error</tt> table; otherwise, the entry is moved to the <tt>hl7_in_archive</tt> table when processing is completed successfully.
In summary, form data are initially placed in the FormEntry queue, translated into HL7 messages in the HL7 inbound queue, and then parsed into the individual encounter and observational data points. Subsequently, all data operations (other than auditing FormEntry submissions) are performed on data from the <tt>encounter</tt> and <tt>obs</tt> tables.
By FormEntry 1.2, we should be translating order data into appropriate HL7 messages to follow the same general flow and generate data within the <tt>order</tt> tables.
Deployment Notes
- Be sure to set the formentry.infopath_server_url property at openmrs/admin/maintenance/globalProps.form
- As of Formentry version 2.6, the formentry_queue table is not used anymore, the default queue is done on the filesystem at $user/OpenMRS/formentry/queue
- When using FormEntry Module in a non-Windows environment (one that uses cabextract), do not adjust tomcat memory usage to greater than 4GB. See archive:Ticket # 1987.
</body></html>