OpenMRS Documentation Guide

Thank you for your interest in the OpenMRS Community! We have created this guide for people who are curious about becoming Technical Writers in our community. This guide gathers the collective wisdom of the Write the Docs community around best practices for creating software documentation. If you find yourself eager to get started, we've also included some practical advice on specific steps you can take right away to start doing documentation work with the OpenMRS community.

 Types of Pages/templates On the OpenMRS Wiki

• Project pages
• Meeting Pages
• Meeting conventions  (all meetings minutes on ether-pad, posted on meeting announcement)
• Release Pages ( Sprints are captured in JIRA and links provided on the release page)
• Road maps
• Technical documentation 
• Processes like  Road map, Release Management and Creating a New Project
     

A beginner’s guide to writing documentation

For Whom to write 

First, you need to ask yourself who you’re writing for in the community. There are a number of consumers who visit our resources 

• Users: (curious, government officials, students, and implementers) these are people who want to use the software and are more concerned with the user experience.
• Developers: (students, professional volunteers etc.) are people who want to contribute back to your code.

Where do I find information on current documentation

A lot of people visit Openmrs documentation to try to figure out what exactly the project is all about. Someone will mention it, or they will google a phrase randomly. You should explain what your project does and why it exists.  This is where to find openmrs documentation OpenMRS Wiki, OpenMRS website, GitBook and GitHub

How to get support

• Create a poll on Talk and tag in some members 
• Reach out to members directly through IRC, bearing in mind the chat tips on this  link https://wiki.openmrs.org/display/IRC/OpenMRS+Chat+Tips
• Join the Documentation Team call every Tuesday at 4pm - 5pm EAT

Starting off

How to get started

These are the steps to follow when getting started as a Technical Writer in the OpenMRS Community:

• Create an OpenMRS ID. Your OpenMRS ID defines your username in the OpenMRS community and provides access to community resources, like the wiki, Issues tracker, and the OpenMRS Talk forums.
• Create a new case at OpenMRS Helpdesk stating you’d like to contribute and would like edit access to Wiki and JIRA. Because of spammers, we must require this extra step before you can edit the wiki pages or make any changes to JIRA tickets.
• Join discussions at OpenMRS Talk for more updates and clarification if need arises.
• Then introduce yourself to the community. You can learn more about how to use Talk by reading this introduction and FAQ.
• Join the Documentation Team forum every Tuesday between 4 – 5pm EAT / 1- 2pm UTC on this link https://www.uberconference.com/openmrs
• Meet other community members through real-time chat in Telegram (telegram.me/openmrs) or IRC (irc.openmrs.org)