A Brief Guide to iHRIS Manage

To ensure that the right health care provider is in the right place with the right skills, countries require current, accurate data on human resources for health (HRH). A strong human resources information system (HRIS) enables health care leaders to quickly answer the key policy and management questions affecting service delivery. The Capacity Project has developed the iHRIS Suite, an integrated suite of free, Open Source HRIS solutions to supply health sector leaders with the information they need to assess HR problems, plan effective interventions and evaluate those interventions.

iHRIS Manage is the human resources management component of the iHRIS Suite. This system enables an HR department to collect, manage and analyze detailed information about health workers who are employed by a Ministry of Health, a health care facility such as a hospital or a private sector service delivery organization. While designed for managing the health workforce, iHRIS Manage may be readily adapted to other types of workforces and organizations.

Benefits of iHRIS Manage

iHRIS Manage enables an organization to design a comprehensive HR strategy and manage its workforce more effectively and efficiently, while reducing costs and improving data accuracy. Using the system, the HR professional can create a hierarchy of positions for an organization based on standard titles, job classifications and job descriptions, even spread over diverse geographic locations, offices and facilities. HR staff can solicit job applications for open positions, assign employees to fill positions and maintain a searchable database of all employees, their identifying information and their qualifications. Managers can track each employee's history with the organization, including positions held, salary histories and completed in-service trainings, and record the reason for departure when the employee leaves.

A decision-maker within the organization can analyze this data to answer key HR management and policy questions, such as:

  • Are employees deployed in positions that match their qualifications and education?
  • Are employees optimally deployed in locations to meet needs?
  • How many workers need to be recruited to fill anticipated vacancies?
  • Are pay rates equitable across similar jobs?
  • Are employees being promoted in alignment with competencies?
  • What are the reasons for employee attrition?

iHRIS Manage Features

iHRIS Manage consists of several modules designed to store and report employee information. Using modules as "building blocks" for the system makes it easier to add more features as needs change or to disable unnecessary features.

The following modules were released in version 3 of iHRIS Manage (currently available for download):

  • System Configuration: Install, enable and configure modules to customize the system and its features from a web-based configuration screen.
  • User Management: Create and manage password-protected user accounts to control access to the system. Accounts are role-based so that non-authorized user actions and data sets are hidden from the user.
  • Database Management: Design a standard data structure by creating lists of items to be tracked in the database such as geographical locations, offices and facilities.
  • Position Management: Create positions with standardized descriptions, codes and qualifications within the organizational structure and manage the hiring, transfer and promotion process.
  • Applicant Management: Record information about a job applicant (including educational history, work history and interview notes), and log hiring decisions.
  • Employee Management: Match an employee to a position, record important information about an employee and maintain a record of the employee's complete work history with the organization.
  • In-service Training Management: Track in-service trainings that employees have completed and assess competencies and continuing education credits earned from training.
  • Custom Reporting: Aggregate, analyze and export data in a variety of ways to answer key management and policy questions as well as generate staff lists and directories.

The following features ensure security and accuracy of data stored in the system:

  • Error checking and data correction by authorized data managers to ensure data integrity.
  • Automated logging of the username, date and time when data are entered or changed, for auditing purposes.
  • Permanent archiving of all data changes to ensure a consistent record of each employee's history with the organization.

We also released a Windows-based version of iHRIS Manage. This version is intended for use in areas that do not have a reliable Internet connection or where a single-user desktop version is needed, such as in a facility or local government office.

Additional features planned for subsequent releases include multilingual versions of iHRIS Manage, data import and export and integration with geographic information systems.

Related Systems

iHRIS Manage is extensible to the Capacity Project's other iHRIS products:

  • iHRIS Qualify, a certification and licensing management system
  • iHRIS Plan, workforce planning and modeling software.

Working together, the three components of the iHRIS Suite provide a powerful feedback loop for analyzing, planning and managing health workforce resources and needs.

For more detailed information about our products and our work, visit www.capacityproject.org/hris. To learn about our implementation process, please see A Brief Guide to the iHRIS Software Suite. To learn about our other software products, see our other one-page guides: