HTML Form Entry Module and REST

sukavi · May 14, 2017, 11:20pm

How can I populate the fields in a form created using the html form entry module by REST web services?

pascal · May 14, 2017, 11:32pm

I don’t think this is possible, and I’m not sure the use case makes sense. Can you describe what you are trying to do? You might just be able to post to the obs resource.

EDIT: The form resource might also be useful.

sukavi · May 15, 2017, 12:26am

I have created a html form with a few fields to fill in when a patient visit ends. Just seen that the fields in the form are saved as encounters. So I guess I can use the REST Api to save them as encounters.

pascal · May 15, 2017, 1:00am

In general, most patient data is stored as observations (obs) wrapped in encounters. Here are some resources about the OpenMRS information and data models:

mogoodrich · May 15, 2017, 1:43pm

Not sure if this is helpful with your question at all, but:

The HTML Form Entry module pre-dates the REST API, so it just used a typical HTML Form Submission process to create and edit encounters and obs.

It would be cool, in the future, if HTML Form Entry could submit form data RESTful, but this currently isn’t on the roadmap.

Take care, Mark

naveed1228 · May 30, 2017, 5:34am

Hi Mark! What is the basic difference between form and html form entry.Is there any possibility that html entry form will support Rest API in near future?

mogoodrich · June 5, 2017, 4:55pm

Naveed,

It’s possible, but it’s not on the roadmap on this time.

Take care, Mark

mogoodrich · June 5, 2017, 5:00pm

Also, for reference, the Html Form Entry UI module provides a way to RESTfully fetch the HTML that the Html Form Entry module generates, but not the the individual obs, etc. The fragment to fetch this can be found here… see the “getAsHtml” method:

github.com

openmrs/openmrs-module-htmlformentryui/blob/master/omod/src/main/java/org/openmrs/module/htmlformentryui/fragment/controller/htmlform/ViewEncounterWithHtmlFormFragmentController.java#L74




    model.addAttribute("encounterDatetime", encounter.getEncounterDatetime());
    model.addAttribute("formattedEncounterDatetime", ui.formatDatetimePretty(encounter.getEncounterDatetime()));


    FormEntrySession fes = getFormEntrySession(htmlFormEntryService, formService, resourceFactory, encounter, hf,
            definitionUiResource, ui, sessionContext, httpSession, visitWrapper, featureToggleProperties);


    generateHtmlAndAddToModel(model, fes);
}


public SimpleObject getAsHtml(@SpringBean("htmlFormEntryService") HtmlFormEntryService htmlFormEntryService,
                              @SpringBean("formService") FormService formService,
                              @SpringBean("coreResourceFactory") ResourceFactory resourceFactory,
                              @SpringBean EmrApiProperties emrApiProperties,
                              @SpringBean DispositionService dispositionService,
                              @SpringBean FeatureToggleProperties featureToggleProperties,
                              @RequestParam("encounterId") Encounter encounter,
                              @RequestParam(value = "htmlFormId", required = false) HtmlForm hf,
                              @RequestParam(value = "definitionUiResource", required = false) String definitionUiResource,
                              UiUtils ui,
                              UiSessionContext sessionContext,

danfuterman · January 26, 2018, 1:38pm

GSoC 2018 Project/Mentor Brainstorming

It will be nice to be able to POST to html forms created with the html form entry module via REST. This has been raised a few times though I’m not very sure about their use cases but my use case is to be able to build an offline app for OpenMRS. I have been working on an offline app for a client. It’s an OWA. They needed to be able to register patients when they are having connection issues and did not feel like the android client was the right path for them. Making patient registration work offline was not much of challenge. The challenge for me was and still is doing form entry offline. What I’ve done is design these forms and created a REST endpoint for them and every POST adds a new row to some table depending on which form is submitted. This works fine within my app but the issue is that the forms submitted with offline app are not compatible with those created with html module. Which means when internet comes back, they can’t proceed with their normal workflow as the forms submitted offline are not treated as html forms and won’t show up on patient dashboard.

On @ivange94’s suggestion, this has been added as a project idea for GSoC 2018:

RESTful Submission of Forms in HTML Form Entry

If there’s any interest in mentoring this project, or adding to the project objectives, please feel free to update the page. The objectives could use some work to try define what this could look like for a 6-8 week student project.

owais.hussain · January 29, 2018, 7:21am

@danfuterman your use case makes perfect sense. I think this should be mentored. If there isn’t someone already mentoring, then I’ll be more than happy to.

danfuterman · January 29, 2018, 5:00pm

Thanks for volunteering @owais.hussain, that would be great! I’ve listed you as the primary mentor on the project page - please feel free to add more detail and/or expand on the objectives.

mogoodrich · January 31, 2018, 2:17pm

This would be very valuable… I don’t know if I will have time to “offiically” mentor but keep in the loop and I will hopefully be able to do some initial design work as the project approaches.

Take care, Mark

danfuterman · February 1, 2018, 8:51pm

Thanks @mogoodrich, will keep you in the loop as things progress. Otherwise, it could be valuable to have you listed as the backup mentor, if your schedule allows.

mogoodrich · February 2, 2018, 10:48pm

Generally the backup mentor doesn’t have much of a time commitment, but I don’t know if I’d have the time to fill in as the primary mentor if the primary ends up being unavailable, so I guess that means I shouldn’t be the backup?

danfuterman · February 3, 2018, 2:43am

Good point, thanks

owais.hussain · February 5, 2018, 5:38pm

As primary mentor, I will be able to spend 4-8 hours a week. Not sure if that’s sufficient.

mogoodrich · February 6, 2018, 7:37pm

I don’t remember 100%, but I think 4 hours is the required commitment.

danfuterman · February 12, 2018, 6:58pm

@owais.hussain That sounds (more than) sufficient, the expectation for mentors is a minimum of 4 hours a week, and there’s usually support from other mentors when needed.

piyush9620 · February 13, 2018, 8:04am

Hello @owais.hussain, i am interested to work on this feature. i believe now all the form fields are sent to the backend when the form is submitted. What i understand is we need to create a CRUD endpoints which can be accessible from any where. and we are talking about this https://demo.openmrs.org/openmrs/module/htmlformentry/htmlForms.list , am i right? also about the use case of html-form-entry: i think it might be helpful if someone wants to enter patient details some other way rather than by just simply using the Reference application ui, did i get it right?

owais.hussain · February 13, 2018, 2:41pm

Hi Piyush,

Glad to know you’re interested in this project.

You’re right. The objective is to make this module to be made usable RESTfully, and build an Open Web App as proof of concept. To get a technical overview, please visit here.