Software Architecture

Introduction

About RUSH

The Kenya Rural Urban Sanitation and Hygiene (RUSH) platform is an advanced and comprehensive real-time monitoring and information system owned by the Ministry of Health in Kenya. This platform is designed to streamline and enhance the management of sanitation and hygiene data at both county and national levels.

One of the notable capabilities of the RUSH platform is its ability to handle large amounts of data efficiently. It supports Excel bulk upload, allowing users to upload data in bulk from Excel spreadsheets, which can significantly expedite the data entry process. Additionally, the platform features a web-form batch submission functionality, enabling users to submit multiple data entries through a user-friendly web-based interface.

To ensure data accuracy and reliability, the RUSH platform incorporates a data review and approval hierarchy between administrative levels. This means that data entered into the system undergoes a rigorous review process, where it is checked and approved by designated personnel at various administrative levels. This hierarchical approach ensures that data is thoroughly reviewed and validated before being utilized for analysis and decision-making.

Another significant aspect of the RUSH platform is its visualization capabilities. The platform follows the Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) standard and the RUSH (Rural Urban Sanitation) standard when presenting data visually. By adhering to these standards, the platform ensures consistency and comparability in data visualization across different geographical areas and time periods. The visualizations generated by the platform help in understanding trends, patterns, and gaps in sanitation and hygiene metrics, providing valuable insights for policymakers, stakeholders, and researchers.

The purpose of RUSH Platform

The purpose of the Kenya Rural Urban Sanitation and Hygiene (RUSH) platform is to support effective monitoring, management, and improvement of sanitation and hygiene practices in Kenya. It serves as a comprehensive information system owned by the Ministry of Health, aiming to address the challenges and gaps in sanitation and hygiene by providing reliable data, analysis, and visualization tools.

Data Collection and Aggregation: The RUSH platform serves as a centralized repository for collecting and aggregating both quantitative and qualitative data related to sanitation and hygiene practices. It allows for data collection at the county and national levels, ensuring comprehensive coverage and representation of diverse geographical areas.
Real-Time Monitoring: The platform operates in real-time, enabling timely monitoring of sanitation and hygiene indicators. This real-time monitoring helps identify emerging trends, gaps, and challenges, allowing for prompt intervention and decision-making.
Data Analysis and Insights: The RUSH platform facilitates data analysis, allowing policymakers and stakeholders to gain valuable insights into the state of sanitation and hygiene practices across different regions and demographics. By analyzing the collected data, trends, patterns, and areas of improvement can be identified, contributing to evidence-based decision-making and targeted interventions.
Reporting and Visualization: The platform enables the generation of reports and visualizations based on the collected data. The reports provide a comprehensive overview of the sanitation and hygiene situation, highlighting key indicators, challenges, and progress. The visualizations, following the JMP and RUSH standards, make complex data easily understandable, aiding in communication and knowledge dissemination.
Decision Support: The RUSH platform acts as a decision support system, providing policymakers, health officials, and other stakeholders with the necessary information to formulate policies, design interventions, and allocate resources effectively. The data-driven insights and visualizations empower decision-makers to prioritize areas for improvement, target resources where they are most needed, and track progress over time.
Collaboration and Accountability: The platform enhances collaboration between different administrative levels and stakeholders involved in sanitation and hygiene management. It establishes a data review and approval hierarchy, ensuring the accuracy and reliability of data. By promoting transparency and accountability, the platform facilitates coordinated efforts towards achieving national and international targets related to sanitation and hygiene.
Continuous Improvement: The RUSH platform can be continually updated and enhanced to align with evolving needs and priorities. As new data sources, indicators, or best practices emerge, the platform can be adapted to incorporate these changes, ensuring that it remains a relevant and effective tool for monitoring and managing sanitation and hygiene in Kenya.

By leveraging technology and real-time data, the platform aims to contribute to better health outcomes, improved living conditions, and sustainable development in both rural and urban areas of the country.

Functional Overview

The platform offers an array of functionalities that streamline data management and analysis. It supports Excel bulk upload, enabling rapid and efficient data entry from Excel spreadsheets. Additionally, the web-form batch submission feature provides a user-friendly interface for submitting multiple data entries, simplifying the data collection process.

To ensure data accuracy and reliability, the RUSH platform incorporates a robust data review and approval hierarchy between administrative levels. This hierarchical approach guarantees that data is thoroughly reviewed, validated, and approved by designated personnel, enhancing the credibility and quality of the information within the system.

The RUSH platform promotes collaboration and accountability by fostering engagement between different administrative levels and stakeholders involved in sanitation and hygiene management. It acts as a decision support system, providing policymakers and health officials with the necessary information to formulate policies, design interventions, and allocate resources effectively. Additionally, the platform encourages continuous improvement by being adaptable to changing needs and priorities, accommodating new data sources, indicators, and best practices.

the RUSH platform's functional overview highlights its role as a comprehensive system for data collection, analysis, reporting, and visualization.

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Design Considerations

The design of the RUSH platform incorporates several key considerations to ensure its effectiveness in addressing the challenges and requirements of managing sanitation and hygiene practices in Kenya. Some of the design considerations of the RUSH platform include

Data Aggregation and Integration

The RUSH platform is designed to aggregate both quantitative and qualitative data from various sources and administrative levels. It integrates data from county and national levels, allowing for comprehensive and unified data management. This design consideration enables a holistic view of sanitation and hygiene practices across different geographical areas.

Real-time Monitoring and Reporting

The platform emphasizes real-time monitoring of sanitation and hygiene indicators. It provides timely updates on data collection, analysis, and reporting, enabling prompt interventions and decision-making. This design consideration ensures that stakeholders have access to the most up-to-date information to address emerging challenges effectively.

User-Friendly Interface

The RUSH platform features a user-friendly interface that enhances usability and accessibility. It is designed with intuitive navigation, clear visual cues, and streamlined workflows. This consideration enables users of varying technical backgrounds to easily navigate the platform and perform tasks efficiently.

Role-Based Access and Permissions

The platform employs role-based access control, assigning different levels of access and permissions based on user roles and administrative levels. This design consideration ensures data security, privacy, and appropriate data management by allowing users to access only the functionalities and data relevant to their roles and responsibilities.

Data Validation and Approval Hierarchy

The RUSH platform incorporates a data validation process and approval hierarchy to ensure data accuracy and reliability. Appropriate users at different administrative levels review, validate, and approve the data, maintaining data integrity throughout the platform.

Standardized Visualizations

The platform follows standardized visualization practices, including the Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) standard and the RUSH standard. This design consideration ensures consistency and comparability in data visualizations, allowing for meaningful insights and effective communication of information across different regions and time periods.

Scalability and Adaptability

The design of the RUSH platform takes into account its scalability and adaptability. It is built to accommodate a growing volume of data and changing requirements over time. This consideration ensures that the platform can evolve and meet the changing needs of sanitation and hygiene management in Kenya.

Integration of Existing Systems

The design of the RUSH platform takes into consideration the integration of existing systems and data sources. It aims to leverage and integrate with other relevant platforms, databases, and information systems to facilitate data exchange, interoperability, and collaboration.

These design considerations are aimed at creating a robust, user-friendly, and scalable platform that effectively supports data management, analysis, reporting, and decision-making for improved sanitation and hygiene practices in Kenya.

Architecture

User Roles

The RUSH platform offers a range of user roles, each with its own set of capabilities and responsibilities. The Super Admin holds the highest level of administrative authority at the national level and oversees the overall operation of the platform. County Admins have the responsibility of managing the platform within their respective counties, while Data Approvers review and approve data at the sub-county level. Data Entry Staff are responsible for collecting data at the ward level, ensuring that information is captured accurately at the grassroots level. Additionally, Institutional Users have access to view and download data from all counties, facilitating research and analysis.

These user roles, aligned with administrative levels, contribute to the effective management of sanitation and hygiene data. By assigning specific roles and access privileges, the RUSH platform ensures that data is collected, validated, and utilized appropriately. This promotes accountability, collaboration, and evidence-based decision-making, leading to improved sanitation and hygiene practices throughout Kenya.

In the following sections is the detailed descriptions of each user role, outlining their specific capabilities, page access, administration levels, and responsibilities. Understanding the functions and responsibilities of these user roles is vital to effectively utilizing the RUSH platform and harnessing its full potential for transforming sanitation and hygiene practices in Kenya.

Super Admin: The Super Admin holds the highest level of administrative authority in the RUSH platform at the national level. They have access to all functionalities and pages, including user management, data control, visualization, questionnaires, approvals, and reports. As the overall national administrator, their responsibilities encompass assigning roles to County Admins, managing the organization's settings, and overseeing the platform's operations. The Super Admin plays a crucial role in ensuring the smooth functioning and effective utilization of the RUSH platform nationwide.
County Admin: County Admins are responsible for overseeing the RUSH platform at the county level. They possess extensive access to functionalities and pages, including user management, data control, visualization, questionnaires, approvals, and reports. Their primary role involves managing and coordinating the platform's operations within their respective counties. This includes assigning roles to Sub County RUSH Admins (Approvers) operating at the sub-county level, who play a crucial role in data management and approval. County Admins act as key facilitators in ensuring efficient and accurate data collection and analysis within their counties.
Data Approver: Data Approvers hold the responsibility of giving final approval to the data submitted from their respective sub-counties. Operating at the sub-county administrative level, they possess access to functionalities and pages such as data control, visualization, approvals, questionnaires, and reports. Data Approvers play a critical role in reviewing and validating data submitted by Data Entry Staff from their areas of jurisdiction. They have the authority to edit or return data for correction, ensuring data accuracy and reliability within their assigned sub-counties.
Data Entry Staff: Data Entry Staff operate at the ward administrative level and are responsible for collecting data from the communities or villages assigned to them. They have access to functionalities and pages related to data entry, form submissions, data control, visualization, and reports. Data Entry Staff play an essential role in gathering accurate and comprehensive data at the grassroots level, ensuring that the RUSH platform captures information directly from the targeted areas. Their diligent data collection efforts contribute to the overall effectiveness and reliability of the sanitation and hygiene data within the platform.
Institutional User: Institutional Users have access to functionalities and pages such as profile management, visualization, and reports. They can view and download data from all counties within the RUSH platform. Institutional Users do not possess administrative privileges but play a vital role in accessing and utilizing the data for research, analysis, and decision-making purposes. Their ability to access data from multiple administrative levels ensures comprehensive insights and contributes to informed actions and interventions in the field of sanitation and hygiene.

Administrative Levels

The administrative levels within the RUSH platform are of utmost importance as they serve as a fundamental backbone for various components within the system. These administrative levels, provided by the Ministry of Health, play a crucial role in user management, data organization, and the establishment of approval hierarchy rules. As such, this master list of administrative levels stands as a critical component that needs to be accurately provided by the Ministry of Health.

The administrative levels serve as a key reference for assigning roles and access privileges to users. Users are associated with specific administrative levels based on their responsibilities and jurisdiction. The administrative levels determine the data organization structure, allowing for effective data aggregation, review, and approval processes. The approval hierarchy rules are established based on these administrative levels, ensuring proper authorization and validation of submitted data. Additionally this allows for effective data visualization, filtering, and analysis based on administrative boundaries.

The administrative levels consist of distinct administrative names, level names, and unique identifiers, allowing for easy identification and filtering of data points within the platform.

National: The National level represents the highest administrative level within the RUSH platform. It encompasses the entire country of Kenya and serves as the top-level jurisdiction for data management, coordination, and decision-making.
County: The County level represents the second administrative level within the RUSH platform. It corresponds to the various counties in Kenya and acts as a primary jurisdiction for data collection, management, and implementation of sanitation and hygiene initiatives.
Sub-County: The Sub-County level represents the third administrative level within the RUSH platform. It corresponds to the sub-county divisions within each county and serves as a localized jurisdiction for data collection, review, and approval processes.
Ward: The Ward level represents the fourth administrative level within the RUSH platform. It corresponds to the wards or smaller subdivisions within each sub-county. Wards act as the grassroots level of data collection, ensuring that data is collected at the most localized and community-specific level.

Class Diagrams

Sequence Diagrams

Data Flow Diagrams

Database Design

User Interface Design

Error Handling

Security Considerations

The RUSH platform incorporates multiple security measures to safeguard data, protect user privacy, and ensure secure operations across its Docker containers and cloud-based infrastructure. Here are the key security considerations in the platform:

Container Security (Docker)

The Docker containers, including the Back-end and Worker containers, are designed with security in mind. The containers are configured to follow best practices such as using official base images, regularly updating dependencies, and employing secure container runtime configurations. These measures reduce the risk of vulnerabilities and unauthorized access within the containerized environment.

Access Control and Authentication

The platform implements robust access control mechanisms to ensure that only authorized users can access the system and its functionalities. User authentication, such as through the use of JWT, is employed to verify user identities and grant appropriate access based on roles and permissions. This helps prevent unauthorized access to sensitive data and functionalities.

Network Security (NGINX)

The Frontend container, powered by NGINX, helps enforce security measures at the network level. NGINX can be configured to handle SSL/TLS encryption, protecting data in transit between users and the platform. It can also serve as a reverse proxy, effectively managing incoming traffic and providing an additional layer of security to prevent potential attacks.

Secure Database Storage (Cloud-SQL)

The RUSH platform utilizes Cloud-SQL for secure database storage. Cloud-SQL offers built-in security features, including encryption at rest and transit, role-based access control, and regular security updates. These measures help protect the integrity and confidentiality of the platform's data stored in the Cloud-SQL database.

Secure File Storage (Cloud Storage Bucket)

The platform leverages Cloud Storage Bucket for secure file storage. Cloud Storage provides robust access controls, including fine-grained permissions, encryption, and auditing capabilities. This ensures that data files, such as uploaded documents, are securely stored and protected from unauthorized access.

Security Monitoring and Auditing

The platform implements security monitoring and auditing tools to detect and respond to potential incidents. System logs and activity records are regularly reviewed to identify any suspicious activities or breaches. Additionally, periodic security audits are conducted to assess and address potential vulnerabilities proactively.

User Education and Awareness

The platform emphasizes user education and awareness regarding security best practices. Users are encouraged to follow strong password policies, enable multi-factor authentication where available, and remain vigilant against phishing or social engineering attempts. By promoting user security awareness, the platform strengthens overall security posture.

Performance Considerations

The RUSH platform has several performance considerations, particularly in relation to visualization, excel data download, data upload, and validation. While these functionalities are crucial for effective data management and analysis, they can pose potential performance challenges due to the volume and complexity of the data involved. The platform takes these considerations into account to optimize performance and ensure a smooth user experience. Here are the key performance considerations:

Visualization

Visualizations are powerful tools for data analysis and communication. However, generating complex visualizations from large datasets can be computationally intensive and may lead to performance issues. The RUSH platform employs optimization techniques, such as efficient data retrieval, caching, and rendering algorithms, to enhance the speed and responsiveness of visualizations. It strives to strike a balance between visual richness and performance to provide users with meaningful insights without sacrificing usability.

Excel Data Download

The ability to download data in Excel format is essential for users to perform in-depth analysis and reporting. However, large datasets or complex queries can result in long download times and increased server load. To mitigate this, the RUSH platform optimizes the data retrieval and export process, employing techniques such as data compression and efficient file generation. It aims to minimize download times and ensure a seamless user experience when exporting data to Excel.

Data Upload and Validation

Data upload and validation involve processing and verifying large volumes of data. This process can be time-consuming, particularly when dealing with extensive datasets or complex validation rules. The RUSH platform optimizes data upload and validation processes through efficient algorithms and parallel processing techniques. It strives to expedite the data entry process while maintaining data integrity and accuracy.

To ensure optimal performance, the RUSH platform continuously monitors system performance, identifies bottlenecks, and implements performance optimizations as needed. This may involve infrastructure scaling, database optimizations, query optimizations, and caching strategies. Regular maintenance and updates are conducted to keep the platform running smoothly and efficiently.

It is worth noting that the platform's performance can also be influenced by factors such as network connectivity, hardware capabilities, and user behavior. To mitigate these factors, the RUSH platform provides guidelines and best practices for users to optimize their own data handling processes and network connectivity.