Getting Started

What is VLMIS?

VLMIS is a Vaccine and Logistics Management Information System: a platform for running a vaccine supply chain end to end. It records vaccine arrivals at the central store, manages stock across a hierarchy of stores, handles distribution down to health facilities and returns back up, tracks issuing and wastage at the point of use, and reports on all of it.

VLMIS runs on top of DHIS2

VLMIS does not stand alone: it is tightly linked to a DHIS2 instance, and working knowledge of DHIS2 is crucial for administrators.

• Facilities come from DHIS2. VLMIS imports the DHIS2 organisation unit tree and administrators build the supply hierarchy from it; a facility must exist in DHIS2 before it can exist in VLMIS. See Maintenance.
• User identities come from DHIS2. Accounts are created from a DHIS2 username, with names and contact details fetched from the DHIS2 API. See Users.

If a facility or a person is missing in VLMIS, the fix usually starts in DHIS2, followed by a refresh in VLMIS. The two systems also talk in the other direction: every night VLMIS sends its stock figures back to DHIS2 for national-level analytics. See DHIS2 Integration for the full picture.

Verified vaccines with UNICEF TRVST

Below DHIS2, VLMIS integrates UNICEF TRVST, the global product verification service. Scanning a vaccine box's GS1 barcode with a Zebra scanner checks the product's authenticity against TRVST and, at the same time, pre-fills batch numbers, GTINs, and expiry dates that would otherwise be typed by hand. Less manual work, fewer typos, and confidence that what arrived is genuine. See TRVST & ScanBridge for how the scanning pipeline works.

Signing in

1. Open the VLMIS login page.
2. Sign in with your DHIS2 username and password: VLMIS verifies your credentials against DHIS2 itself, so there is no separate VLMIS password. Your account must first have been created in VLMIS by an administrator.
3. You land on a dashboard scoped to your store and your role.

Roles

What you can see and do depends on your role and your store's place in the hierarchy:

• CentralUser: records vaccine arrivals and batches at the central store.
• storeManager / storeKeeper: the operational roles; they run requisitions, distributions, issuing, inventory, and returns for their store.
• Administrator: manages users, master data, the store hierarchy, and settings. Only central store accounts can hold this role.
• ViewOnly: read-only access through View Mode.

One account can combine several roles.

What to expect in this manual

Each page of this manual covers one module of the application the same way: who can access it, what its tabs do, step by step how to work with it, exactly when stock moves, and the real error messages you may hit with what to do about them.

• Operations: arrivals, distributions, requisition, issuing, inventory, and returns; the daily work of moving stock.
• Administration: users, master data, the store hierarchy, and system settings.
• Analysis: reports, view mode, and analytics dashboards.
• TRVST & ScanBridge: barcode scanning and UNICEF product verification.
• DHIS2 Integration: everything VLMIS takes from and sends back to DHIS2.
• FAQ: quick answers to common questions.