diff --git a/.travis.yml b/.travis.yml
index 97116b057e..82f424d0f3 100644
--- a/.travis.yml
+++ b/.travis.yml
@@ -12,10 +12,9 @@ node_js:
 before_script:
   - npm install -g gulp bower mocha
   - bower install
-  - mysql -u root -e "CREATE DATABASE bhima;"
-  - mysql -u root -e "CREATE USER 'bhima'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'HISCongo2013';"
+  - mysql -u root -e "CREATE DATABASE bhima_test;"
+  - mysql -u root -e "CREATE USER 'bhima_test'@'%' IDENTIFIED BY 'HISCongo2013';"
   - mysql -u root -e "GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO 'bhima'@'localhost' WITH GRANT OPTION;"
-  - mysql -u root bhima < server/models/schema.sql
 
 cache:
   directories:
@@ -29,3 +28,6 @@ git:
 # make sure we aren't caching verbose output from NPM
 before_cache:
   - rm -f npm-debug.log
+
+services:
+  - mysql
diff --git a/sh/travis.sh b/sh/travis.sh
index cbebc0deef..5b2d65bb99 100755
--- a/sh/travis.sh
+++ b/sh/travis.sh
@@ -3,14 +3,42 @@
 # This file runs some lint checks using Travis CI
 
 # lint the client
-echo "Linting the client ..."
+echo "[LOG] Linting the client ..."
 gulp lint
 
 # build the application
-echo "Building the application ..."
+echo "[LOG] Building the application ..."
 gulp build
 
 # lint the server
-echo "Linting the server ..."
+echo "[LOG] Linting the server ..."
 jshint server/{controllers,lib,config}/*.js
 jshint server/controllers/{categorised,medical,reports,stock,finance}/*.js
+
+# Instructions for Travis to build the MySQL database
+# NOTE - the bhima user is already defined in the .travis.yml
+
+echo "[LOG] Building the database ..."
+
+user="bhima"
+pw="HISCongo2013"
+
+# build the test database
+mysql -u $user -p$pw -e "DROP DATABASE IF EXISTS bhima_test;"
+mysql -u $user -p$pw -e "CREATE DATABASE bhima_test CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;"
+mysql -u $user -p$pw bhima_test < server/models/schema.sql
+mysql -u $user -p$pw bhima_test < server/models/test/data.sql
+mysql -u $user -p$pw bhima_test < server/models/updates/synt.sql
+
+echo "[LOG] Building and running server in development mode ..."
+
+# build and start the server
+npm run dev &
+
+# make sure we have enough time for the server to start
+sleep 10
+
+echo "[LOG] Running integration tests."
+
+# run the tests
+mocha server/test/api/