Thanks Arpit for this summary, much appreciated!
Jacques
Le 30/08/2020 à 16:41, Arpit Mor a écrit :
Hi Devs,
We had a community meeting on 25th August, here is the link for the
recording of the meeting:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RSu998vsUSbnF4q_YL3MSMVpR3vql2SE/view?usp=sharing
Following members participated in the call:
• Aditya Sharma
• Arpit Mor
• Avnindra Sharma
• Mohammad Kathawala
• Mridul Pathak
• Nitish Mishra
• Pawan Verma
• Pranay Pandey
• Pritam Kute
• Ravi Lodhi
Following are the MOM details of the call:
• What is headless commerce: Decoupling of front end and backend using API
to expose core backend functionalities
• Why headless commerce is needed: Increasing number of frontend
touchpoints like apps, voice assistant, social media plugins, IoT Devices,
websites
• Benefits of headless commerce: Integration with frontend application will
be easy, economical and quick, maintenance of presentation layer will be
easy, more focus of user experience, decrease time to market of new features
• Using REST API implementation for headless commerce plugin
• Open source reference for Headless commerce: Vue Storefront, POP Commerce
• Challenges while implementing headless commerce
• Refactoring of ShoppingCart which is maintained in the session in OFBiz
will be needed
• Explore if there are any ways we can expose current shopping cart as API
• Evaluate order data model approach for working with shopping cart
• Replacing shopping cart with the order data model will be very
complicated as many other backend systems (like order entry workflows,
dropship, etc) depends on the shopping cart
• We can have two implementations of the shopping cart one version will be
object-oriented while the other version will be data-driven. We can enrich
the new data-driven version with time so that is support as many use cases
as object-oriented version
• If we plan to have data-driven version of the shopping cart we can also
have data-driven version of order entry. The user will have two different
versions to choose
• For the initial proposal of headless commerce we can use the OFBiz Wiki
and once we start developing the code we can prepare ASCII doc or use
Swagger UI for API documentation as well
• Prepare a Wiki page for the list of OFBiz eCommerce features that needs
to be exposed using API
• Prepare a Wiki page for defining the list of the API endpoint that needs
to be exposed to support eCommerce features
• Define MPV for headless commerce plugin using API endpoint doc and
Ecommerce feature doc
• Initially plan headless commerce implementation with customer profile
which is simple before jumping on to more complex functionalities like a
shopping cart
Following conclusions were drawn from the meeting:
• Prepare wiki pages for a list of eCommerce feature that OFBiz provides
and list of API endpoints that need to be exposed to achieve these features
• Define MPV using the above documents and initially plan headless commerce
implementation with customer profile
• Explore if there are any ways we can expose current shopping cart as API
without making many changes to it
• If it’s not possible to expose current shopping cart as API then inform
the community about it and ask their opinion on implementing a new
data-driven version of the cart while keeping object-oriented version as is
If anyone has any suggestions/questions regarding this implementation,
please let us know.
Thanks!!
On Mon, Aug 24, 2020 at 12:03 PM Arpit Mor <arpit....@hotwaxsystems.com>
wrote:
Hello Team,
So far we got the awesome replies that are giving us the clue of what we
can achieve through the Headless capabilities. Headless Commerce plugin
will definitely provide the high flexibility to use the existing eCommerce
business functions in the form of APIs.
There could be certain challenges while developing the APIs. Some of them
are indicated by Mridul and Deepak regarding ShoppingCart use that needs to
be worked upon. There could be many more but I am sure some of us (in OFBiz
community) already worked on a similar kind of solution and they will be
having much to share and guide this effort.
I propose to have a meeting to discuss this further, it will be great if
everyone interested could be part of the discussion. Please find below the
hangout meet details –
Date: 25th August 2020 6:00 PM IST, 8:30 AM EST, 1:30 PM GMT
Join Hangout Meet: meet.google.com/pca-mitq-cgs
Join By Phone: +1 860-391-6148 PIN: 206 921 601#
Thanks & Regards
Arpit Mor
On Sat, Aug 22, 2020 at 7:41 PM Chandan Khandelwal <
chandan.khandel...@hotwaxsystems.com> wrote:
Thanks Arpit for this initiative and +1 for the separate headless
commerce plugin.
Kind Regards,
Chandan Khandelwal
On Thu, Aug 20, 2020 at 2:46 PM Mridul Pathak <
mridul.pat...@hotwaxsystems.com> wrote:
+1. This is a great suggestion.
OFBiz has been mainly adopted for its business applications, eCommere
being one of the top ones. Though its tightly coupled nature doesn’t make
it well suited for the modern day web or mobile application development. It
definitely needs to be revamped to make it more relevant in this ever
changing world of technology.
Of course there will be some challenges that would need to be addressed
to be able to build a truly REST API but that opens up the path to the long
needed refactoring/reimplementation of some of these business processes and
objects, for example shopping cart.
It is high time that we start taking steps to move from somewhat
monolithic implementation towards a more micro service based approach and
eCommerce would be a great start. Headless capabilities are must and
dedicated plugins could be a great way to expose existing business
functions as REST APIs in the form of micro services without needing to
change the core implementation much. The newly introduced REST plugin would
play a major role in this journey.
Thanks.
Mridul Pathak
On 20-Aug-2020, at 12:40 PM, Deepak Dixit <dee...@apache.org> wrote:
Hi Arpit,
Sounds like a plan, As now ofbiz supports rest, so we can think of
headless
commerce.
I think you need to work on the B2C ordering process, as per current
implementation it's tightly coupled with ShoppingCart.
All the e-commerce related processes are bound with ShoppingCart and
OFBiz
use session to maintain shoppingCart.
Thanks & Regards
--
Deepak Dixit
ofbiz.apache.org
On Tue, Aug 18, 2020 at 8:52 PM Arpit Mor <arpit....@hotwaxsystems.com
wrote:
Hi Devs,
Hope everyone is safe and healthy amidst Covid-19 pandemic
Most of you might have heard about “Headless Commerce” or API first
commerce, but in case you haven’t, here is a brief summary of what
headless
commerce is and why it is the need of the hour.
What is Headless Commerce?
In its simplest form, headless commerce is the decoupling of the
presentation layer (frontend) of an eCommerce from backend such that
both
are able to function independently. This decoupling is achieved by
using
APIs to expose core backend functionalities.
Why Headless Commerce?
Today, customers are consuming context from various channels and
touch-points. Gone are the days when customers primarily needed to
visit a
website to buy online. With the rise of smartphones and the Internet
of
Things (IoT), customers can now shop from multiple channels like IoT
devices, progressive web apps (PWAs), social media platforms, mobile
apps,
smart assistants, smart TV, kiosks, and many more.
By decoupling frontend from backend - user interface, social commerce,
mobile apps, IoT, and many more – can be changed or updated
individually,
without interfering with backend. Data is available to separate
frontend
applications via API calls and the backend runs invisibly in the
background.
Benefits of Headless Commerce
Unlimited Channels and Touchpoints: With API first Headless Commerce,
integration with the new channels and touchpoints becomes easy,
economical,
and quick.
Innovation and Engaging User Experience: With traditional monolithic
Commerce, making user-centric changes to your website requires both a
front
and backend transformation. But with headless commerce, all the
frontend/app developers have to focus on is user experience,
personalization, and consistency without having to worry about
changes to
the backend.
Easy-to-Manage Integrations: Headless commerce not only includes
providing
API support to the frontend, but it also includes communication
between
various components (like ERP, WMS, OMS, CRM, POS, etc.) via APIs.
This will
reduce the complexity of the integration and its maintenance.
Business Agility & less time to market: Companies must be able to
respond
quickly to new market opportunities by constantly releasing new
features.
In traditional commerce, each component is tightly coupled with
another
which makes changes a complex task. But with Headless commerce
different
components communicate via APIs, which make changes to one component
easy
without having to worry about changes to other components.
I’d like to put forward a suggestion for developing a headless
commerce
plugin, to keep the competitive edge of OFBiz with the rapidly
changing
technological trends by exposing core backend functionalities via
APIs (The
REST capabilities are already added to OFBiz recently).
Looking forward to suggestions and feedback.
Thanks & Regards
Arpit Mor
--
Kind Regards,
Arpit Mor
Enterprise Quality Engineer
*HotWax Systems*
*Enterprise open source experts*
cell: +91-9098005893
office: 0731-409-3684
http://www.hotwaxsystems.com
