On Apr 16, 2009, at 4:04 AM, Jacques Le Roux wrote:
Hi David,
I just read the 3 1st chapters this morning and I think I found an
error.
Should the sentence
In other words, if you build the whole solution yourself the 20%
of the functionality that is custom to your business will
likely require about 20% of the total solution cost.
not be
In other words, if you build the whole solution yourself the 20% of
the functionality that is custom to your business will likely
require about 80% of the total solution cost.
?
I have changed it, if you feel I'm wrong please revert. I will
continue to check all the document tomorrow...
I'm not sure which document you're referring to exactly, but...
It IS wrong to change that. The original is correct. The scenario for
that sentence is where the company builds EVERYTHING themselves. In
that case the 80/20 rule wouldn't apply because they're starting from
scratch.
-David
BTW I think we could use this information somewhere (even if of
course it's not perfect, like anything on earth anyway)
I think about this page (OFBiz for me, cost related sections), and
the OFBiz site main page as well
https://www.ohloh.net/p/162#cocomo
https://www.ohloh.net/wiki/project_codebase_cost
Jacques
From: "Jacques Le Roux" <[email protected]>
Done at
http://docs.ofbiz.org/x/hgM#IsOFBizforMe-SomequestionsandanwserscollectedonuserML
I have also added links from Table of Contents, and removed the line
Written By: David E. Jones, [mailto:[email protected]]
Please feel free to re-add if you think it should stay
Jacques
From: "Jacques Le Roux" <[email protected]>
Hi David,
I'd see this detailled explanation in a wiki main ENDUSER page
like "Some questions and answers about OFBiz to help you make your
choice"
Jacques
From: "David E Jones" <[email protected]>
On Mar 31, 2009, at 2:05 AM, [email protected] wrote:
Hi colleagues,
I am writing to the list to request information concerning
OFBiz. I am
doing a eCommerce Software comparative between the main
commercial and
open source products.
I have achieved to find information about client segmentation
(use of
groups), campaign managment (through Marketing Manager and
promotions),
stocks management (Facility Manager), product catalog (Product
Manager),
order management (using Order Manager application), content
management
(through Content Manager)...
However, there are other features I have not been able to
document. I
would be very grateful if you could send me details about the
following
features:
- Reports & analytics capabilities
OFBiz currently has a few dozens pre-written reports OOTB, and
more can be added using the OFBiz tools, or an external
reporting
tool (which is still very common, ie companies that use
something like Crystal Reports or Business Objects will use that
with
their OFBiz applications). OFBiz has tools in the framework to
facilitate building of user interfaces, and these same tools
are
used for building reports. This provides a high level of
efficiency, and allows developers to use the same tools they are
used
to... and in some cases scripts and other things can even be
reused in reports.
OFBiz also includes some BI infrastructure to support defining
and populating star schemas, which can then be used for ad-hoc
or
pre- written reports. A limited star schema exists, and work is
going on to extend it.
- Integration and Interoperability (SOA Architecture, Web
Services offered)
The OFBiz logic layer is itself a Service-Oriented tool, and all
primary logic in OFBiz is implemented as services. Many of
these services can be exposed externally as web services
automatically, and the more complex ones can be exposed as web
services
(or call web services) through web services code that maps to
them.
- Usability (for final customers, and administrators)
Usability is very subjective, but I'll try to answer in a helpful
way.
OFBiz is often customized for larger organizations, and in those
cases the best usability is achieved by analyzing processes
and
then building user interfaces to directly support those
processes. This results in something specific to end-user
requirements
and is far better than any OOTB user interface that even the
best designers could create without specific requirements.
That is the main design goal behind OFBiz: easy customization
since the only way to get a really good UI is to do so based on
very specific requirements... and those requirements tend to
change dramatically between organizations, in many cases even
organizations in the same industry.
The OOTB user interfaces are primarily meant for easy reuse in
custom user interfaces, so they mostly avoid automating any
specific process and are instead meant to fit into any process
desired. However, using the OOTB interfaces is pretty common
and
is usually best done by documenting where and how to do common
tasks according to the processes of the organization. In other
words, instead of creating a custom UI when you are on a tighter
budget you can simply document how to use the OOTB
interfaces,
and while not usually excellent this way it is quite adequate
for smaller organizations and gives them more functionality and
ability to automate things than they would have in most
software, allowing them to avoid large numbers of spreadsheets and
such. Overall this results in tools to keep track and automate
organizational information that are far more efficient and
usable
that a hodge-podge of various systems.
- Personalization potential
Personalization is an extremely general term, broadly meaning
behavior or data that changes according to the user. There are
hundreds of features in OFBiz ecommerce and the OFBiz back-end
(manager) apps that would fit this description.
Please feel free to send over more details and I (or others) will
be happy to comment on them.
- Multidevice sites available?
It is pretty easy to build sites targeted at different devices,
and there are some available OOTB. If by "device" you mean a
specific UI then the hhfacility component is a good example. If
by "device" you mean specific hardware control (like cash
drawers and CC scanners), then the pos component (point-of-sale)
has some good stuff.
- Accessibility considered?
In ecommerce the templates are often changed so much that
accessibility ends up more in the hands of the designers and
developers who customize the system (so make sure you have a
good service provider!). The OOTB ecommerce templates do a pretty
good job of this by using styled text instead of images, alt-
text on images, and so on.
For the OOTB back-end functionality, accessibility is considered,
and to be maintained it must be considered in customizations.
These are primarily web-based applications and to improve
accessibility are very text-heavy, etc.
Thank you for your help in advance.
No problem, best wishes in finding a solution that meets your
needs.
-David
