All,
Just a note to let you know that we recently released an eCommerce site.
Check out www.purityproducts.com.
Launched a couple of weeks ago, to very little fanfare, this is a complete
replacement of an existing site, with no upgrades to the UI or basic
eCommerce structure. A straight conversion to OFBiz as a platform change to
allow for future changes, enhancements and growth.
This is on the back of a very successful ERP release last year for the same
customer, our first OFBiz implementation. Challenging, to say the least, but
very successful in terms of laying the same platform for the back-end
processes, with a specific focus on a very intense and customized CSR layer.
Of interest to some, particularly given recent posts about community-driven
OFBiz and various discussions about the lack of process and documentation I
thought I'd share our experience of using OFBiz during the last 2 years.
First a little background on Salmon LLC that I think is relevant:
Our background:
* we have released open-source framework software in the past
* we have developed many custom J2EE solutions
* we have adopted other ERP solutions prior to OFBiz (Compiere /
Adempiere - before bailing because it was not really open-source)
* we have adopted other packaged solutions in other business areas
* we're a technical company, with business savvy
* we can figure stuff out
OFBiz, the good:
* nice architecture, we were generally impressed with the service
based approach
* the services work. For us, OFBiz is a starting point, the services
are available and they work!
* the community support is amazing; the commitment of everyone
monitoring this thread and providing responses is commendable
OFBiz, the not so good:
* UI ootb: not the best. BUT, we understand the objective (framework)
and we understand the ERP domain to realize that OFBiz is a starting point;
and a pretty good one
* architecture: next level of concepts was harder to grasp, as you dig
more into the code the more confusing it can get; the lack of good coding
standards can make it very confusing as to what exactly is the best practice
(particularly when looking at "older" code)
* the devil is in the details, and there are a lot of them; be
prepared to make mistakes, having to figure stuff out for yourself, lots of
trial and error
* community support: when it gets a little tricky it's much more
difficult to explain the issue and get a good community response. Perfectly
understandable but this is where the risk comes into play . we spent
countless hours on some very tricky payment processing issues (credit, card,
returns, refunds) and inventory processing
* what a pity that the documentation cannot encapsulate all the
knowledge from the user-group. Yes, I know we can search through email
postings. Yes, I know that the documentation is improving. But there are
still problems in this area, perhaps I can share one specific example:
One specific example:
* Product A is put with product B in order to offer product C
* Product A and B may (or may not) have inventory associated
* When assembled into C, this can also carry inventory
* When the item is returned, it may be put back into inventory as
product C, OR may be disassembled into products A and B
* Fairly straight forward and not uncommon, and I'm sure that OFBiz
can handle this but we couldn't find ANY document that would clearly explain
product configuration and it's impact on other areas of the ERP solution
* I remember being amazed that a thorough product configuration guide
was not available that would explain all the product attributes and a high
level description of the impact throughout OFBiz. What's more important is
that if you guess wrong then you can cause all sorts of problems
* BTW: since this was a while ago I did review the current
documentation, the only item I saw that described setting up a product was
the "Business Setup Guide (for users)", the content for Product Setup is
pasted below. The best looking resource is I understand that there may be
more documentation available that is more appropriate . BUT, if I'm new to
OFBiz and cannot find something decent after a few minutes then I'll move on
very quickly
So, where are we now? Well, I think we can safely say that we are OFBiz
adopters, it took much sweat and tears to get to where we are now but I
consider my team to be well versed, near expert, with ERP and eCommerce
implementations using OFBiz. I'm very comfortable offering this service to
our clients, and very comfortable with our ability to deliver scalable ERP
and eCommerce solutions.
HOWEVER, our first implementation was very stressful. And in hindsight, very
risky. Remember that ERP solutions are "bet your business" propositions . we
cannot make mistakes. If we do, we jeopardize our business and the business
of our clients. In our first implementation we are processing 5000 orders
per day. For the first 3-4 weeks of go-live the background jobs were taking
more than 24 hours to run (build orders from a recurring order list, process
orders for fulfillment, manage incoming inventory, process credit card
transactions, PLUS any new orders for that day). Saturdays and Sundays were
used to make-up the time while we figured out solutions! As you can imagine
we had a very stressful time working with our client, tuning our processes
and working with our client to keep OFBiz as the ERP solution. I'm happy to
report that everything is perfectly fine now, but this is not the way we
like to do business.
I consider my team to be extremely committed, technically excellent and
business savvy. I wonder how small companies or small integrators adopt
OFBiz without these resources?
Conclusion:
* As I re-read my comments and gather my thoughts it basically boils
down to documentation
* We did not have the luxury of being able to hire a certified "guru"
to help out (we did have David Jones spend a week with us initially and used
a couple of committers for specific tasks) but there is generally no
"corporate" option to ensure success
* Best practices / coding techniques etc are exposed because of the
open-source nature of OFBiz; it's probably better written than other
proprietary software; this is not an essential issue
* So everything hinges on community support. Lots of it is required
for early adopters and we see these postings every day. For folks that have
moved into more complex areas (like we were 12 months ago), the community
support is not enough-the issues are too complex
* As an open-source project, without formal corporate backing, the key
is documentation, not just technical. And I suspect that we need more than
Oracle and SAP because of the community nature of the project
Nick Rosser
Salmon LLC
Product Setup
Congratulations, you are finally to the point where you can start setting up
products....
To create a Product follow a process similar to those described for other
things, like Categories.
1. Go to the main page of the Catalog Manager and click on the "Create
New Product" link.
2. If you fill in an ID it will make sure that ID is valid, and if so
it will use that one. If you specify no ID it will generate one.
3. Set an Internal Name that makes it easy for you to recognize the
product. This name will be shown in the admin tools, but not to the
customer.
4. Note that if you are using the UPS or USPS or other online rate
estimation utilities then you must have values in the "Weight" and "Weight
Uom Id" fields.
5. Submit the form to create the product.
Add Content to the New Product
1. Click on the "Content" tab/button for the product you just created.
Here you can setup text and images for your product.
2. You will see some forms at the top for administering managed content
(ie from the Content Manager) with the product. For more advanced product
related content needs use this, but for more common and simple needs, this
can be more difficult to administer and slower at run time.
3. Near the bottom of the page is a section labeled "Override Simple
Fields". Here you will typically want to specify a Product Name, Product
Description, and Long Description. If you have images to associate with the
product, you can specify their locations here, or upload them. Note that
there are default locations for the images (can be quickly set by clicking
on the "[.jpg]" or "[.gif]" buttons). We recommend using these locations,
but of course you can put your images anywhere. These can be an absolute
URL, or will be relative to the current server address, or the content URL
prefix if one is specified in the url.properties file.
Add Prices to the Product
1. Product pricing in OFBiz is very flexible. There are two main
aspects to it: Prices and Price Rules. This is independent of promotions,
which are applied after the price calculation is done.
2. For basic operation you should have at least one type of price setup
for each product: the Default Price. This is the price that is used when no
rules apply.
3. To add a Default Price go to the Prices tab for the Product, and use
the form at the bottom of the page.
1. The Product Price Type Id should be "Default Price", the Currency
Uom Id should be whatever currency the price is in, and the Product Store
Group Id can be left as Not Applicable, unless you are setting up multiple
groups of stores that have different pricing.
2. The From Date can be now or in the future, if you want the price to
take effect in the future. The Thru Date is optional, but can be used to
specify that this particular price expires at a certain date and time. Note
that if there are multiple prices of the same type, etc that are active at
once, it will use the one with the most recent From Date. This is useful
when you want a temporary price to override the normal "Default" price of
the product.
4. If you are using price rules or may do so in the future you may also
want to enter information such as the List Price and the Average Cost which
are often used in the price calculations.
5. Note that if a Minimum Price is set the price will never be less
than that. So, even if the Default Price is to 2.00 and the Minimum Price is
set to 3.00, then 3.00 will be used as the calculated price. The Maximum
Price setting works the same way as the ceiling for the price.
Make sure to put each product in a browse category, and in the All Products
category so that it can be searched for, viewed, and purchased in your
catalog.
Expert Recommendation: These are the basics, but there is a lot more
information about products that you can, or may need to, setup. We recommend
reviewing the more detailed documentation or engaging the services of an
experienced consulting to help you through this.
Advanced Catalog Setup: Features, Promotions, Price Rules, Keyword
Thesaurus, Features for special functionality or parametric search,
Moderated (or unmoderated) Product Reviews, Configurable and Manufactured
Products, Virtual and Variant Products, Inventory/Facility/Location
settings, and so on
See the end-user documentation space for details on how to set these things
up and what they mean. Also see this for more advanced options for Products,
Categories, and so on.
