Hello Vadim, Please see my comments inline.
On Sep 2, 2010, at 11:49 PM, Vadim Eisenberg wrote: > > Hello OfBiz developers, > > My name is Vadim Eisenberg and I work at IBM Research - Haifa, on the > UniversAAL project - http://universaal.org/. It is a consortium European > project. Its goal is to create a platform for applications, services and > devices for Ambient Assisted Living, that is a kind of "Smart Home" for > senior citizens. As part of the platform, we - several software developers > - have to develop an e-commerce site - uStore > http://universaal.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=9&Itemid=21 > . This site would be a one-stop-shop for software, services and devices > for Ambient Assisted Living. > > We consider using OfBiz for implementation of uStore. Thats great idea. > > I would like to ask you several questions about the features we want to > implement. I would be glad to hear any information you can tell me about > how hard could it be for us to implement these features. Please note that > we have no prior experience with OfBiz. +1 for David's word here: "OFBiz is a large project. A good developer can learn to work effectively with the framework with a couple of weeks of training and a couple of months of hands-on development. However, even a good developer will have a hard time picking up all of the data structures and business logic even after many months of study, and realistically since most people don't or can't do that, it usually takes years of work experience and even then they'll only have knowledge of the parts of the system that have had the opportunity to work with." So if you start learning OFBiz by your self and try to get things implement your self (without consulting experienced OFBiz developer), I think it would take more time instead of saving your time. > > Any your thoughts, intuition, experience, advice about OfBiz/business > programming are welcome. > > In particular, the following information would help us very much : > How much work should be done by us in order to implement all the > features that follow (Person/Months, Person/Years, for skilled OfBiz > developers/general software engineers). Which part would be to use > existing "extension" mechanisms of OfBiz and which part would be > actually changing the OfBiz code ? Here your intuition/experience from > related projects is welcome, we do not need exact numbers, just a > ballpark. > How much time the general software developers have to learn about OfBiz > and how skilled in OfBiz they should become in order to implement these > features > > E-commerce website features: > Using e-commerce site for selling software (such as AppStore of iPhone) > and downloadable files in general (video, presentations of courses > etc.). Here the issue is to manage links where the bought files could be > downloaded. The idea is to prevent a situation in which buyers would buy > a software application, receive a link to it for downloading and share > the link afterwards with anybody they want, so anybody would be able to > download the application without paying for it. > Using e-commerce site for selling services (human services and others) > Extending e-commerce site with general widgets, such as calendar, clock, > map, a widget for downloading files, etc., and integrating the widgets > with the OfBiz > Selling digital products like mentioned above are supported in OFBiz OOTB. Managing links is also supported , It may require few customization to address very specific requirement as per the customer. > Integration with other websites/services: > Integrating an e-commerce website with another (non-OfBiz backed) site - > adding possibility for sellers to add products to the e-commerce site > via the other site, to see customer feedback provided on the e-commerce > site via the other site > Integrating an e-commerce website with another (possibly non-OfBiz) > e-commerce website, such as eBay/Amazon. What are the current > possibilities of integration with eBay ? > Integrating an e-commerce website with post/delivery services/sites Support for integrating OFBiz with Ebay is already supported in OOTB. > > Adding advanced features: > Adding support for signing business contracts between service consumers > and service providers, between providers of different services etc. via > the e-commerce site This can be achieved. Will require more proper modeling and designing in OFBiz. > Adding support for applying capability/requirement model, such as > JSR-124, (for example for matching between customer's requirements and > capabilities of software, devices and services). The customer or > software agent on behalf of the customer could provide his requirements > as part of his account information, and the e-commerce solution would > match between the products (according to their capabilities) and the > requirements of the customers. > Has OfBiz a recommendation engine (providing recommendations to a user > based on his activity - searches, purchases, reviews etc.) ? If no, how > hard would it be to add it ? I didn't got what you mean by term "recommendation engine" here. But as per my understanding, I would say OFBiz e-commerce has features to recommend users buy products based on : 1) largest selling product in site on in particular category 2) Cross sell products ( complementary products are presented to a customer after the customer has demonstrated a desire and willingness to purchase a particular product ) 3) Up sell products (An up-sell offer is typically for a better version of the same product or service you are considering) 4) Most viewed product or service Also we can add more recommendation criteria > Can the OfBiz-based e-commerce web site be presented by browsers of > smart phones ? How hard would it be to enable it ? Yes it can be, HTML should be styling should be written accordingly. > Changing search/recommendations of OfBiz to be based on the requirements > of the customer > Changing search/recommendations of OfBiz to be based on the geolocation > of the customer > Adding support for customization of products/services and changes in the > prices according to the customization during the purchase process Can be achieved, but will require custom work . Data model supported > Adding support for a composition solution of hardware, software and > human services (bundles, kits). A seller could compose a new product by > combining several existing products Can be achieved by using existing data model. Data model supported. > Adding support for manual approval of products by site administrators > before submission of the products to the e-commerce site Available in OFBiz OOTB . > Adding support for managing versions of the software applications that > are sold on the e-commerce website > > Sorry for so many questions and sorry if some of them are out of context. None of the question is out of context Vadim . All the questions make sense and one would like to see in E-commerce site. And OFBiz is exactly what you need. But I would say, to achieve all your requirement and use OFBiz OOTB feature is difficult for newbie . So its recommended to get consulting from experienced person or team. Or get training to start in house development. Or subcontract your work. > > Best Regards, > Vadim > ------------------------------- > Vadim Eisenberg > IT for Healthcare & Life Sciences > IBM Research - Haifa > > Regards, Divesh Dutta. Hotwax Media Inc. Global leader in OFBiz Training, Consulting and service providing. Go to Google and see it yourself.
