Thanks for the response, this is a clear summary. For now I need to KISS - our last venture into CRM proved a failure because it was over-specified, the next will need to be an iterative XP-style effort, climbing the curve to take advantage of OFBiz is probably out of scope for now - I think Cocoon has pretty much all I need, especially since we need tight IMAP integration.
For the future, though, I'll be keeping a close eye on OFBiz - and I agree with an earlier post, putting some notes onto the Wiki about benefits of OFBiz might help others looking at these two now, and help developers interested in tighter integration in the future.
Thanks again, Thomas.
At 23:44 13/04/2004, Chris Chesney wrote:
Thomas,
Sorry for the delay -- I've been out of pocket for a couple days. First off, I should give you a better picture of how we've been using OFBiz. We're a consulting company that typically provides custom web applications with a focus on Open Source. One of our projects required workflow and at the same time, I was working on putting together a list of open source components for enterprise class applications. Our search for workflow turned up the OFBiz project as they had implemented an XPDL compliant workflow engine. A closer look at the overall architecture turned out to provide most of what I was looking for in terms of components and design (Service Oriented Architecture, Separation of Concerns, Security, Persistence, Reporting, etc.).
We have not really utilized any of the vertical applications. However, the underlying data model is quite extensive and we've utilized it along with some of the components a few times. From a data model perspective, it would be plenty flexible to handle a CRM application probably out of the box. There is a party manager that is fairly mature and I know you can do mailings, but beyond that I don't know what other CRM features have been implemented. If you're interested, I can certainly look into it further -- it would probably be good for me to know.
On the cocoon side, I've always been interested in the project, but have only played with it on occasion. Based on your email, I can't really see a benefit to using both cocoon and OFBiz. My lack of experience with cocoon prevents me from giving you a good comparison, so I will tell you the benefits I see in using OFBiz. You can decide whether they are actually beneficial in your situation.
1. Standard Integrated Data Model 2. Service Oriented Architecture 3. Workflow Engine 4. Security Integrated with Users in Data Model 5. Existing Vertical Applications
There is definitely value in keeping it simple. OFBiz is an enterprise platform and as such has the inherent complexity. If you're looking to meet your requirements in short order, OFBiz will not work. If you're looking to provide integrated functionality beyond CRM in the future and your timeframes permit, it might be a good option.
Good luck,
Chris
-----Original Message----- From: Thomas Nichols [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, April 09, 2004 4:31 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: CRM or Sales Force Automation using Cocoon?
Chris,
A few people have replied off-list, so I'll reply to the list since there seems to be some interest. From a look around OFBiz it seemed that the CRM modules are not yet very well developed, is that correct? The architecture looks pretty good, and there's certainly some activity there. Compiere again, when I looked at it, seemed strong in other areas - particularly ERP - but not what I was after for a CRM and "groupware" tool. Since I've worked with a number of these CRM beasts, most recently SalesForce and SalesNet, I was considering writing a very basic one that just meets our
immediate needs using Cocoon.
Jeff Davis' post referred me to Thinlet - which is hugely attractive as a presentation layer. I'm just trying to work out whether Compiere / OFBiz
are worth the extra investment on the server side, Cocoon seems to provide most of the architecture I need - auth, hibernate for persistence, flow etc. Given my simple requirements, and heeding Clay Shirky's advice on KISS: http://www.shirky.com/writings/situated_software.html what do you feel would be the major benefits of using OFBiz+Cocoon instead of just Cocoon?
We do not need a retail front end - high-value software, every sale involves sales people - though if we did OFBiz would be much more appealing.
Thanks for your suggestions thus far.
Best Regards, Thomas.
At 15:41 09/04/2004, Chris Chesney wrote:
>Thomas, > >OFBiz is a java-based platform that implements a service-oriented >architecture and does a pretty good job separating concerns. To >simplify, it has a persistence layer, a service layer and an MVC layer >for web clients. A Cocoon app could integrate/utilize OFBiz at various >levels. How (specifically) were you intending on using Cocoon in this >context? Feel free to take this offline if you feel it wouldn't be >appropriate for this list. > >Chris > >-----Original Message----- >From: Thomas Nichols [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] >Sent: Thursday, April 08, 2004 5:17 PM >To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Subject: CRM or Sales Force Automation using Cocoon? > >Hi, > >Is anyone aware of a Sales Force Automation or Customer Relationship >Management system built using Cocoon? Something with the functionality >of >www.salesforce.com or similar would be ideal. There are some intersting >OSS >projects out there for doing CRM, including OFBIZ, Compiere and >Hipergate, >but Cocoon is just so good I want to keep as much as possible of what we > >build using the Cocoon platform. Any suggestions? > >FWIW, other CRM tools can be found in a recent posting at >http://discuss.fogcreek.com/joelonsoftware/default.asp?cmd=show&ixPost= 1 >25515 > >Pointers, anyone? > >Thanks, >Thomas. > > >--------------------------------------------------------------------- >To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > >--------------------------------------------------------------------- >To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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