Yes, OFBiz supports your business needs. This means, OFBiz data model and business services can be used to _build_ a solution for business described below.
There are many ways to design solution for your requirements, Based on limited information I will trying to help. Please see my comments inline. Thanks and Regards Anil Patel COO Hotwax Media Inc http://www.hotwaxmedia.com/ ApacheCon US 2014 Silver Sponsor http://na.apachecon.com/sponsor/our-sponsors On Jun 18, 2014, at 10:10 AM, Ron Wheeler <rwhee...@artifact-software.com> wrote: > To take a break from moaning/ranting about documentation, I would like to > discuss my actual business case that I am trying to solve. > > Artifact resells and supports the best LMSs ever built - Saba SEC and Saba > Cloud. You sell Digital (refer to productId="GZ-NEWS-1MO” in DemoProduct.xml) and Professional Services (refer productId="SV-1000” in DemoProduct.xml) product. > These are typically sold as a 3 year deal with annual payments based on > number of users. This requirement can be handled in many ways. One simple design will be to Model it as one order that will remain open for 3 years and will have multiple shipments/fulfillments. Next line item on your requirement will help us better understand the fulfillment process. > This means that we have to track license renewals, ask for the cash, get > paid, and remit some of it to Saba. Do one Order item with "1 year license” Digital product on it. Move item to completed status. Order Item status change will trigger Invoicing and Payment collection. Setup Agreement between your company and Saba for Commission/Royalty for all sales. Commission run process can be used to calculate commission and expense it to your GL and then issue Payment. All this is supported at Data Model and Services level. Even though UI exists, I recommend you build custom UI. You may have to do some workflow adjustments. OFBiz uses built in trigger mechanism aka SECA, ECA. > Automating the tracking and creation of sales tasks (could be an integration > to Sugar CRM) would be nice. “Automating” is subjective term. OFBiz has ootb services for creating tasks for sales team. I don’t know of any integration with Sugar CRM. You may have to develop it. > Each year the fee can change based on revised number of users so there is > some manual work to be done before an invoice can be generated. If we maintain one orderItem for one year license fee, then at time of billing you can adjust qty and price on order item and then complete the order item. > > The bigger problem is administering the training and support services that we > sell. > In addition to the support that we provide for free as part of the licenses, > our clients purchase blocks of time that we use up on their behalf as they > require training or consulting services which are not part of the license. OFBiz has good project management capabilities. It includes tasks management, time logging, Invoicing etc. > As we use the time, I would like to automatically e-mail them a statement of > what we used, what we did for them and how many hours are left in their bank. OFBiz has email notification system. Again, you will have to setup right hooks to trigger email on certain events. I know this is not much helpful if you are looking for something Pre-Build exactly for your vertical market. > I would like to be able to do this for each transaction - e-mail is cheap and > I want the clients to know where they stand at all times. Would be nice to > turn this on and off on a per client basis. Each bank of hours needs a party > associated with it for administration in addition to the company party used > for billing and finding the bank of hours in the UI for timekeeping, > reporting, etc.. > My staff needs to know whether the client has any time left as well before > doing the work. > We have an obligation to warn the client when their bank runs low so they can > work their magic with purchasing to send us more cash. > Each day, the support staff should be able to enter time spent on both paid > and unpaid (license support) work. OFBiz data model and service have all you need. UI/UX and workflow will be custom implementation. > > I would like to be able to report the cost of the free license support for > each client as well as the revenue by client for the consulting. This should be easy, You will run report on Invoice/Invoice items and use Product/InvoiceItemType filters. > > I am sure that many of the people in this forum understand this sort of > business but if I have been unclear about my need, please feel free to ask > questions. > > Is this something that OfBiz can do OOB? Where should I look for > discussions/documentation that relates to this? > http://www.linkedin.com/groupItem?view=&gid=165695&type=member&item=5885029179249950724 > is a link to the same question on LinkedIn, if you prefer to join the > discussion there. > In short, OFBiz as Platform for Enterprise Application supports your business requirements. It is not complete OOTB solution for your vertical market. Depending on your expectations you will need 1000 hours or more to get it ready for production. > -- > Ron Wheeler > President > Artifact Software Inc > email: rwhee...@artifact-software.com > skype: ronaldmwheeler > phone: 866-970-2435, ext 102 >
