Hi David,
I'm very pleased of this new development. On Neogia project, we've been working
for a few years on having a generic system that give the possibility to create
quickly screens and data for any type of society.
The problem with small buisnesses is that they need a system out of the box, with
parameters, data and business processes already included. The result, this application
contains a lot of information that are not really usefull but necessary to manage
"all" types of cases. For example, I think EZbiz is today only targetted for
american small businesses because I don't see anywhere a manner of managing the other
countries specific information.
This is why we decided, after analysing the OFBiz evolutions, and the need to constantly adapt Neogia, to stop Neogia global project to re-think our development process. It's why we started the add-on system. The purpose of this is to separate a functionnality, technology improvement, component source code to make easier interaction with OFBiz
standard.
Today, we can create many addons with specific purposes for small business,
with dependancy like in a GNU/Linux system. In a few words, you have the main
application (OFBiz), some functionnalities needed but not in the standard
(first addon level) and the vertical improvment (second addon level). After you
an add more addons for specific data, languages, label modifications, etc ...
It's easier to manage that than a monolithic application with many data and
parameters.
I think that we can all beneficit from the addon management system in the
promising EZBiz application. This would allow to separate functionnality code
and allow to make easier the integration in OFBiz standard.
Example with New Company Setup, you can have a first addon that contains all
main information to create a company. After you can have addons for each type
of business you want to manage, eg :
* an addon for lawyer that adds some specific field on screen (but not on
entity because the standard can manage all type ;) )
* an addon for hairdresser that add also some specific
* an addon for french hairdresser because the french hair are different (why ?
I don't know ;)) , but this addon would be dependant from the global
hairdresser addon which is also dependant of the new company setup.
The risk is to have too many addons and then the tests would not be sufficient
in all ways. We are actually working hard on deploying a continuous integration
server to test the addons with Selenium in a first time.
All neogia maintainers would be happy to work with OFBiz around the addon
manager to ensure that we get together a solid solution and many addons to get
more out of OFBiz, and deliver more services to small businesses.
Nicolas
David E Jones a écrit :
I've started work on a new application for OFBiz, and tentatively
decided on the name "EZBiz" for it. I considered "QuickBiz", but
that's maybe too suggestive of a certain competing commercial
application. ;)
The main idea is to create an all-in-one application in OFBiz for
smaller businesses. Another key part of the idea is to collaborate as
a community on designs long before any development gets underway.
I've spoken to a few people about this idea in the past... and am
finally getting around to working on it! A few people have expressed
interest in this, so hopefully we'll get some good feedback and
collaboration fleshing out designs and then eventually building the
thing.
On a side note, yes it is true that I have mostly skipped requirements
gathering and documenting processes. There are a few reasons I decided
to do that. One is that this application will be more simple and
generic and won't get into the vagaries that come up when doing custom
software or software for larger organizations. Another is that the
current UBPL stories cover nearly everything that will be needed and
more, and we can use them as-is (or with small refinements as we go),
when doing a review of designs to see how well they cover the
requirements (noting that the intent is NOT to cover all requirements,
ie business activities, in the UBPL stories). Another reason is that
there is a lot of this small business software out there that has been
in use for decades and refined a lot, so we have a lot of sources for
design ideas without starting from scratch.
Anyway, here is the intro page for EZBiz:
http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBREQDES/OFBiz+EZBiz
On that page there is a short concept write up and some screen
outlines. The screen outlines I've done so far are meant to help
establish scope, general organization, and certain configuration/setup
options that will drive how other parts of the UI are built. The main
outlines I've worked on so far are:
http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBREQDES/Select+Company
http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBREQDES/New+Company+Setup
http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBREQDES/EZBiz+Main
http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBREQDES/Reports+Main
http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBREQDES/Quick+Setup
For anyone interested in working on these... by all means go ahead!
You can participate in discussions on the mailing list, recommend
changes to what should be on screens and how to organize things (based
on whatever your favorite small business accounting/etc software might
be, or other experience you've had), and eventually we'll get down to
doing wireframes for the more complex screens (ie after outlining what
will go on them), and then mapping everything to existing OFBiz
entities and services, and then start building!
I'll personally be working on this quite a bit as it's getting too
cold around here to do manual labor and I've managed to finish all my
homework (hint, hint... looking for work ;) ), and I'll be happy to
work with whoever else is interested (or would that be whomever?).
-David
--
Nicolas MALIN
Consultant
Tél : 06.17.66.40.06
Site projet : http://www.neogia.org/
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