Hi Anne, thanks for the long email. Our intention is to use as much as possible existing functions and to be able to order rented and sell-able items the same way.
Currently the rental only works on a daily schedule and now in smaller time increments. Regards, Hans On Fri, 2011-09-02 at 16:44 +1000, Anne wrote: > Hi Hans > > We looked at something similar to this a long time ago, but the client > decided not to go ahead. If they had, we would have discussed this in > detail on the mailing list before proceeding. Seeing the client didn't > go ahead, we never went past a rough idea of how we might do it. > > >From memory, here's some of the conclusions and ideas we had. > > The items to be rented would be FixedAssets, but associated with > products. No inventory. The productTypeId was ASSET_USAGE. The > FixedAsset entity has an instanceOfProductId field which we would have > used. > > There's code there currently that is not general, but specifically for > accommodation reservations. As some of our rental items could be > booked ahead of time for 30 minute increments, we were wondering about > generalising that code. My own opinion was that the existing code was > so specific to accommodation that it would be simpler starting again, > but more research was needed before we would know whether I was right. > > When a customer rented an asset, they would be assigned to that asset > using a role via PartyFixedAssetAssignment. So an asset without a > current PartyFixedAssetAssignment of the right roleType would be free > for renting. > > If we did replace the existing reservation code, we were thinking of > using Requirements, as they seemed ideal for managing the relevant > important details. Namely, that a customer requires a specific fixed > asset for a specified span of time. Once confirmed/approved this could > become a PartyFixedAssetAssignment. This could of course work for > accommodation as well as lots of other things. > > We weren't intending to use the existing Order system, as rental of > the non-booked items was to be on-going, invoiced monthly. And any > bookable items rented during a month were added to the monthly > invoice. Using Orders would have been unneccessarily complicated. The > clients wanted one invoice per customer per month. They didn't want to > know about orders or anything like that. So we were thinking of a > service that ran monthly, looking at all current > PartyFixedAssetAssignments plus those that ended during the month, and > generating an invoice based on that information. > > We didn't look closely at shipments, but did notice that the > ShipmentItem refers to an ItemIssuance entity that includes a > fixedAssetId, so we assumed the data structures would support it, even > if the code didn't yet exist for it. I am guessing this was originally > meant for shipping assets somewhere for maintenance, but I didn't see > much difference at the shipment level between shipping an asset for > maintenance or for temporary use by a customer. > > Because we weren't intending to use the Order system, we wouldn't be > handling returns via it either. When a rental item was returned, the > PartyFixedAssetAssignment would be expired. The invoice generation > service would include it at the end of the month, or the user could > trigger an invoice run immediately for a specific customer. > > I don't know how much of the above we would have actually done that > way had the project proceeded. But I hope it's given you some ideas. > > Cheers, > Anne. > > > On 1 September 2011 14:20, Hans Bakker <[email protected]> wrote: > > if we have assets, shouldn't there be a relationship to inventory item, > > to be able to know what is in inventory? > > > > This is in relation to to the rental of assets, which need to be shipped > > and returned. > > > > some background: > > > > A new product type in ofbiz: rental of items which need to be shipped. > > > > Currently we have the function in the system to be able to rent hotel > > rooms which obviously stay in house and do not need to be shipped. If > > however you would like to rent video's or cars or motorcycles the system > > should support its delivery with a shipment and return process. > > > > So when a shippable rental product is ordered, there will be created > > automatically a return when the order is completed. The order and > > shipment slip will list the product and the asset number, so the > > warehouse knows where to find the item. (if there would be a link > > between asset and inventory item) > > > > This shipment and return process however should not affect accounting > > what it currently does. Further it is required to ship 'assets' and not > > 'products' because they are an asset of the company which is rented. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > -- > > http://www.antwebsystems.com : > > Quality OFBiz support for competitive rates.... > > > > > > > -- Ofbiz on twitter: http://twitter.com/apache_ofbiz Alternative ofbiz website: http://www.ofbiz.info http://www.antwebsystems.com : Quality services for competitive rates.
