David, all, ----- Original Message ----- > I notice that the documentation for getting started has recently been split > in two, one technical the other business. This is excellent and makes it > much easier to read.
Yes I agree this is a very important point. I would say rather splitting between functionnal and technical concepts (in France we would say also "Organic" for the later part because it's only deals with structures and not functions) . But that's only words... > Reading the Business Setup document I am struck by the way in which it is > assumed that the only way to get started is to take the default seed data > and modify it, no-where does it describe how to start from scratch. Yes that's true, but at least there is something to help you, remember it's open source, you may help (acts, acts, acts, ...;o) here of course... > When this is coupled with the discussion about who OfBiz is aiming at, > and which bits of what is a very extensive offering are regarded as basic > this has the effect that you end up disabling bits that you do not want > rather than enabling the bit that you want. This also means that there > are things that are configured but about which you (the user) know nothing > and for which you have no use. > > Is the subtext that defining from scratch is so complicated that it should > never be attempted. If so perhaps this should be stated. Easy way, but why not ! > Of 15 pages (when I printed the document) basic company setup talks about > how to set up the basic business and occupies just one page, and then about > 10 page cover the ecommerce aspects. Tax is only mentioned as an adjunct of > the ecommerce section, and the setup of the accounting section is not even > mentioned. About tax it's even worse : it's obsolete ! Please search for Tax Authotiries in Nabble to know more... > There is also no mention of localisation. Getting OfBiz to default to other > than the Dollar and American style Sales tax (and I am aware of the recent > discussion on VAT on this list) is not mentioned, and worse, it is not > mentioned that what is being described is a US model. Yes that was already raised by Chris Howe here : http://www.nabble.com/-jira--Created%3A-%28OFBIZ-149%29-Better-describe-complex-party-relationships-tf2082963.html#a5772036 And I believe also that something is missing in the data model to be able to deal accuratly with VAT for instance. But you are already aware of that and I have no solution yet (not even time to think about it) > Perhaps a further subdivision is needed. The basic company setup in one > document, accounting and localisation issues in a set of documents > identified by country (or groups of countries where they do things > sufficiently similarly), and then separate documents for the other bits > like ecommerce, manufacturing and warehousing. > > Breaking the documentation up like this may also make it easier to get > contributions as the task is less daunting. > > Just a thought. Yes good plan, just have to rolling up our sleeves now :o) Thanks for your interest ! > David
