Tim
Gads, seems as if I hit a nerve. My apologies. Let me respond briefly.
"Skip you may not have the expertise in general to use it close to
OOTB".
My ability to use Ofbiz OOTB is not the issue here. I am a software
engineer, not the end user. I will not be using it except for
testing. I am
implementing it now for two mid-sized businesses with three to follow.
It is my view that with few exceptions, the back office Ofbiz
applications,
are not designed for the real people to use. As some examples, go to
your
friendly neighborhood corporate office and ask the A/R, A/P or
manager type
person the meaning of these terms:
Logical Id, Facility Type ID, Empl Position Type Id, Manual Auth Is
Capture,
Order Enum Id, To Geo, Validate G C Fin Acct, Contact Mech, Reason Enum,
etc. etc.
If that person can correctly identify the purpose of any of them (and
they
have not used Ofbiz before), I would be very surprised. I would
actually be
surprised if you know all of them off the top of your head. These
are a few
of the ones I copied and pasted from various places in the Ofbiz back
office
applicatons. There are hundreds more. To use these applications
OOTB, the
person using it has to be educated on the meaning of what is mostly
jargon.
Remember too that some of these applications are rarely used, but
critical
when needed.
That is why I say that it is probably uneconomical to train people to
use
Ofbiz OOTB. It is, I think, more economical to rewrite the UI using
terms
understood by the people using them.
By the way, I do not mean to be derogatory here. I have evaluated
lots of
ERP applications for the folks I represent, both opensource and
commercial.
Ofbiz is the best of them all (or will be when I am done) and I am
committed
to providing them a world-class set of applications based on it.
What I am trying to do is get those involved in the development to think
about the people who actually use the product in the end, the A/R-A/P
clerks, the shipping and recieving people, the CPAs, the purchasing
agents,
the sales folks, and all the rest.
Let me also say thanks for the work that you and all those who
contribute
have done.
Skip
-----Original Message-----
From: Tim Ruppert [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2007 11:07 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: org.ofbiz.base.start.StartupException: Cannot init()
catalina-container (Protocol handler initialization failed:
java.io.IOException: SunX509 KeyManagerFactory not available)
Skip you may not have the expertise in general to use it close to
OOTB,
but I must disagree that it is uneconomical to have people running their
business on it. However, it may be uneconomical for newbies to be
able to
get their foot in the door and pop one up quickly without a lot of
ramp up
on the existing processes.
Anything that needs to be discussed about Opentaps - should move to
their
mailing list - this just isn't a sales channel for migrating people over
there.
Cheers,
Tim
--
Tim Ruppert
HotWax Media
http://www.hotwaxmedia.com
o:801.649.6594
f:801.649.6595
On Sep 25, 2007, at 12:04 PM, Skip wrote:
Jacopo
Not to be argumentative, but I would say that Ofbiz is not "an Open
Source
ERP system that can be used out of the box." ERP as you know is an
acronym
for Enterprise Resource Planning. If you had said that Ofbiz is a
great
ecommerce application that can be used out of the box, I would agree
wholeheartedly. However, it lacks a lot on the resource planning
side. I
would also say that the training time to bring casual backoffice
users
up to
speed is beyond considerable (possibly uneconomical).
As Walter said, Opentaps goes a LONG way toward filling the holes
and
making
it earier for real people to use. Both products however need
considerable
customization to make them suitable for the majority of medium sized
businesses.
It is though perfect for VARs like me.
My two $.
Skip
-----Original Message-----
From: Jacopo Cappellato [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2007 5:42 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: org.ofbiz.base.start.StartupException: Cannot init()
catalina-container (Protocol handler initialization failed:
java.io.IOException: SunX509 KeyManagerFactory not available)
Walter Vaughan wrote:
Len Parker wrote:
I'm a newbie, and I get the following error when I execute
"java -jar ofbiz.jar":
What does "java -version" say?
Why are you not using ./startofbiz.sh shell script?
Regarding your boss...
If you need a strong framework to build upon, OFBiz is what you
are
looking for.
OFBiz is *not* just a framework; it is an Open Source ERP system
that
can be used out of the box.
Of course, but this is true for all the ERP systems, including
commercial ones, most of the companies will want to customize it
to fit
their custom/special/niche processes and OFBiz is *great* in this:
developing/customizing using OFBiz's entities, services and
widgets is
efficient and easy.
There are still some areas that are not fully implemented, the most
remarkable one is the accounting application: we will hopefully fill
this gap soon.
Jacopo
If you need CRM functionality, warehouse and purchasing
dashboards, built in Business Intellegence tools, and you can deal
with
GPL style license software you might also look at Opentaps. (NOTE:
This
is not a sales pitch for opentaps, just a heads up that there are
options in the OFBiz world, especially if you are looking for
something
to show the pointy headed boss).
Welcome aboard!
--
Walter
