On Jul 12, 2009, at 4:55 PM, BJ Freeman wrote:
LOL, sorry but I started when there was no documentation at all,
2003.
I have learned ofbiz. That is how much I believe in it.
Open bravo does not provide the frame I need for Automation.
it is also GPL licensed.
From what I have seen it is not an enterprise level software.
To each his own.
:D
Based on a quick search: it's actually MPL (Mozilla) license (GPL for
the POS part of it), which is like GPL for modifications but like
BSD/Apache for extensions. From your other email: I doubt they would
Apache license it because it would make it hard to _sell_ a license
which is a clear part of their business model, along with training
and
other services.
AFAIK Apache OFBiz is the only community-driven project in this
space.
Other are typically GPL-like/commercial dual licensed, which is a
model
more like traditional commercial software in terms of revenue and
development (ie hired developers and not many community
contributions).
That includes OpenBravo, Compiere, OpenERP, ERP5, and yes even our
friends at opentaps. It also includes less direct competitors like
Magento, Alfresco, SugarCRM, and many others.
Now, Adempiere is one exception, though they have a funny licensing
situation since it is GPL and no one in the community owns the
copyright
to the original GPL code base that came from Compiere... tricky at
best.
snowch sent the following on 7/12/2009 2:45 PM:
The file DemoOrganizationData.xml looks as though it will provide
the
answers
I am looking for. Many thanks! However the real problem is that
learning
ofbiz end user functionality is time consuming due to the lack of
documentation.
I found the same problem a few years back when learning technical
development of ofbiz. In the end I gave up until Jonathon Wong's
book was
recently released. That book saved me hundreds of hours of trial
and
error
development. I can now easily develop standalone ofbiz
applications.
However, I am now struggling with utilizing the existing ofbiz
functionality.
Do you mean you looked through the docs.ofbiz.org documentation and
didn't find what you were looking for? There are pretty clear links
from
the OFBiz home page to these community-maintained docs, and there
is a
LOT there for both technical and end-user documentation.
On the other hand, IF you write something along the lines of "I'm
looking for information about X and I found documents A, B, and C
which
seem related but they don't address it" THEN you will almost
certainly
get specific feedback and responses.
This is a community driven project, so if you'd looking for
interaction
similar to what you'd find with a commercial entity you'll have a
hard
time. If you're working with the community in the way communities
work
you'll have a good experience. For more details about this please
see my
recent blog post:
http://osofbiz.blogspot.com/2009/06/open-source-community-collaboration.html
I think I will probably (reluctantly) end up moving to openbravo
as my
development framework for ERP applications based on the
availability of
their functional and developer training material (see
http://www.openbravo.com/services/training/).
On the other hand, if you'd prefer to get commercial services,
you're in
luck! Whether you're looking for training courses, mentoring, or even
paid documentation there are options, just like with OpenBravo. The
nice
thing about OFBiz is that there is no central vendor which means
there
is a wider variety of options and none of them have to compete with
the
central vendor. For a pretty good list (but not all OFBiz service
providers, many do not market through the project) see:
http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBIZ/Apache+OFBiz+Service+Providers
-David
BJ Freeman wrote:
yes, I got error messages the first time,
from the error messages I learned what needed to be done
hard way to learn.
I also looked at the DemoOrganization.xml for Ideas.
snowch sent the following on 7/12/2009 2:11 PM:
I've realised that I need to use relationships from other posts,
and from
the
ManagerReferenceParty.pdf.
What is not clear is how? The UI doesn't have much meaning
without
some
examples:
New Relationship:
of the Party with ID ___
in the role of ___
is a ___
of the current party ___
in the role of ___
And Party Relationship Security ___
From Calendar ___
Thru Calendar ___
Comments ___
BJ Freeman wrote:
it is done through relationships
snowch sent the following on 7/12/2009 11:52 AM:
One area I'm struggling with is trying to create a party
group and
adding
parties to the group. Is there any documentation on this
specific
area?
Many thanks...
BJ Freeman wrote:
End user Docs
There was an effort for a time to generate a help system of
enduser
docs, but that has sort of fallen off.
http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBENDUSER/End+User
+Documentation
there are fragements though out the doc site
http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBIZ/OFBiz+Applications+User+Manual
that has links in it to others
http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBIZ/Accounting+Screens+Reference
you just have to go through them to pull them all together.
Hopefully some will put on energy into the first link to tie
all
these
together.
snowch sent the following on 7/12/2009 7:11 AM:
By functional, I mean training that is aimed at the non-
technical
user.
I am ok with developing ofbiz applications from scratch,
but now I
need
to
know how to use more of the ofbiz functionality out-of-the-
box.
Reading through the Len Silverston data model books are
useful,
but
only
really describe the data model.
Many thanks,
Chris
BJ Freeman wrote:
not sure your definition for functional.
http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBADMIN/OFBiz+Documentation+Index
on top of that David use to run seminars once a year.
snowch sent the following on 7/10/2009 2:52 PM:
Is there any functional training available for ofbiz?
Many thanks,
Chris
--
BJ Freeman
http://www.businessesnetwork.com/automation
http://bjfreeman.elance.com
http://www.linkedin.com/profile?viewProfile=&key=1237480&locale=en_US&trk=tab_pro
Systems Integrator.
--
BJ Freeman
http://www.businessesnetwork.com/automation
http://bjfreeman.elance.com
http://www.linkedin.com/profile?viewProfile=&key=1237480&locale=en_US&trk=tab_pro
Systems Integrator.
--
BJ Freeman
http://www.businessesnetwork.com/automation
http://bjfreeman.elance.com
http://www.linkedin.com/profile?viewProfile=&key=1237480&locale=en_US&trk=tab_pro
Systems Integrator.
--
BJ Freeman
http://www.businessesnetwork.com/automation
http://bjfreeman.elance.com
http://www.linkedin.com/profile?viewProfile=&key=1237480&locale=en_US&trk=tab_pro
Systems Integrator.
--
BJ Freeman
http://www.businessesnetwork.com/automation
http://bjfreeman.elance.com
http://www.linkedin.com/profile?viewProfile=&key=1237480&locale=en_US&trk=tab_pro
Systems Integrator.
