Vadim, About your formatting: this mailing list filters out all HTML because HTML email messages tend to be VERY large and the Apache Software Foundation in general has many thousands of messages going through mailing lists every day.
Back to your original question: when asking questions here please keep in mind that responses you get are volunteer responses and the only qualification you can be sure of for those responding is that they are capable of subscribing to the mailing list. If many people respond with something consistent then it is a safer bet that you can rely on the information, but usually not otherwise. With a question as long and involved as yours chances are you'll only get a small number of responses, and chances are your experience will be VERY different from those few who do respond. OFBiz is a large project. A good developer can learn to work effectively with the framework with a couple of weeks of training and a couple of months of hands-on development. However, even a good developer will have a hard time picking up all of the data structures and business logic even after many months of study, and realistically since most people don't or can't do that, it usually takes years of work experience and even then they'll only have knowledge of the parts of the system that have had the opportunity to work with. Understanding the business side is much easier for someone who has a good business background, and by good business background I mean really good experience with how businesses actually operate and what sorts of information businesses actually keep track of when operating. Sometimes people coming out of university business programs will have this, but most of the time they do not. Most people with business degrees will have learned more about laws and how to manipulate people than about the myriad of complexities of managing a warehouse, handling purchasing, or tracking information about products to facility the many touch points with those products throughout the company, and making it easy for customers to find products they want, or how to figure out where customer interest intersects with stuff you want to move. So anyway, keep in mind that your diving into a pretty comprehensive ERP system, but one that is made up of what people have seen fit to contribute for free. An extremely wide variety of data structures and common business processes are represented in the system, though many are not complete, or at least not complete in the way your client will want to use them. The only way to really be sure is to document ALL business activities (usually easiest if organized by process and not by role or by system function), and then do an overlap/gap analysis to see how each business activity would be done in the system, or if there is not something to do it (or it is not adequate for what your users want) then detail what the system needs to do to help manage that activity. Once you've done that, then you'll know what the system can do for you as-is, and what needs to be done to expand and change the system to do what your client needs. Short of that, everything is a guess and guaranteed to be wrong (the only question is by how much and in which direction(s)...). To help with that I recommend this material (this is what I use with clients): http://www.dejc.com/home/HEMP.html I'd also recommend looking at some of the generic business process stories that have come from OFBiz-based projects and been refined somewhat over the years (though keep in mind that these stories in some places represent activities that are not managed by OOTB OFBiz, ie these need an overlap/gap analysis document to make them more meaningful): https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/OFBREQDES/Universal+Business+Process+Library+Index Best of luck, -David On Sep 3, 2010, at 11:32 AM, Vadim Eisenberg wrote: > Hello BJ and other OfBiz developers, > > I was not subscribed to the mailing list so I did not receive the answer > of BJ to my previous message - > http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/ofbiz-user/201009.mbox/%[email protected]%3e > > . Because of that I cannot post a response to it. Secondly, I used a wrong > MIME in my previous message, so all the bullets and formatting were > missing. I am reposting the original message below in the right format > (any additional comments/opinions are welcome). In addition, my response > to BJ follows. Sorry for the mess I created. > > Hi BJ, > > Thank you for your prompt response. I think I've got the general idea. I > still would like to ask a question about learning OfBiz: > The three volumes of the data model book comprise about 1700 pages > together. Should I use the book as a reference or do I have to read all > the three volumes before starting my work on OfBiz ? Which parts of the > book are required before I begin my work ? > > Thanks & Regards, > Vadim > > > > > My original message: > =========================================================================================================== > Hello OfBiz developers, > > My name is Vadim Eisenberg and I work at IBM Research - Haifa, on the > UniversAAL project - http://universaal.org/. It is a consortium European > project. Its goal is to create a platform for applications, services and > devices for Ambient Assisted Living, that is a kind of "Smart Home" for > senior citizens. As part of the platform, we - several software developers > - have to develop an e-commerce site - uStore > http://universaal.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=9&Itemid=21 > > . This site would be a one-stop-shop for software, services and devices > for Ambient Assisted Living. > > We consider using OfBiz for implementation of uStore. > > I would like to ask you several questions about the features we want to > implement. I would be glad to hear any information you can tell me about > how hard could it be for us to implement these features. Please note that > we have no prior experience with OfBiz. > > Any your thoughts, intuition, experience, advice about OfBiz/business > programming are welcome. > > In particular, the following information would help us very much : > How much work should be done by us in order to implement all the features > that follow (Person/Months, Person/Years, for skilled OfBiz > developers/general software engineers). Which part would be to use > existing "extension" mechanisms of OfBiz and which part would be actually > changing the OfBiz code ? Here your intuition/experience from related > projects is welcome, we do not need exact numbers, just a ballpark. > How much time the general software developers have to learn about OfBiz > and how skilled in OfBiz they should become in order to implement these > features > > E-commerce website features: > Using e-commerce site for selling software (such as AppStore of iPhone) > and downloadable files in general (video, presentations of courses etc.). > Here the issue is to manage links where the bought files could be > downloaded. The idea is to prevent a situation in which buyers would buy a > software application, receive a link to it for downloading and share the > link afterwards with anybody they want, so anybody would be able to > download the application without paying for it. > Using e-commerce site for selling services (human services and others) > Extending e-commerce site with general widgets, such as calendar, clock, > map, a widget for downloading files, etc., and integrating the widgets > with the OfBiz > > Integration with other websites/services: > Integrating an e-commerce website with another (non-OfBiz backed) site - > adding possibility for sellers to add products to the e-commerce site via > the other site, to see customer feedback provided on the e-commerce site > via the other site > Integrating an e-commerce website with another (possibly non-OfBiz) > e-commerce website, such as eBay/Amazon. What are the current > possibilities of integration with eBay ? > Integrating an e-commerce website with post/delivery services/sites > > Adding advanced features: > Adding support for signing business contracts between service consumers > and service providers, between providers of different services etc. via > the e-commerce site > Adding support for applying capability/requirement model, such as > JSR-124, (for example for matching between customer's requirements and > capabilities of software, devices and services). The customer or software > agent on behalf of the customer could provide his requirements as part of > his account information, and the e-commerce solution would match between > the products (according to their capabilities) and the requirements of the > customers. > Has OfBiz a recommendation engine (providing recommendations to a user > based on his activity - searches, purchases, reviews etc.) ? If no, how > hard would it be to add it ? > Can the OfBiz-based e-commerce web site be presented by browsers of smart > phones ? How hard would it be to enable it ? > Changing search/recommendations of OfBiz to be based on the requirements > of the customer > Changing search/recommendations of OfBiz to be based on the geolocation of > the customer > Adding support for customization of products/services and changes in the > prices according to the customization during the purchase process > Adding support for a composition solution of hardware, software and human > services (bundles, kits). A seller could compose a new product by > combining several existing products > Adding support for manual approval of products by site administrators > before submission of the products to the e-commerce site > Adding support for managing versions of the software applications that are > sold on the e-commerce website > > Sorry for so many questions and sorry if some of them are out of context. > > Best Regards, > Vadim > ------------------------------- > Vadim Eisenberg > IT for Healthcare & Life Sciences > IBM Research - Haifa > >
