Le 08/08/2014 17:49, Ron Wheeler a écrit :
The documentation issues discussed in the paper are certainly a barrier that
can be addressed in OfBiz.
The paper is a little bit focused on building the PMS and internal OSS project
community rather than worrying about adoption by users.
What is PMS? You mean PMC?
As a potential user, I am going at the documentation problem from a bit of a
different POV.
If we look at the adoption process, we can identify several stages that an
organization goes through during the implementation.
In reading this, bear in mind that I have never done an implementation and am
still at stage 1 of the OfBiz implementation process.
However I have been through this process a number of times over the last 40 years with roles ranging from the most junior programmer on the team to
Technical Support manger to lead architect to the consultant preparing the RFP and the recommendation to management.
I expect that I have missed many things but I wanted to at least start a
discussion about this potential way to look at the documentation.
I have tried to be a definite as possible about what I think is required so
that people could take issue with my suggestions in a concrete way.
Please feel free to add, delete or modify this.
I would also ask that people who have contributed documentation take a few seconds to consider the various stages where you think the information
contained therein is most helpful.
1) Selection.
At this stage the new organization is looking at various alternatives from
Quickbooks to SAP.
Key stakeholders - Accountants, business managers, IT, CFO, Marketing if the
organization is looking at reselling or providing services based on OfBiz.
Important information:
- Feature descriptions and customization possibilities
Feature descriptions :
we have something up to 2004
https://web.archive.org/web/20100414073023/http://ofbiz.apache.org/feature-list.html
which could be updated based on
https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/OFBIZ/Main+New+Features
An effort has already been made
https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/OFBIZ/Feature+summary to summarize
this page but it's incomplete
customization possibilities:
we have
https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/OFBIZ/Addressing+Custom+Requirements+In+OFBiz
And soon the http://www.ofbiz-fr.org/ will make a proposition based on https://code.google.com/a/apache-extras.org/p/ofbiz-adm/ (now deprecated) which
is related with http://community.ofbizextra.org/community/control/COMMUNITY_HOME
- Organization profiles
Could you elaborate?
- User interface and user documentation/ on-line help
We have an online help in 2 forms, the ? button and
demo-trunk-ofbiz.apache.org/cmssite/cms/APACHE_OFBIZ_HTML
There was also an effort https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-4941 by the late Tom Burn which is now in the branch
https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/ofbiz/branches/webhelp-2012-12-07 from which an addon has been created by the Noegia team
- Operational options - SaaS through a reliable supplier, BTF
SaaS: we have multi-tenant https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/OFBIZ/Multitenancy+support only scale by adding DBs though... So limited to
small to medium numbers
What does BTF means?
- TCO for SaaS and BTF
TBD...
- Standards
https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/OFBIZ/Open+Source+Projects+and+Standards
https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/OFBADMIN/Best+Practices+Guide
- Support and technical documentation
http://ofbiz.apache.org/documentation.html
- Feasibility - will it run in the IT infrastructure, can IT support it
Yes they can. If they want to use an external app server there is with
https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/OFBTECH/Run+OFBiz+under+outside+Application+Servers though we are a bit late on this :/
- Stability and operational reliability
I think we are good :)
Demo should be available that looks attractive and easy to use.
I think we have something good, I mean from http://ofbiz.apache.org/
Video demos of common user functions could be a positive factor
We have some not bad too https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/OFBTECH/Framework+Introduction+Videos+and+Diagrams maybe a bit old, but still
relevant
The goal is to get through this stage as the winner!
If this part fails, the rest is pointless.
2) Demo
At this stage the organization needs to see if the thing actually works as
advertised.
SaaS:
Supplier demo site with the organizations logo showing functions available in the SaaS version - Not an Apache problem but perhaps of concern to
some who are offering OfBiz as SaaS
We have some examples, we could link them from the multitenancy page...
OK, I ran out of time, to be completed later...
Jacques
PS: some cleaning should be done in the FAQ page
https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/OFBIZ/FAQ+-+Tips+-+Tricks+-+Cookbook+-+HowTo
Hope I will get some time... one day...
BTF:
Stakeholders: IT Operations, Business Managers, System Analysts
Important information
- Installation documentation
- User documentation
- Feature Checklist
- Video end-user Training
- Architecture Overview
- Customization Overview
- Implementation plan/checklist
3) Implementation Planning
In this stage, the development team may hire a consultant or sign a TSA to support the internal team or they may go it alone if they have the right
staff.
The major task is to develop a requirements doc, a plan and a budget to get the
system operational.
At the end of this step
- the CFO should be able to give a Go/NoGo for the budget
- the Business managers should be able to sign of on the functional requirements
- IT Operations should be able to sign off on the Performance, Security and DR
capabilities
Stakeholders: IT operations, System Analysts, Business managers, CFO
Important Information
- System initialization and data migration
- Customization doc - Database, Framework, Tool list, Best Practices
- Use cases
- Customization templates - plans, budget estimating tools
- System Administration tools and environment docs
The books that are recommended and available should be considered as being
owned and read by the team at this point.
The organization is starting to expend significant resources and purchasing
books is the least of the expense.
This may help reduce the amount of documentation required to be provided by
Apache.
New books could also be created to cover areas not well covered by existing
books.
Outdated books should be clearly identified as such with strong recommendations about purchasing them or not and some guidance about which sections
are particularly misleading.
If this is too much work, the book should just be removed from the list of "Books about OfBiz" and if there is any information that is critical and
not covered elsewhere, it should be identified as documentation to be created.
4) Development
At this stage, the implementation team has received the go ahead to implement
and has a plan for all customization required.
The development team is having fun with code and the IT operations group is preparing to purchase any equipment required and is setting up QA sites
for integration testing
Stakeholders : Development team including consultants if required, IT operations
Important Information
- Customization doc - Database, Framework, Tool list, Best Practices
- Properly commented code
- System Administration tools and environment
5) Implementation
At this stage the system is put into operation and data is migrated
Stakeholders : IT Operations, Training, OfBiz Support team
Important Information
- End-user training material - videos, on-line courses, course templates that
can be branded and customized
- System Administration tools - Security, DR procedures, Update procedures
- Data migration tools and Best Practices
I hope that this helps.
On 07/08/2014 7:25 AM, Pierre Smits wrote:
Hi all,
Newcomers experience problems when they start to participate. This has been
the subject of following stud: http://t.co/bc0gn2SQOZ
Do you feel that this project should have an onboarding strategy for
newcomers, and if so what should it entail en where should it be embedded
or incorporated?
Regards,
Pierre Smits
*ORRTIZ.COM <http://www.orrtiz.com>*
Services & Solutions for Cloud-
Based Manufacturing, Professional
Services and Retail & Trade
http://www.orrtiz.com
