Hi Craig, Simply put, an organisation is a human construct to name a grouping of parties. This can mean a group, a team, etc. of natural or legal entities. Often the organisation becomes a legal entity on its own (company, foundations, union, etc.)
Regarding facilities, you could see them as constructs that are often associated with an asset. But in accounting one often sees this limited to fixed assets, facilitating a specific purpose. Think plot, building (office, warehouse, manufacturing location). Along that line, a hot dog stand (a table, with a heater on it) would not qualify due to its size or value. But you may decide otherwise. Parties are all the human and legal entities one can think of. For the sake of clarity excludes animals (animals are an other kind of resources). The human entitites are associated with the OFBiz construct PERSON, while the legal entities are associated with the construct PARTY_GROUP. As with any other ERP solution, business terminology is abundantly used to explain functions and constructs in OFBiz. There are similarities with other business software packages and there deviations. The book mentioned by Taher explains where OFBiz partly comes from, data model-wise. But beware, it hasn't been applied to the letter, as deviations from it were implemented. While the book provides a great help understanding OFBiz partly, there are 2 other volumes that delve deeper into data models for specific target areas. You also have to keep in mind that it is just a model, trying to reflect a reality at a certain moment in time. It can be outdated/incomplete at points. Whenever you feel uncertainty or doubt popping up about how something is to be used with, or applied in OFBiz, do NOT hesitate to ask. Best regards, Pierre Smits ORRTIZ.COM <http://www.orrtiz.com> OFBiz based solutions & services OFBiz Extensions Marketplace http://oem.ofbizci.net/oci-2/ On Thu, Apr 27, 2017 at 4:24 AM, Craig Parker <[email protected]> wrote: > I'm trying to nail down what some of these names are, and not having much > luck with some of it. If there's a glossary anywhere that I haven't seen > yet, can someone point me in the direction? > > Organization = The over-arching business? The company that owns all the > manufacturing, distribution, and sales? > > If you've got a manufacturing plant, a retail store, a website (for online > sales) and a hot dog stand, I was initially thinking these were all > Facilities while noodling through some old docs. But I'm not so sure after > looking at sample data and the menu options. > > Parties are any employees or customers. Vendors too? > > I've got more, but will stew on these for the moment. I'm actually trying > to concoct a small "story" that even my kids will understand. Other folks > may be in same the boat as me where they understand a whole process, but > the names we're using in OFBiz mean something else in whatever ERP they're > coming from. The one I use has separate AP and AR terms (terms as in "pay > by the 10th, get 10% off your bill" or "pay after the 15th and get a 2% > finance charge"), but in OFBiz it looks like everything is lumped into > something called Agreements, and you can have a vendor or a customer using > the same (I call it terms) agreement. > > I'm guessing there are a ton of these kinds of things. I see them spelled > out to some degree in the "official" docs I've got (from 2006-ish) but it > isn't really spelled out enough for me at least to understand. > >
