iDempiere Open Source ERP – Making Core iDempiere Code Changes

January 23, 2015, 2:31 pm

≫ Next: Project Manufacturing – Quick Demonstration using iDempiere Open Source ERP

Hi Everyone,

The purpose of this training series is to discuss and demonstrate the concepts and decisions when modifying iDempiere’s core code. Your first decision is “Who are your charges destined for?” Are you contributing enhancements to iDempiere’s core development team, or are you creating enhancements for your organization or your customer. This decision impacts:

Creating Migration Scripts or 2Packs (Pack In and Pack Out) to migrate application dictionary changes
Creating code patches or iDempiere plugins/features to distribute your code
Naming conventions for your new tables and columns.
Etc…

In ADempiere, core code changes occurred frequently. It was just part of working with ADempiere. The iDempiere development team has gone to great lengths to minimize the need to change core code by:

Creating a more plugin friendly architecture (OSGi)
Creating new extension points in the core code
Graciously and quickly responding to questions via the iDempiere Google group
Publishing a library of tools and tutorials

Despite iDempiere’s efforts, there are still times when you need to change iDempiere’s core code. This training series helps outline the recommended steps for creating and supporting these changes.

Note: it is worth reading this post from Carlos regarding core iDempiere changes.

What is the best way to Learn iDempiere and ADempiere?

I teach an on-line class that covers how to learn, configure and audit open source ERP. It uses iDempiere as the reference ERP. Here are the course frequently asked questions. I have learned much over the last ten years, and I have much to share. I look forward to seeing you there!!

Why consider Open Source ERP?

Open source ERP gives you every opportunity to prove or disprove its ability to support your company’s ERP needs on a timeline that satisfies your organizational needs. With open source ERP, you do not face the same financial constraints nor do you face the same conflicts of interest as with commercial ERP. Instead, you invest in the appropriate skills and knowledge for your people and processes. Best of all – if open source ERP cannot solve your company’s needs, you can safely justify spending the additional $2K to $5K per person per year for life of your commercial ERP to help drive your organization’s success.

Open Source ERP Round Rug Effect

Open Source ERP has what I call a “Round Rug Effect”. If you were to liken the ERP evaluation process to a 10′ x 10′ room, the story would go something like this:

Oracle, SAP, and Microsoft are a 10′ x 10′ ERP rug in a ten by ten foot room. They cover the room nicely. You will be hard pressed to find a feature or a use case that they do not cover.
Open Source ERP is like a 10′ round rug in a ten by ten foot room. It will cover the vast majority of the room; however, it will leave the corners bare. The questions are: “Do you live and operate in the corners?” or “Is open source ERP good enough?”. For most, the answers are “sometimes” and “yes”.

If you are in the ERP evaluation mode, you should ask yourself “Should I include open source ERP in my evaluation process?” If you are less than $300M USD revenue, your answer should probably be yes! This answer comes from these concepts:

Pillars of Cost – Since open source ERP is free, that means that all the cost of proprietary ERP should be allocated to the corners. If you use height to illustrate this allocated cost, the corners turn into tall pillers of cost.
Cost of Innovation – At first look, the price tag of free open source ERP is the most appealing benefit; however, this benefit soon becomes overshadowed by the flexibility of open source ERP. If organizational leaders take just some of the cost that would otherwise be spent on Oracle or SAP, and they invest it back into the organization’s skills and knowledge of how ERP works, operational efficiency will never look the same again. If you know how to change the system for the better, and you know it will work. Why would you not?
Monday to Monday Cycle – Business leaders drive innovation in a company. This innovation is no more apparent than in the traditional Monday morning business meeting where a CEO comes in and paints a picture of the next greatest thing. His or her next comments are “Will it work?” and “Make it happen!”. Open source ERP helps your business and IT teams say yes more often. You are no longer completely dependent on a high-priced Oracle Integrators. You are no longer dependent on spending 18% every year to Oracle for software that you have little control over. Your team applies its knowledge of the system and the knowledge of its world-wide resources to create a proof of concept that paints the real picture the following Monday.
Right Pay Grade – Open source ERP puts the right tools in the right person’s hands at the right pay-grade. there is little more wasteful that paying a $150/hr integrator for something a Jr IT professional should be doing. Open Source ERP removes the artificial barriers that exist in proprietary ERP.
ERP for Everyone – User licenses/seats are no longer a consideration. This point cannot be stated strongly enough. At first look, you might think this point is about saving money. It is much more than that. You now have the freedom and flexibility of allowing everyone in your company to interact the system that drives your operations. You simply assign the right roles to the right people to give them access to the appropriate information.

ADempiere vs iDempiere vs Openbravo vs Compiere

The ADempiere, iDempiere, Openbravo and Compiere environments are amazingly similar. iDempiere came from ADempiere. ADempiere and Openbravo came from Compiere. Compiere came from Jorg Janke. Jorg came from Oracle. As a result, iDempiere and ADempiere have much in common with Oracle’s ERP in terms of the financial feature set.

This is both good and bad. Good because iDempiere and ADempiere are quite capable to help a company grow beyond $500M USD. Bad because they tend to be more complex in that they account for multiple languages, accounting schemas, currencies, calendars, costing types, costing methods, etc…. If you are a growing organization, and you need a system that will grow with you, and you have the right internal talent/resources, iDempiere or ADempiere will be a big asset for you.

The biggest difference between these products is that ADempiere and iDempiere are pure open source. ADempiere and iDempiere make all feature available for free. Compiere and Openbravo hold back features behind a commercial or paid license.

Here is an article that discusses the differences between iDempiere and ADempiere.

iDempiere and ADempiere vs OpenERP

iDempiere/ADempiere (iD/AD) and OpenERP approach ERP from two very different directions. OpenERP comes out of the box with very simple options. If you are coming from QuickBooks, and you need a simple ERP system help you manage your business, OpenERP will look and feel comfortable.

iD/AD comes out of the box with every feature installed and configured to run a $200M+ USD business. If your business is growing rapidly, and you are willing to invest the time to learn an enterprise accounting system, then iD/AD will give you confidence.

Which one is best for you depends on your internal talent, growth and business complexity. Here is a post to help you learn more.

The post appeared first on iDempiere Training Open Source ERP Chuck Boecking.

↧

Project Manufacturing – Quick Demonstration using iDempiere Open Source ERP

January 28, 2015, 6:53 am

≫ Next: Project Manufacturing – Explode Project Template into BOM Components

≪ Previous: iDempiere Open Source ERP – Making Core iDempiere Code Changes

Hi Everyone,

The purpose of this post is to demonstrate project manufacturing in iDempiere. Manufacturing companies generally fall into one of two camps:

You make hundreds or millions of units in a day – Example: high volume discrete or process manufacturing
You make fewer units over more time with higher variability – Example: capital equipment manufacturing, construction, custom manufacturing, make to order, high-mix-low-volume (HMLV), etc…

The high volume manufacturing (discrete and process) market is well served by MRP software provides. The software and the methodologies are mature and well established; however, there is a big gap for companies who fall outside of traditional MRP. If you have high variability in your design, quoting, or manufacturing process, iDempiere open source ERP might be a good fit. If you ever wished you could combine project management, project accounting and manufacturing into the same process, iDempiere open source ERP might be a good fit. I hope this simple demonstration helps!!!

What is the best way to Learn iDempiere and ADempiere?

Why consider Open Source ERP?

Open Source ERP Round Rug Effect

Open Source ERP has what I call a “Round Rug Effect”. If you were to liken the ERP evaluation process to a 10′ x 10′ room, the story would go something like this:

Oracle, SAP, and Microsoft are a 10′ x 10′ ERP rug in a ten by ten foot room. They cover the room nicely. You will be hard pressed to find a feature or a use case that they do not cover.
Open Source ERP is like a 10′ round rug in a ten by ten foot room. It will cover the vast majority of the room; however, it will leave the corners bare. The questions are: “Do you live and operate in the corners?” or “Is open source ERP good enough?”. For most, the answers are “sometimes” and “yes”.

Pillars of Cost – Since open source ERP is free, that means that all the cost of proprietary ERP should be allocated to the corners. If you use height to illustrate this allocated cost, the corners turn into tall pillers of cost.
Cost of Innovation – At first look, the price tag of free open source ERP is the most appealing benefit; however, this benefit soon becomes overshadowed by the flexibility of open source ERP. If organizational leaders take just some of the cost that would otherwise be spent on Oracle or SAP, and they invest it back into the organization’s skills and knowledge of how ERP works, operational efficiency will never look the same again. If you know how to change the system for the better, and you know it will work. Why would you not?
Monday to Monday Cycle – Business leaders drive innovation in a company. This innovation is no more apparent than in the traditional Monday morning business meeting where a CEO comes in and paints a picture of the next greatest thing. His or her next comments are “Will it work?” and “Make it happen!”. Open source ERP helps your business and IT teams say yes more often. You are no longer completely dependent on a high-priced Oracle Integrators. You are no longer dependent on spending 18% every year to Oracle for software that you have little control over. Your team applies its knowledge of the system and the knowledge of its world-wide resources to create a proof of concept that paints the real picture the following Monday.
Right Pay Grade – Open source ERP puts the right tools in the right person’s hands at the right pay-grade. there is little more wasteful that paying a $150/hr integrator for something a Jr IT professional should be doing. Open Source ERP removes the artificial barriers that exist in proprietary ERP.
ERP for Everyone – User licenses/seats are no longer a consideration. This point cannot be stated strongly enough. At first look, you might think this point is about saving money. It is much more than that. You now have the freedom and flexibility of allowing everyone in your company to interact the system that drives your operations. You simply assign the right roles to the right people to give them access to the appropriate information.

ADempiere vs iDempiere vs Openbravo vs Compiere

Here is an article that discusses the differences between iDempiere and ADempiere.

iDempiere and ADempiere vs OpenERP

Which one is best for you depends on your internal talent, growth and business complexity. Here is a post to help you learn more.

The post appeared first on iDempiere Training Open Source ERP Chuck Boecking.

↧

Project Manufacturing – Explode Project Template into BOM Components

January 30, 2015, 1:08 pm

≫ Next: Manufacturing BOM Templates in iDempiere Open Source ERP

≪ Previous: Project Manufacturing – Quick Demonstration using iDempiere Open Source ERP

Hi Everyone,

The purpose of this post is to discuss and demonstrate BOM management best practices in project manufacturing and iDempiere open source ERP. Specifically, this video demonstrates how to take a project phase template containing a phase’s finished good and create all sub-assemblies (semi-finished goods) and their raw goods. Doing so has the following benefits:

No Bills of Materials are stored in project templates. BOMs are only propagated to the project when the phase is released to the shop floor.
Project templates are much easier to maintain.
Project manipulation and quoting become much easier and faster.

Available to ERP Academy Members

The below video demonstrates a process that is not available in the iDempiere core application. It is maintained in a a private repository. If you are or have ever been a member of the ERP Academy, you may request access to the repository for no additional charge. Simply join the ERP Academy and submit a request through the academy mailing list.

Project Manufacturing Demonstration – Explode BOM Through BOM Depth

Reference Material

How to create Production and Purchase Orders from a Project Phase

What is the best way to Learn iDempiere and ADempiere?

Why consider Open Source ERP?

Open Source ERP Round Rug Effect

Open Source ERP has what I call a “Round Rug Effect”. If you were to liken the ERP evaluation process to a 10′ x 10′ room, the story would go something like this:

Oracle, SAP, and Microsoft are a 10′ x 10′ ERP rug in a ten by ten foot room. They cover the room nicely. You will be hard pressed to find a feature or a use case that they do not cover.
Open Source ERP is like a 10′ round rug in a ten by ten foot room. It will cover the vast majority of the room; however, it will leave the corners bare. The questions are: “Do you live and operate in the corners?” or “Is open source ERP good enough?”. For most, the answers are “sometimes” and “yes”.

Pillars of Cost – Since open source ERP is free, that means that all the cost of proprietary ERP should be allocated to the corners. If you use height to illustrate this allocated cost, the corners turn into tall pillers of cost.
Cost of Innovation – At first look, the price tag of free open source ERP is the most appealing benefit; however, this benefit soon becomes overshadowed by the flexibility of open source ERP. If organizational leaders take just some of the cost that would otherwise be spent on Oracle or SAP, and they invest it back into the organization’s skills and knowledge of how ERP works, operational efficiency will never look the same again. If you know how to change the system for the better, and you know it will work. Why would you not?
Monday to Monday Cycle – Business leaders drive innovation in a company. This innovation is no more apparent than in the traditional Monday morning business meeting where a CEO comes in and paints a picture of the next greatest thing. His or her next comments are “Will it work?” and “Make it happen!”. Open source ERP helps your business and IT teams say yes more often. You are no longer completely dependent on a high-priced Oracle Integrators. You are no longer dependent on spending 18% every year to Oracle for software that you have little control over. Your team applies its knowledge of the system and the knowledge of its world-wide resources to create a proof of concept that paints the real picture the following Monday.
Right Pay Grade – Open source ERP puts the right tools in the right person’s hands at the right pay-grade. there is little more wasteful that paying a $150/hr integrator for something a Jr IT professional should be doing. Open Source ERP removes the artificial barriers that exist in proprietary ERP.
ERP for Everyone – User licenses/seats are no longer a consideration. This point cannot be stated strongly enough. At first look, you might think this point is about saving money. It is much more than that. You now have the freedom and flexibility of allowing everyone in your company to interact the system that drives your operations. You simply assign the right roles to the right people to give them access to the appropriate information.

ADempiere vs iDempiere vs Openbravo vs Compiere

Here is an article that discusses the differences between iDempiere and ADempiere.

iDempiere and ADempiere vs OpenERP

Which one is best for you depends on your internal talent, growth and business complexity. Here is a post to help you learn more.

The post appeared first on iDempiere Training Open Source ERP Chuck Boecking.

↧

Manufacturing BOM Templates in iDempiere Open Source ERP

February 3, 2015, 6:03 am

≫ Next: Managing Outsourced Manufacturing in iDempiere Open Source ERP

≪ Previous: Project Manufacturing – Explode Project Template into BOM Components

Hi Everyone,

The purpose of this post is to help you create manufacturing BOM (Bill of Material) templates in iDempiere open source ERP. In make-to-order, high-mix-low-volume (HMLV), and make-to-order (MTO) manufacturing scenarios, users do not like creating products from scratch. Instead, a MRP administrator would prefer to create a set of BOM templates for commonly manufactured goods. If a user needs to create different variation of a template, he/she can simple create a new product and copy all the details from the template (including BOM, substitutes, price lists, and replenish records).

Here are the steps in iDempiere Open Source ERP:

Configure a product to your specifications
Name the product with the keyword “-Template” at the end
Create your new product instance – the one that will inherit from the template
Click on the gear toolbar icon and choose the “Copy from Product” process (from your new product)
Choose your template product and click the green check
That’s it!!

An iDempiere code patch was created to support this effort. You can find the details in this iDempiere Jira Ticket. Hopefully, it will be merged into the iDempiere core code soon.

What is the best way to Learn iDempiere and ADempiere?

Why consider Open Source ERP?

Open Source ERP Round Rug Effect

Open Source ERP has what I call a “Round Rug Effect”. If you were to liken the ERP evaluation process to a 10′ x 10′ room, the story would go something like this:

Oracle, SAP, and Microsoft are a 10′ x 10′ ERP rug in a ten by ten foot room. They cover the room nicely. You will be hard pressed to find a feature or a use case that they do not cover.
Open Source ERP is like a 10′ round rug in a ten by ten foot room. It will cover the vast majority of the room; however, it will leave the corners bare. The questions are: “Do you live and operate in the corners?” or “Is open source ERP good enough?”. For most, the answers are “sometimes” and “yes”.

Pillars of Cost – Since open source ERP is free, that means that all the cost of proprietary ERP should be allocated to the corners. If you use height to illustrate this allocated cost, the corners turn into tall pillers of cost.
Cost of Innovation – At first look, the price tag of free open source ERP is the most appealing benefit; however, this benefit soon becomes overshadowed by the flexibility of open source ERP. If organizational leaders take just some of the cost that would otherwise be spent on Oracle or SAP, and they invest it back into the organization’s skills and knowledge of how ERP works, operational efficiency will never look the same again. If you know how to change the system for the better, and you know it will work. Why would you not?
Monday to Monday Cycle – Business leaders drive innovation in a company. This innovation is no more apparent than in the traditional Monday morning business meeting where a CEO comes in and paints a picture of the next greatest thing. His or her next comments are “Will it work?” and “Make it happen!”. Open source ERP helps your business and IT teams say yes more often. You are no longer completely dependent on a high-priced Oracle Integrators. You are no longer dependent on spending 18% every year to Oracle for software that you have little control over. Your team applies its knowledge of the system and the knowledge of its world-wide resources to create a proof of concept that paints the real picture the following Monday.
Right Pay Grade – Open source ERP puts the right tools in the right person’s hands at the right pay-grade. there is little more wasteful that paying a $150/hr integrator for something a Jr IT professional should be doing. Open Source ERP removes the artificial barriers that exist in proprietary ERP.
ERP for Everyone – User licenses/seats are no longer a consideration. This point cannot be stated strongly enough. At first look, you might think this point is about saving money. It is much more than that. You now have the freedom and flexibility of allowing everyone in your company to interact the system that drives your operations. You simply assign the right roles to the right people to give them access to the appropriate information.

ADempiere vs iDempiere vs Openbravo vs Compiere

Here is an article that discusses the differences between iDempiere and ADempiere.

iDempiere and ADempiere vs OpenERP

Which one is best for you depends on your internal talent, growth and business complexity. Here is a post to help you learn more.

The post appeared first on iDempiere Training Open Source ERP Chuck Boecking.

↧

Managing Outsourced Manufacturing in iDempiere Open Source ERP

February 6, 2015, 8:30 am

≫ Next: Open Source ERP – Multi-Level Single-Pass Replenishment iDempiere Plug-in

≪ Previous: Manufacturing BOM Templates in iDempiere Open Source ERP

Hi Everyone,

The purpose of this post is to introduce you to a new training series designed to help you support the outsourced manufacturing process in iDempiere, open source ERP. This course covers:

How to configure iDempiere to receive finished goods.
How to configure iDempiere to manage some or all of your raw goods.
How to move inventory (raw and finished goods) between you, your factories and your distribution centers.
How to automatically accrue production liabilities at the time of manufacturing.
How to integrate project management into your manufacturing process.
How to manage both serial and parallel manufacturing processes when each process occurs at a different factory.
How to group and manage multiple factory orders into a single unit or season.

Course Introduction

What is the best way to Learn iDempiere and ADempiere?

Why consider Open Source ERP?

Open Source ERP Round Rug Effect

Open Source ERP has what I call a “Round Rug Effect”. If you were to liken the ERP evaluation process to a 10′ x 10′ room, the story would go something like this:

Oracle, SAP, and Microsoft are a 10′ x 10′ ERP rug in a ten by ten foot room. They cover the room nicely. You will be hard pressed to find a feature or a use case that they do not cover.
Open Source ERP is like a 10′ round rug in a ten by ten foot room. It will cover the vast majority of the room; however, it will leave the corners bare. The questions are: “Do you live and operate in the corners?” or “Is open source ERP good enough?”. For most, the answers are “sometimes” and “yes”.

Pillars of Cost – Since open source ERP is free, that means that all the cost of proprietary ERP should be allocated to the corners. If you use height to illustrate this allocated cost, the corners turn into tall pillers of cost.
Cost of Innovation – At first look, the price tag of free open source ERP is the most appealing benefit; however, this benefit soon becomes overshadowed by the flexibility of open source ERP. If organizational leaders take just some of the cost that would otherwise be spent on Oracle or SAP, and they invest it back into the organization’s skills and knowledge of how ERP works, operational efficiency will never look the same again. If you know how to change the system for the better, and you know it will work. Why would you not?
Monday to Monday Cycle – Business leaders drive innovation in a company. This innovation is no more apparent than in the traditional Monday morning business meeting where a CEO comes in and paints a picture of the next greatest thing. His or her next comments are “Will it work?” and “Make it happen!”. Open source ERP helps your business and IT teams say yes more often. You are no longer completely dependent on a high-priced Oracle Integrators. You are no longer dependent on spending 18% every year to Oracle for software that you have little control over. Your team applies its knowledge of the system and the knowledge of its world-wide resources to create a proof of concept that paints the real picture the following Monday.
Right Pay Grade – Open source ERP puts the right tools in the right person’s hands at the right pay-grade. there is little more wasteful that paying a $150/hr integrator for something a Jr IT professional should be doing. Open Source ERP removes the artificial barriers that exist in proprietary ERP.
ERP for Everyone – User licenses/seats are no longer a consideration. This point cannot be stated strongly enough. At first look, you might think this point is about saving money. It is much more than that. You now have the freedom and flexibility of allowing everyone in your company to interact the system that drives your operations. You simply assign the right roles to the right people to give them access to the appropriate information.

ADempiere vs iDempiere vs Openbravo vs Compiere

Here is an article that discusses the differences between iDempiere and ADempiere.

iDempiere and ADempiere vs OpenERP

Which one is best for you depends on your internal talent, growth and business complexity. Here is a post to help you learn more.

The post appeared first on iDempiere Training Open Source ERP Chuck Boecking.

↧

Open Source ERP – Multi-Level Single-Pass Replenishment iDempiere Plug-in

September 16, 2015, 7:33 am

≫ Next: Enterprise Quality Open Source ERP – Scaling iDempiere

≪ Previous: Managing Outsourced Manufacturing in iDempiere Open Source ERP

Hi Everyone,

The purpose of this post is to introduce you to the Multi-Level Replenishment iDempiere plug-in. This plug-in adds enterprise replenishment abilities for global manufacturing and distribution companies while placing a strong emphasis on speed, audibility and user control.

Plug-in Summary

Provides a fast and efficient global manufacturing and distribution replenishment process for iDempiere. This plugin is useful when companies need more advanced open source MRP and open source WMS abilities in an ERP system.

Features:

Iterates across multiple warehouses in a single pass
Iterates across all BOM levels in a single pass
Iterates across all distribution moves in a single pass
Adds monthly or weekly replenish frequency
Adds monthly or weekly seasonal variability
Adds time-based document creation that accounts for vendor, manufacturing and inter-warehouse lead times
Calculates replenishment statistics including reorder points
Gives users the ability to modify amounts and dates before document creation

Statistical Analysis

Replenish quantities are derived from the following equation. You can create your own statistical process if needed.

Reorder Point = (average monthly usage X lead-time) + safety stock %

Test-Driven and Audit-Proven Development

Some of ERP’s most notable failures come from flawed replenishment programs. This plug-in was created with a “test first” development process. A comprehensive test suite helps ensure all new and existing features perform as expected. The code provides many mid-process check points to assist power users when auditing advanced replenishment scenarios and developers when extending functionality.

Plug-in Availability

All ERP Academy plug-ins and scripts are available to all current and past ERP Academy participants. If you wish to use this plug-in, simply join the ERP Academy. If you are a current or past subscriber, simply send me an email via the academy mailing list asking for access to the repository. Detailed ERP Academy training videos describe and demonstrate how to use this iDempiere replenishment plug-in.

What is the best way to Learn iDempiere and ADempiere?

Why consider Open Source ERP?

Open Source ERP Round Rug Effect

Open Source ERP has what I call a “Round Rug Effect”. If you were to liken the ERP evaluation process to a 10′ x 10′ room, the story would go something like this:

Oracle, SAP, and Microsoft are a 10′ x 10′ ERP rug in a ten by ten foot room. They cover the room nicely. You will be hard pressed to find a feature or a use case that they do not cover.
Open Source ERP is like a 10′ round rug in a ten by ten foot room. It will cover the vast majority of the room; however, it will leave the corners bare. The questions are: “Do you live and operate in the corners?” or “Is open source ERP good enough?”. For most, the answers are “sometimes” and “yes”.

Pillars of Cost – Since open source ERP is free, that means that all the cost of proprietary ERP should be allocated to the corners. If you use height to illustrate this allocated cost, the corners turn into tall pillers of cost.
Cost of Innovation – At first look, the price tag of free open source ERP is the most appealing benefit; however, this benefit soon becomes overshadowed by the flexibility of open source ERP. If organizational leaders take just some of the cost that would otherwise be spent on Oracle or SAP, and they invest it back into the organization’s skills and knowledge of how ERP works, operational efficiency will never look the same again. If you know how to change the system for the better, and you know it will work. Why would you not?
Monday to Monday Cycle – Business leaders drive innovation in a company. This innovation is no more apparent than in the traditional Monday morning business meeting where a CEO comes in and paints a picture of the next greatest thing. His or her next comments are “Will it work?” and “Make it happen!”. Open source ERP helps your business and IT teams say yes more often. You are no longer completely dependent on a high-priced Oracle Integrators. You are no longer dependent on spending 18% every year to Oracle for software that you have little control over. Your team applies its knowledge of the system and the knowledge of its world-wide resources to create a proof of concept that paints the real picture the following Monday.
Right Pay Grade – Open source ERP puts the right tools in the right person’s hands at the right pay-grade. there is little more wasteful that paying a $150/hr integrator for something a Jr IT professional should be doing. Open Source ERP removes the artificial barriers that exist in proprietary ERP.
ERP for Everyone – User licenses/seats are no longer a consideration. This point cannot be stated strongly enough. At first look, you might think this point is about saving money. It is much more than that. You now have the freedom and flexibility of allowing everyone in your company to interact the system that drives your operations. You simply assign the right roles to the right people to give them access to the appropriate information.

ADempiere vs iDempiere vs Openbravo vs Compiere

Here is an article that discusses the differences between iDempiere and ADempiere.

iDempiere and ADempiere vs OpenERP

Which one is best for you depends on your internal talent, growth and business complexity. Here is a post to help you learn more.

The post appeared first on iDempiere Training Open Source ERP Chuck Boecking.

↧

Enterprise Quality Open Source ERP – Scaling iDempiere

September 18, 2015, 7:16 pm

≫ Next: Enterprise iDempiere Cost Calculator

≪ Previous: Open Source ERP – Multi-Level Single-Pass Replenishment iDempiere Plug-in

Hi Everyone,

The purpose of this post is to help you understand how to scale iDempiere to enterprise levels. I recently gave a presentation on this topic at the iDempiere World Conference, and I wanted to share the highlights with you here. Please note that some of the below tools and scripts are only available to ERP Academy members; however, I wanted to at least discuss the concepts so that you may get started more quickly.

I hope this information helps!!

Starting with Simple

Installing iDempiere for one or two people during an evaluation phase is pretty easy. This page gives you a detailed description of the process. You can use these guidelines to create, test and destroy iDempiere instances with little effort; however, when you decide that iDempiere is a good fit, you will want something a little more stable and robust to support your team’s efforts.

Back Ups Help

Snapshots

Two needs arise when you decide you want to move beyond ‘playing’ with open source ERP iDempiere:

You need to back up your work
You need to create two environments: one for your pristine or production configuration and one for testing and destruction.

Before go-live, the pristine environment is held private to you and your core ERP project team. The testing/destruction environment is exposed so that anyone in your enterprise can demonstrate practical real-life scenarios. After go-live, your pristine environment is your production environment. The testing/destruction environment is used to solve challenges before you enter the real data in your production instance. The ERP Academy give you automated tools for creating and keeping these environments in sync and available with little manual labor.

For example, the ERP Academy has an offsite backup script that will create snapshots of your pristine database and move them offsite to S3 storage. It also has a restore script to automatically:

Shut down your test server
Load the ‘latest’ snapshot into your test server database
Start the test server

If you put the above ‘restore’ script on a test server cron job, then every morning at 6AM your users get a fresh copy of the pristine data. If you have not gone live yet, then the test server has a copy of the most recent production configuration. If you have gone live, then the test server represents your production data as of the ‘latest’ snapshot. Auditors love when you practice disaster recovery on a daily basis. Users love when they have a sandbox they can use to solve problems without needing to go to the IT/ERP team. The IT/ERP teams love when users can solve their own problems.

Replication

The ERP Academy also supplies scripts to create hot replication of your iDempiere database. If you have many applications that read from ERP data (CRM, Web stores, Business Intelligence, etc…), your read replica will support much of your read only load as well as serve as a hot standby in case of disaster. The ERP Academy helps you create read replicas with a single Linux command.

Choose your Platform

For me, the hosting operating system choice is easy. I choose Linux. Specifically, I choose the current Ubuntu LTS. All my automation scripts and support tools exist in Linux, and Linux helps me keep the average cost per concurrent user down. Here is an article that discusses the iDempiere cost per concurrent user.

Most of my iDempiere hosting experience is with Amazon’s AWS platform; however, I have written all installation and configuration scripts to work with any hosting platform (Local LAN, Rackspace, IBM, Openstack, Digital Ocean, Strato, etc…).

Size Matters – Choose your Stack

If you are putting an ERP into production, stability and scale-ability matter. At a minimum, you want to separate your application server and your database onto two different machines. I have seen this simple setup scale to over 300 concurrent users; however, it is not ideal for organizations with more than 50 concurrent users. If your application server goes down, every head in your office pops up.

A more high availability (HA) iDempiere hosting stack look like this:

HAProxy load balances between multiple Application Servers (install and configuration script in ERP Academy)
Multiple UI (WebUI) application servers – create as many as is needed to safely support your concurrent users. FYI – Each end-user session will consume between 150MB and 300MB of memory depending on the user’s role.
Dedicated services application server outside of the iDempiere HAProxy pool. The ERP Academy installation script makes this a one line command.
Dedicated PGBouncer connection pooler. The install and configuration script is located in ERP Academy. This is only needed if your WebUI pool grows beyond 4. Keep in mind that the iDempiere connection pooler (found in each application server) comes configured to use between 5 min and 90 max connections. The PGBouncer node helps make memory management on the PostgreSQL database easier to manage and predict.
Dedicated PostgreSQL database
Dedicated PostgreSQL read replica – preferably in a different availability zone.

Please note that user sessions are not replicated across WebUI application servers. If any UI server goes down, users on that server will be immediately asked to log back into a different server. In most instances, this short amount of downtime is acceptable.

Release Management

iDempiere has a loose concept of releases. Even though version 2.1 was officially released more than a year, this release continues to receive many new commits. This situation is great for the project’s continuous improvement; however, it creates instability in company’s release processes if they are not insulted from these changes. This situation will only become more exaggerated over time. The vision is that iDempiere (the project) ceases to create releases. Distributions like JPiere and ERP Academy would instead create releases based on time, features and testing.

Release Options

If you want to maintain a production quality iDempiere platform, you will need to create your own min-release/distribution or team up with a distribution that does. The informal (not recommended) way to accomplish this task is to create a developer workstation where you clone and build iDempiere from your development environment.

Here is my recommended approach:

Create a fork of the iDempiere branch
In your fork, create a branch that resembles your company or project name
Create a jenkins build server to build your official version of iDempiere

When is a Fork a Distribution

Many people become nervous when you speak of “forks” in an open source project. In the above scenario, a fork is not a fork – not really. Instead, think of it as a copy that will get batch updates instead of daily commits. The value of the jenkins-based approach is that you can insulate your production version of iDempiere from the many daily commits to the core iDempiere project. From time to time, your organization will need to review, test and release a new version of iDempiere with updated features.

My installation script acts in a similar manner. I have my own jenkins build server. My installation script pulls from my jenkins build server. The build server pulls from a local clone of iDempiere. I only update my local clone of iDempiere when I see a feature that is worthy of the effort to perform regression testing. This approach helps ensure I continue to create stable builds of iDempiere.

There are recorded sessions and frequent discussions about this topic in the ERP Academy. Most major companies (integrator and end-user) have their own build server. I am happy to help you establish and automate your build and release process.

Way Beyond Reporting

When most technical people speak of reporting, they think of native print formats or jasper reports. Enterprise reporting goes way beyond any one report based on any one table. Transactional databases do not make for good reporting. Instead, you need a good business intelligence (fact/dimension based reporting platform) to support end user data exploration and visualization.

The ERP Academy offers an ETL script that turns iDempiere’s transactional model into a reporting platform for BI tools as complex as MicroStrategy or as simple as Jasper Server Enterprise Edition. The ERP Academy BI ETL script automates the data warehouse creation in a dedicated server.

Performance Matters

Be aware that the iDempiere project does not spend much time on creating performance-based indexes. When scaling iDempiere, you will face database performance bottle necks. Most of the time, a good index will make the world of difference. Tools like PGBadger can help you quickly identify opportunities for improvement.

The single biggest reason I have seen the systems slow down due to customization is because of iDempiere’s ColumnSQL (virtual column) feature. ColumnSQL gives iDempiere windows the ability to dynamically bring in additional fields from a separate table. This is a powerful feature. If your ColumnSQL references indexed data, it is a fast feature; however, be aware that adding ‘heavy’ or slow queries to ColumnSQL will your system down. This fact is especially true on high-volume tables like AD_User, C_BPartner, C_Order, etc…

Eyes on the Prize

Monitoring and graphing/visualization play a key role in providing a high-availability iDempiere open source ERP hosting environment. The most common open source monitoring solution is Nagios. It has plugins for both PostgreSQL and JVM. Datadog is a nicely-featured and well-priced SaaS monitoring solution. The most common open source data visualization is graphite. Another tool for visualizing PostgreSQL performance is PGBadger.

Development Resources

Growth in concurrent users sometimes also means growth in the number of consultants, integrators and developers involved in your project. ERP Academy helps you extend your technology resource pool while keeping your sensitive data private by providing database obfuscation scripts and automation. ERP Academy scripts will periodically back up production data, push the back up to a obfuscation instance, produce the obfuscated copy, and push the copy to a shared s3 folder.

Enterprise Security

ERP Academy offers a couple of options to keep your iDempiere instance secure.

Reverse Proxy – script to install and configure Apache as a reverse proxy to help protect iDempiere application server from the outside world
SSL configuration – Apache configuration to create an SSL termination point.
Apache firewall – configuration where Apache protects iDempiere’s identity behind a generic SSL-encrypted username password prompt. Apache authenticates directly against your iDempiere user list. This solution is not really a firewall; however, it goes a very long way to ensure no-one knows what is running on the server.
OpenVPN termination – script to quickly configure an OpenVPN termination point inside your network. This quick and easy solution allows you to hide iDempiere behind one or more firewalls and still give provide iDempiere access to mobile users.
Full PFSense firewall – detailed instructions to configure PFSense in AWS using public and private facing subnets. This structure gives you almost unlimited options in terms of how you protect and connect to iDempiere. You can maintain multiple site to site VPN connections, mobile OpenVPN connections, BGP routing, quality of service traffic shaping, etc…

Summary

Hosting an enterprise quality iDempiere instance requires some institutional knowledge. I help organizations remove barriers and learn, configure, audit, launch and scale iDempiere open source ERP to meet your needs. I focus on teaching and knowledge transfer. I also focus on automating tasks when possible. Many of the topics discussed in this post are automatically available through ERP Academy scripts. I hope this helps, and I look forward to working with you.

What is the best way to Learn iDempiere and ADempiere?

Why consider Open Source ERP?

Open Source ERP Round Rug Effect

Open Source ERP has what I call a “Round Rug Effect”. If you were to liken the ERP evaluation process to a 10′ x 10′ room, the story would go something like this:

Oracle, SAP, and Microsoft are a 10′ x 10′ ERP rug in a ten by ten foot room. They cover the room nicely. You will be hard pressed to find a feature or a use case that they do not cover.
Open Source ERP is like a 10′ round rug in a ten by ten foot room. It will cover the vast majority of the room; however, it will leave the corners bare. The questions are: “Do you live and operate in the corners?” or “Is open source ERP good enough?”. For most, the answers are “sometimes” and “yes”.

Pillars of Cost – Since open source ERP is free, that means that all the cost of proprietary ERP should be allocated to the corners. If you use height to illustrate this allocated cost, the corners turn into tall pillers of cost.
Cost of Innovation – At first look, the price tag of free open source ERP is the most appealing benefit; however, this benefit soon becomes overshadowed by the flexibility of open source ERP. If organizational leaders take just some of the cost that would otherwise be spent on Oracle or SAP, and they invest it back into the organization’s skills and knowledge of how ERP works, operational efficiency will never look the same again. If you know how to change the system for the better, and you know it will work. Why would you not?
Monday to Monday Cycle – Business leaders drive innovation in a company. This innovation is no more apparent than in the traditional Monday morning business meeting where a CEO comes in and paints a picture of the next greatest thing. His or her next comments are “Will it work?” and “Make it happen!”. Open source ERP helps your business and IT teams say yes more often. You are no longer completely dependent on a high-priced Oracle Integrators. You are no longer dependent on spending 18% every year to Oracle for software that you have little control over. Your team applies its knowledge of the system and the knowledge of its world-wide resources to create a proof of concept that paints the real picture the following Monday.
Right Pay Grade – Open source ERP puts the right tools in the right person’s hands at the right pay-grade. there is little more wasteful that paying a $150/hr integrator for something a Jr IT professional should be doing. Open Source ERP removes the artificial barriers that exist in proprietary ERP.
ERP for Everyone – User licenses/seats are no longer a consideration. This point cannot be stated strongly enough. At first look, you might think this point is about saving money. It is much more than that. You now have the freedom and flexibility of allowing everyone in your company to interact the system that drives your operations. You simply assign the right roles to the right people to give them access to the appropriate information.

ADempiere vs iDempiere vs Openbravo vs Compiere

Here is an article that discusses the differences between iDempiere and ADempiere.

iDempiere and ADempiere vs OpenERP

Which one is best for you depends on your internal talent, growth and business complexity. Here is a post to help you learn more.

The post appeared first on iDempiere Training Open Source ERP Chuck Boecking.

↧

Enterprise iDempiere Cost Calculator

September 21, 2015, 8:18 am

≫ Next: Catch Weight in iDempiere Open Source ERP

≪ Previous: Enterprise Quality Open Source ERP – Scaling iDempiere

Hi Everyone,

The purpose of this post is to help you calculate the cost of hosting an enterprise quality iDempiere instance. Here is an iDempiere hosting cost calculator where you can plug in the features you want, and the spreadsheet will estimate your monthly cost. The cost ranges between $8 per concurrent user per month for small installations to $3 per concurrent user per month for larger installations.

If you are comparing Open Source ERP to proprietary ERP, please make sure you bring this calculator along with your iDempiere demo to the negotiating table. You will not find a proprietary ERP pricing table like this one…

The cost calculator outlines the cost and count of each server based on your prescribed complexity of the installation. For example, you get to choose if you want a firewall, test environment, hot-standby replication, or advanced monitoring. The calculator will determine if you need load balancing and connection pooling based on the requested concurrent user setting.

I hope this helps. To learn, configure, audit and scale iDempiere, join the ERP Academy.

Assumptions and Details

The cost of servers is derived from Amazon’s EC2 pricing for Linux in Virginia.
I assumed 100% utilization for any given server.
I took the cost of the server (upfront and monthly costs) and averaged it over three years to derive an effective monthly rate.
I used the Enterprise iDempiere Hosting architecture discussed here.
I included the typical ancillary tools needed to keep iDempiere stable, scale-able and secure.
I included the cost of EC2 servers, EBS storage, S3 storage. I did not include the cost of data transfer.
I assumed each user session uses 200MB and only 75% of a server’s memory is available for session management.

Examples

35 Concurrent Users

iDempiere 35 Concurrent User Cost and Server Hosting Calculator

100 Concurrent Users

iDempiere 100 Concurrent User Cost and Server Hosting Calculator

200 Concurrent Users

iDempiree 200 Concurrent User cost and Server Hosting Calculator

Maximums and Minimums

This calculator is best used for installations that range from 20 to 400 concurrent users. It is possible to scale this architecture beyond 400 concurrent users; however, to really break the barrier (say 1000+), we will need to change iDempiere’s architecture to take better advantage of database read replica instances. In today’s world, iDempiere can only use one database instance. There are tricks to emulate a ‘single write – multiple read’ environments; however, each trick has its drawbacks.

The overwhelming majority of data read by iDempiere is stale data – meaning that the data was created in a previous session and there is no expectation that the data has changed in the few milliseconds that it takes for a read replica database to update to a master write database. By making iDempiere read smarter and allowing a pool of iDempiere WebUI application servers to read from a pool of database read replicas, the database write master can be isolated and optimized for write-centric operations.

The concept of making a Web application read-replica aware has become common over the last few years; however, ERP and accounting systems are more complex. The extensive use of temporary tables to optimize complex and high volume calculations in ERP systems makes reading from replicas more challenging.

I look forward to witnessing the blazing performance of the first true 2000+ concurrent iDempiere Open Source ERP system.

What is the best way to Learn iDempiere and ADempiere?

Why consider Open Source ERP?

Open Source ERP Round Rug Effect

Open Source ERP has what I call a “Round Rug Effect”. If you were to liken the ERP evaluation process to a 10′ x 10′ room, the story would go something like this:

Oracle, SAP, and Microsoft are a 10′ x 10′ ERP rug in a ten by ten foot room. They cover the room nicely. You will be hard pressed to find a feature or a use case that they do not cover.
Open Source ERP is like a 10′ round rug in a ten by ten foot room. It will cover the vast majority of the room; however, it will leave the corners bare. The questions are: “Do you live and operate in the corners?” or “Is open source ERP good enough?”. For most, the answers are “sometimes” and “yes”.

Pillars of Cost – Since open source ERP is free, that means that all the cost of proprietary ERP should be allocated to the corners. If you use height to illustrate this allocated cost, the corners turn into tall pillers of cost.
Cost of Innovation – At first look, the price tag of free open source ERP is the most appealing benefit; however, this benefit soon becomes overshadowed by the flexibility of open source ERP. If organizational leaders take just some of the cost that would otherwise be spent on Oracle or SAP, and they invest it back into the organization’s skills and knowledge of how ERP works, operational efficiency will never look the same again. If you know how to change the system for the better, and you know it will work. Why would you not?
Monday to Monday Cycle – Business leaders drive innovation in a company. This innovation is no more apparent than in the traditional Monday morning business meeting where a CEO comes in and paints a picture of the next greatest thing. His or her next comments are “Will it work?” and “Make it happen!”. Open source ERP helps your business and IT teams say yes more often. You are no longer completely dependent on a high-priced Oracle Integrators. You are no longer dependent on spending 18% every year to Oracle for software that you have little control over. Your team applies its knowledge of the system and the knowledge of its world-wide resources to create a proof of concept that paints the real picture the following Monday.
Right Pay Grade – Open source ERP puts the right tools in the right person’s hands at the right pay-grade. there is little more wasteful that paying a $150/hr integrator for something a Jr IT professional should be doing. Open Source ERP removes the artificial barriers that exist in proprietary ERP.
ERP for Everyone – User licenses/seats are no longer a consideration. This point cannot be stated strongly enough. At first look, you might think this point is about saving money. It is much more than that. You now have the freedom and flexibility of allowing everyone in your company to interact the system that drives your operations. You simply assign the right roles to the right people to give them access to the appropriate information.

ADempiere vs iDempiere vs Openbravo vs Compiere

Here is an article that discusses the differences between iDempiere and ADempiere.

iDempiere and ADempiere vs OpenERP

Which one is best for you depends on your internal talent, growth and business complexity. Here is a post to help you learn more.

The post appeared first on iDempiere Training Open Source ERP Chuck Boecking.

↧

Catch Weight in iDempiere Open Source ERP

September 21, 2015, 11:53 am

≫ Next: Automated Regression Testing in iDempiere Open Source ERP

≪ Previous: Enterprise iDempiere Cost Calculator

Hi Everyone,

I was recently asked a question about supporting “catch weight” or approximate weight in iDempiere Open Source ERP. The purpose of this post is to offer guidelines and options when working with unprocessed foods in iDempiere.

I hope this helps! For more information about the below topics, join the ERP Academy.

Catch Weight Challenge

Let’s start by defining the situation and the challenge. Catch weight processing is a term describing a challenge that food processors and distributors face when their product’s actual weight varies over time and transactions. Because the weight varies, product pricing, packaging, invoicing and costing can also vary. It takes a flexible system to support all these moving parts.

Example Situation

Let’s assume you are a whole seller or processor of meats. You start by buying or producing 100 kg of sirloin steak. Your challenges are:

Your bulk meat might lose moisture over time, and its weight will decrease as a result.
Your cut meat will lose weight during processing.
You will often sell meat in a unit of measure (UOM) different than kg. These UOM might include 10 kg cartons, 50 kg packages, or a 10 pack carton.
You will purchase or sell meat at a general price (say $80/carton) and receive or deliver it at an actual price (say $85.50/carton) based on the actual weight.

Every company is different, and the goal is to provide the simplest solution that solves the challenges of the company.

iDempiere Tools

Let’s define the iDempiere tools available to solve the above challenges.

Production

iDempiere has the ability to define a production process that will consume one product and produce one or more other products. One example is when you process a side of beef into its components (sirloin, terderloin, round, etc…). Another example is when you consume bulk meat to produce packaged or cut meat (whole tenderloin cut into filet or bulk tenderloin into packaged tenderloin).

UOM Conversion

iDempiere provides the ability to perform calculations at the time of order based on different packaging. If you store your food in a base UOM of kg, iDempiere UOM Conversion allows you to define a derivative UOM named “10kg Package” or “20kg Package” where the price is modified by a simple calculation.

Price Lists and Versioning

iDempiere provides a price list engine capable to producing product pricing based on daily published rates, customer/vendor negotiated rates, discounts, and/or promotions.

Price and Cost Override

Out of the box, iDempiere will assume that your deliveries will match your orders in terms of quantity, cost and/or price. Food processing and distribution introduces variability in quality, costing and pricing. iDempiere provides plugin abilities to capture data at the time of delivery (weight or quality) and to override the cost at delivery and the price at invoice. This concept applies to both the Sales and Purchase processes.

Summary

To learn more about using catch weight concepts and food processing/distribution in iDempiere, subscribe to the ERP Academy. I hope this helps!!

What is the best way to Learn iDempiere and ADempiere?

Why consider Open Source ERP?

Open Source ERP Round Rug Effect

Open Source ERP has what I call a “Round Rug Effect”. If you were to liken the ERP evaluation process to a 10′ x 10′ room, the story would go something like this:

Oracle, SAP, and Microsoft are a 10′ x 10′ ERP rug in a ten by ten foot room. They cover the room nicely. You will be hard pressed to find a feature or a use case that they do not cover.
Open Source ERP is like a 10′ round rug in a ten by ten foot room. It will cover the vast majority of the room; however, it will leave the corners bare. The questions are: “Do you live and operate in the corners?” or “Is open source ERP good enough?”. For most, the answers are “sometimes” and “yes”.

Pillars of Cost – Since open source ERP is free, that means that all the cost of proprietary ERP should be allocated to the corners. If you use height to illustrate this allocated cost, the corners turn into tall pillers of cost.
Cost of Innovation – At first look, the price tag of free open source ERP is the most appealing benefit; however, this benefit soon becomes overshadowed by the flexibility of open source ERP. If organizational leaders take just some of the cost that would otherwise be spent on Oracle or SAP, and they invest it back into the organization’s skills and knowledge of how ERP works, operational efficiency will never look the same again. If you know how to change the system for the better, and you know it will work. Why would you not?
Monday to Monday Cycle – Business leaders drive innovation in a company. This innovation is no more apparent than in the traditional Monday morning business meeting where a CEO comes in and paints a picture of the next greatest thing. His or her next comments are “Will it work?” and “Make it happen!”. Open source ERP helps your business and IT teams say yes more often. You are no longer completely dependent on a high-priced Oracle Integrators. You are no longer dependent on spending 18% every year to Oracle for software that you have little control over. Your team applies its knowledge of the system and the knowledge of its world-wide resources to create a proof of concept that paints the real picture the following Monday.
Right Pay Grade – Open source ERP puts the right tools in the right person’s hands at the right pay-grade. there is little more wasteful that paying a $150/hr integrator for something a Jr IT professional should be doing. Open Source ERP removes the artificial barriers that exist in proprietary ERP.
ERP for Everyone – User licenses/seats are no longer a consideration. This point cannot be stated strongly enough. At first look, you might think this point is about saving money. It is much more than that. You now have the freedom and flexibility of allowing everyone in your company to interact the system that drives your operations. You simply assign the right roles to the right people to give them access to the appropriate information.

ADempiere vs iDempiere vs Openbravo vs Compiere

Here is an article that discusses the differences between iDempiere and ADempiere.

iDempiere and ADempiere vs OpenERP

Which one is best for you depends on your internal talent, growth and business complexity. Here is a post to help you learn more.

The post appeared first on iDempiere Training Open Source ERP Chuck Boecking.

↧

Automated Regression Testing in iDempiere Open Source ERP

November 23, 2015, 8:23 am

≫ Next: iDempiere Open Source ERP State of The Union 2016-05-13

≪ Previous: Catch Weight in iDempiere Open Source ERP

Hi Everyone,

The purpose of this post is to make you aware of an automated regression testing and sample data creation framework for iDempiere, Open Source ERP. iDempiere is rich in functionality; however, it has been historically void of traditional testing. There are two testing frameworks integrated with iDempiere; however, the tests are seldom used or maintained.

FitNesse
JUnit

Automated Testing and Data Population Introduction

There are two goals of this framework:

Create automated regression testing
Create sample data

Please be aware this framework is available to all current and past ERP Academy members. If you wish to use this framework, simply join the ERP Academy. If you are a current or past subscriber, simply send me an email via the academy mailing list asking for access to the repository. The ERP Academy includes much more detail training videos describing and demonstrating how to install, use and deploy this plug-in.

Automated Testing and Data Creation Goals

Framework Requirements:

Needs to support both data population and testing
Needs to be easy – entry level developer friendly…
Needs to use existing tools – already documented and already used…
Most things should be “one line of code”
- Create BP, Product, PO, MR, Inv, SO, Ship…
Ancillary tasks should be hidden but editable (Price List creation)
Should be “run in any client”
- Finds or creates alternate Organizations, Warehouses, Fiscal Periods, etc…
Make test executable by humans and machines
- Humans: log into any client and execute a normal iDempiere process
- Machine: deploy and execute as Jenkins steps during the iDempiere build and release process
Make test results persist (pack out, export, etc…)
Make tests self documenting and readable by non-developers
Make tests loop – yielding massive amounts of data

Automated Testing and Data Creation Picture of Success

This videos demonstrates how you can create simple code to test complex, multi-step business logic. The above class (less than 200 lines of code) would have been over 3,000 lines of code without the framework, assuming you have the knowledge to do so.

What is the best way to Learn iDempiere and ADempiere?

Why consider Open Source ERP?

Open Source ERP Round Rug Effect

Open Source ERP has what I call a “Round Rug Effect”. If you were to liken the ERP evaluation process to a 10′ x 10′ room, the story would go something like this:

Oracle, SAP, and Microsoft are a 10′ x 10′ ERP rug in a ten by ten foot room. They cover the room nicely. You will be hard pressed to find a feature or a use case that they do not cover.
Open Source ERP is like a 10′ round rug in a ten by ten foot room. It will cover the vast majority of the room; however, it will leave the corners bare. The questions are: “Do you live and operate in the corners?” or “Is open source ERP good enough?”. For most, the answers are “sometimes” and “yes”.

Pillars of Cost – Since open source ERP is free, that means that all the cost of proprietary ERP should be allocated to the corners. If you use height to illustrate this allocated cost, the corners turn into tall pillers of cost.
Cost of Innovation – At first look, the price tag of free open source ERP is the most appealing benefit; however, this benefit soon becomes overshadowed by the flexibility of open source ERP. If organizational leaders take just some of the cost that would otherwise be spent on Oracle or SAP, and they invest it back into the organization’s skills and knowledge of how ERP works, operational efficiency will never look the same again. If you know how to change the system for the better, and you know it will work. Why would you not?
Monday to Monday Cycle – Business leaders drive innovation in a company. This innovation is no more apparent than in the traditional Monday morning business meeting where a CEO comes in and paints a picture of the next greatest thing. His or her next comments are “Will it work?” and “Make it happen!”. Open source ERP helps your business and IT teams say yes more often. You are no longer completely dependent on a high-priced Oracle Integrators. You are no longer dependent on spending 18% every year to Oracle for software that you have little control over. Your team applies its knowledge of the system and the knowledge of its world-wide resources to create a proof of concept that paints the real picture the following Monday.
Right Pay Grade – Open source ERP puts the right tools in the right person’s hands at the right pay-grade. there is little more wasteful that paying a $150/hr integrator for something a Jr IT professional should be doing. Open Source ERP removes the artificial barriers that exist in proprietary ERP.
ERP for Everyone – User licenses/seats are no longer a consideration. This point cannot be stated strongly enough. At first look, you might think this point is about saving money. It is much more than that. You now have the freedom and flexibility of allowing everyone in your company to interact the system that drives your operations. You simply assign the right roles to the right people to give them access to the appropriate information.

ADempiere vs iDempiere vs Openbravo vs Compiere

Here is an article that discusses the differences between iDempiere and ADempiere.

iDempiere and ADempiere vs OpenERP

Which one is best for you depends on your internal talent, growth and business complexity. Here is a post to help you learn more.

The post appeared first on iDempiere Training Open Source ERP Chuck Boecking.

↧

iDempiere Open Source ERP State of The Union 2016-05-13

May 13, 2016, 12:45 pm

≫ Next: Open Source ERP Power $10K Challenge

≪ Previous: Automated Regression Testing in iDempiere Open Source ERP

Hi Everyone,

The purpose of this post is to outline the current iDempiere state of the union (2016-05-06) as is observed by me and many of the ERP Academy members.

iDempiere officially started in April 2011 as a fork of ADempiere. There were two purposes in starting the project (1) enable ADempiere to use OSGi to create a much more extensible application architecture and (2) resolve a conflict between the ADempiere community and Carlos / Heng Sin that allowed Carlos and Heng sin to continue contributing to the code base. Both purposes were achieved.

OSGi and Modularity

Between 2011 and 2013 (inclusive), Carlos (1300’ish) and Heng Sin (1300’ish) contributed to over 2600 commits to the iDempiere code base. There was much work to be done to learn OSGi, restructure the project to break it down into modules within a single repository, and create interfaces so that other developers can create OSGi plugins to extend iDempiere without modifying iDempiere’s core. ADempiere was one monolithic Eclipse project. iDempiere is now a collection of Eclipse projects working together to form a single application. As a result, there are 25 API interfaces available today to support non-core plugins. Below is a list of all OSGi interfaces created to date. Many of these interfaces have tutorials to help developers extend iDempiere without modifying the core application.

IAddressValidationFactory
IBankStatementLoaderFactory
IBankStatementMatcherFactory
IChartRendererService
IColumnCalloutFactory
ICreateFromFactory
IDashboardGadgetFactory
IDisplayTypeFactory
IDocFactory
IEditorFactory
IFitFixtureFactory
IFormFactory
IInfoFactory
ILookupFactory
IModelFactory
IModelValidatorFactory
IPaymentFormFactory
IPaymentProcessorFactory
IProcessFactory
IReplenishFactory
IResourceFinder
IServerFactory
IShipmentProcessorFactory
ISlimFixtureFactory
ITaxProviderFactory
* Obtained by searching the code base for 'Service.locator().list'

User Interface

Probably the second biggest iDempiere development effort was updating the user interface (overall look, feel and navigation). Gone are the indented side-tabs of ADempiere. iDempiere uses a tab architecture that resembles that of Openbravo, another Compiere fork/clone. There was some concern in the beginning over the change; however, even many of the old ADempiere guys are starting to see the utility in the user interface redesign. I personally like the change. I believe it is generally accepted as an improvement over the old ADempiere UI. iDempiere’s interface is clean, and it easy to navigate for new users.

Tucked away in the new user interface are many small improvements over ADempiere. As a 14-year veteran of Compiere/ADempiere and now iDempiere, I cannot tell you how important the little changes are to the overall stability and usability of the system. Mouse-less navigation, quick info widgets, in-window graphing are just a few of the improvements that make iDempiere more enjoyable than its predecessor. Here is a list of all new documented features.

Performance

One of the challenges of an open source application is maintaining proper use of best practices throughout the application. This challenge is exaggerated when the application is an ERP containing over 4K classes, over 800 tables and over 150 views. One of the major undertakings of the iDempiere development team was to review and update the code to find memory and database transaction related leaks. The fix was to update the problem areas to incorporate best practices. The results is a much smaller and more stable iDempiere. ADempiere suffered from daily to weekly reboots under heavy load. The ADempiere server size required to maintain a group of users was shockingly high to me. iDempiere runs on smaller hardware for a greater amount of time. By my estimation, the average user session memory footprint is about 300MB per user. This number varies depending how the disparity of user types (accounting vs order entry vs fulfillment); however, the number is amazingly steady over time – meaning that it does not grow due to memory leaks.

Class count = find . -type f -name "*.java" | wc -l (linux command)
Table count = SELECT count(*) FROM pg_catalog.pg_tables where schemaname = 'adempiere' (sql)
View count = SELECT count(*) FROM pg_catalog.pg_views where schemaname = 'adempiere' (sql)

Application Interface

Along with the improved human interface, iDempiere gained ground with CSV and web services improvements. You can now insert, merge and update data into almost any window from a csv file. The csv importer can de-reference foreign keys by search key or name. It can import data into parent and child tables from a single import. It even simulates a human importing the data. Said another way, the column order in your csv file matters because the importer acts as if a human is entering the data field-by-field. This means that callouts and other UI related tools are executed.

Web services in iDempiere received an upgrade. The two biggest improvements are (1) the addition of composite methods in a single call using the CXF framework and (2) improved performance by caching session details between calls. When most people think of web services, they think of REST. When people find out that iDempiere’s Web services are mostly used via SOAP they either raise their eyebrows in surprise or lower them in concern. While you can interact with iDempiere using an XML REST interface, it is more common to use iDempiere’s SOAP interface because of its composite nature. Composite means you can embed multiple calls in a single SOAP envelope. What used to take 10+ REST calls to create an order can now be down in a single SOAP call. The reference look-ups to ID’s for business partners, locations, products, services, etc… can be embedded in a single call. That same call can include both the order header and order lines as well. The result is fast and simple communication.

Environment Migration

Maintaining a database-centric application across many developers is challenging. It is even more challenging when the Application Dictionary is maintained in the database like is the case for iDempiere. This is true for the core iDempiere development team as well as any larger company who uses iDempiere as its ERP. iDempiere does a great job of supporting large development teams by providing strong migration tools. Let’s assume you are a $400M company using iDempiere. Let’s assume you have two external teams that perform enhancements for you. Assume you have an internal team performing quality assurance. Assume you have a formal acceptance and release process.

All of these assumptions mean that you need to be able to orchestrate a release from individual enhancements and propagate that release through multiple environments including developer testing, quality assurance, user acceptance testing and finally production. At any stage a given feature may fail, but it should not stop the entire release. iDempiere gives you tools to integrate migration scripts with source code control to ensure you can manage a complex release cycle.

Revitalized Community

When I created the ERP Academy, iDempiere did not exist as a viable project. It was still in its infancy. One of my concerns about building my business around ADempiere was that it seems to be aging, and there was no real effort to keep the application current. This was evidenced by the application structure, Java version, Tomcat version, etc… iDempiere (Carlos and Heng Sin) seems to have revitalized the community. This was accomplished with the previously mentioned section as well as an overall technology upgrade. The result is a vibrant developer community.

The Results

The result is that a $20M to $200M USD multi-national, multi-currency business can successfully go live with a nicely-featured ERP with less than $10K USD external expenses if you self-install using the ERP Academy. The same company can go live using a professional services company for an expected external expense of $80K USD. If you use both processional services and the ERP Academy, your external expected costs land in-between these numbers. When you compare these expected costs to quoted installations from SAP, Info, Dynamics, Sage, etc… the cost difference can be quite striking.

These numbers make sense because there are no licensing costs and the bulk of your external expenses come from (1) learning and evaluating the application, (2) importing data (3) configuration, (4) print formats and reporting, and (5) automating manual processes. You either pay someone to else to perform these tasks for you or you use internal resources.

Nothing is Perfect

Up until now we have discussed what the iDempiere community has accomplished, which is quite impressive. There is no doubt that iDempiere is a better application in terms of its user interface, stability and developer tools (collectively called ‘the framework); however, one question I have is: “is iDempiere a better ERP”? When you look at all the new features, all the development tickets, and all the commits (of which there are many), what new business feature were created? What can an accountant or an warehouse manager do the he/she could not do in 2011?

By the Numbers

To answer this question, I did some research.

How many changes are made to what classes? I believe this is a good proxy for where developers are spending their time. Below is a list of the top 50 most committed/changed files in iDempiere since Jan 1 of 2014. These files have a similar order when you go further back to 2013. I choose 2014 to prevent the OSGi restructure from skewing the results.

Commit Count -- Class Name
89 org.adempiere.ui.zk/WEB-INF/src/org/adempiere/webui/panel/InfoPanel.java
85 org.adempiere.ui.zk/WEB-INF/src/org/adempiere/webui/info/InfoWindow.java
67 org.adempiere.ui.zk/WEB-INF/src/org/adempiere/webui/adwindow/AbstractADWindowContent.java
53 org.adempiere.base/src/org/compiere/model/MSysConfig.java
50 org.adempiere.base/src/org/compiere/print/ReportEngine.java
45 org.adempiere.ui.zk/WEB-INF/src/org/adempiere/webui/window/ZkReportViewer.java
44 org.adempiere.base/src/org/compiere/model/GridTab.java
44 org.adempiere.base/src/org/compiere/model/GridField.java
40 org.adempiere.base/src/org/compiere/model/PO.java
39 org.adempiere.base/src/org/compiere/model/MInOut.java
35 org.adempiere.ui.zk/WEB-INF/src/org/adempiere/webui/info/InfoProductWindow.java
35 org.adempiere.ui.zk/WEB-INF/src/org/adempiere/webui/adwindow/ADTabpanel.java
35 org.adempiere.base/src/org/compiere/model/MOrder.java
33 org.adempiere.base/src/org/compiere/model/MPayment.java
33 org.adempiere.base/src/org/compiere/model/MInvoice.java
31 org.adempiere.ui.zk/WEB-INF/src/org/adempiere/webui/apps/ProcessParameterPanel.java
30 org.adempiere.ui.zk/WEB-INF/src/org/adempiere/webui/apps/ProcessDialog.java
30 org.adempiere.ui.zk/WEB-INF/src/org/adempiere/webui/adwindow/GridTabRowRenderer.java
30 org.adempiere.base/src/org/adempiere/impexp/GridTabCSVImporter.java
29 org.adempiere.ui.zk/WEB-INF/src/org/adempiere/webui/desktop/DefaultDesktop.java
29 org.adempiere.ui.zk/WEB-INF/src/org/adempiere/webui/apps/AbstractProcessDialog.java
27 org.adempiere.base/src/org/compiere/util/Env.java
26 org.adempiere.base/src/org/compiere/util/Login.java
24 org.adempiere.ui.zk/WEB-INF/src/org/adempiere/webui/adwindow/GridView.java
24 org.adempiere.base/src/org/compiere/model/MColumn.java
23 org.adempiere.base/src/org/compiere/model/GridFieldVO.java
22 org.adempiere.ui.zk/WEB-INF/src/org/adempiere/webui/panel/LoginPanel.java
22 org.adempiere.ui.zk/WEB-INF/src/org/adempiere/webui/apps/ProcessModalDialog.java
22 org.adempiere.base/src/org/compiere/util/EMail.java
22 org.adempiere.base/src/org/compiere/model/GridTable.java
20 org.idempiere.webservices/WEB-INF/src/org/idempiere/adinterface/CompiereService.java
19 org.adempiere.ui.zk/WEB-INF/src/org/adempiere/webui/window/WEMailDialog.java
19 org.adempiere.base/src/org/compiere/print/layout/TableElement.java
19 org.adempiere.base/src/org/compiere/model/MClient.java
18 org.adempiere.base/src/org/compiere/process/DocumentEngine.java
18 org.adempiere.base/src/org/compiere/model/MRole.java
18 org.adempiere.base/src/org/compiere/model/MJournal.java
18 org.adempiere.base.callout/src/org/compiere/model/CalloutOrder.java
17 org.adempiere.server/src/main/server/org/compiere/server/Scheduler.java
17 org.adempiere.pipo/src/org/adempiere/pipo2/PoFiller.java
17 org.adempiere.pipo/src/org/adempiere/pipo2/PackIn.java
17 org.adempiere.base/src/org/compiere/model/MProduction.java
17 org.adempiere.base/src/org/compiere/model/MMovement.java
17 org.adempiere.base/src/org/compiere/model/MInventory.java
17 org.adempiere.base/src/org/compiere/acct/Doc.java
17 org.adempiere.base/src/org/adempiere/impexp/GridTabCSVExporter.java
16 org.adempiere.ui.zk/WEB-INF/src/org/adempiere/webui/window/ZkJRViewer.java
16 org.adempiere.ui.zk/WEB-INF/src/org/adempiere/webui/ValuePreference.java
16 org.adempiere.ui.zk/WEB-INF/src/org/adempiere/webui/panel/action/ReportAction.java
16 org.adempiere.ui.zk/WEB-INF/src/org/adempiere/webui/apps/AEnv.java
Source: hg log --date "2014-01-01 to 2020-01-01" --template "{file_mods}\n" | tr " " "\n" | grep \.java | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr

Out of the top 30 files changed, only four are business logic classes (MInOut, MOrder, MPayment and MInvoice). The rest relate to the application framework. Then the question becomes, what types of changes where made to these business logic classes? Where they simply bug fixes or was new functionality added? Below is the list of changes to MOrder.

Only two tickets gave business users the ability to do something they could not do otherwise: 2668 – adds a checkbox to a locator to exclude from demand operations and 1999 – allows overhipping product. I performed a similar analysis of MInOut and found only one additional feature created by Deepak and the Logilite team (IDEMPIERE-1770) that allows you to manually add attribute set instances to shipments and receipts. This means that out of over 600 commits to the top 13 most active files, only four business logic features were added. The balance went to support the previously mentioned framework improvements.

IDEMPIERE-2908 Method to retrieve doctype or doctype target
IDEMPIERE-2731 Modify Access Modifiers of MInOut and MOrder properties and Methods
IDEMPIERE-2668 Exclude Locators for Demand Operations
IDEMPIERE-2575 BOM functionality sales order - implement same in MInvoice
IDEMPIERE-2575 BOM functionality sales order
IDEMPIERE-2330 Reserved Qty is incorrect when voiding Shipment
IDEMPIERE-2318 Handling NPE and providing meaning full error message
IDEMPIERE-2287 Overwrite Date on Complete - doesn't update dateacct / move call to setDefiniteDocumentNo to the beginning of completeIt (just after prepareIt)
IDEMPIERE-2287 Overwrite Date on Complete - doesn't update dateacct
IDEMPIERE-2135 Payment Term not applied for Direct Debit invoices
IDEMPIERE-2063 Ticket #1004146: cannot remove reserve quantity off order
IDEMPIERE-2060 Move some Delete Cascade Constraints to Model classes / based on idea and patch from Adnan Touati
IDEMPIERE-2042 Don't reserved stock if c_orderline.qtyordered is -ve.
IDEMPIERE-1999 Adding support for over shipment.
IDEMPIERE-1730 Counter Document can not create at Order and Invoice / integrate patch from Hagiwara Hideaki
Source: hg log org.adempiere.base/src/org/compiere/model/MOrder.java --date "2014-01-01 to 2020-01-01" --template "{desc|strip|firstline}\n" | sort -r | grep IDEMPIERE-

This is not to say there are no new features in iDempiere. It is quite the opposite. The iDempiere application framework has had many, many new features/improvements. There are also some business features in less prominent classes. Country Group is an example. The challenge is finding business enhancements in the sea of technical/application features (see the last two prominent iDempiere branches 2.1 and 3.x). What is missing is business logic improvements.

Is Lack of New Business Features a Problem

There is no question that ADempiere’s application framework needed improving. The iDempiere’s focus on this one goal is commendable. I am grateful for the efforts. My life is better and easier because of the above results. However, for our community to thrive, we need to focus on solving business problems as well. Just because iDempiere can scale to hundreds of concurrent users does not mean the users of these large systems can do their jobs. To answer the above question: yes – the lack of new features is a problem.

This question became painfully obvious to me when a former SAP integrator can to me with an Invoice Price Variance improvement. The situation was clearly outlined. The documentation included how SAP performed the transaction. When we approached Carlos, he turned down the work. The response was there there was no time. At some level this makes sense – he is the steward of iDempiere. He has much to do, and he and his family are practically the only people who can directly commit to iDempiere.

Is it Time for a New Focus

Given that the development team has been so successful at improving the iDempiere framework over the last four years, is the answer a matter of changing focus? Do we just point our efforts to creating new business features? One might argue yes. However, I do not believe this is the correct answer.

ERP is an amalgamation of many many topics. Business topics include accounting, order management, invoicing, cash management, inventory, sales, purchasing, project management, etc… Technical topics include persistence, object life-cycle, messaging, cache management, user interface, web services, API design, OSGi. Any one of these items (ex: accounting) is an area of study and expertise. The complexity of large systems is far beyond an one person’s grasp. This is especially true when you realize that maintaining software is more than just creating new features. These features along with the many features that already exist need documentation, testing, and maintenance.

In an ideal world if you want a new tax feature, you get in the tax feature development line. If you want an invoicing feature, you get in the invoice feature line. If you want a new accounting feature, you get in the accounting feature line. This paragraph could go on and on and on across all ERP topics listed above. The point is that if you have a tax feature, the tax development expert, who focuses only on taxes, would be able to quickly understand your proposal and map it into the existing software in a meaningful and consistent way. What is troubling about iDempiere is that there is only one line for all topics.

That is not entirely true. There is actually 1.25 lines. There was an eye opening moment in last year’s iDempiere conference when Thomas Bayen, employer of Carlos’ son, claimed to the entire conference that he had no issues getting code contributed to the core. The inference was that he had a fast track to contributing enhancements. I do not think that Thomas meant any harm or disrespect; however, his words spoke to a bigger issue, and it struck a sour chord with many of the attendees.

Modularity and Multiple Functional Lines

Back to the question of “is the answer simply a matter of changing focus to business features”… I believe there is one last major framework enhancement needed to help iDempiere grow to the next level. I believe the single best technical/application enhancement that Carlos and the team could do to improve iDempiere is to break it into its functional pieces across multiple repositories. This way the tax experts can maintain the tax bundles. The inventory experts could maintain the storage bundles. The accounting experts can maintain the accounting bundles. The UI experts, the persistence experts, the web services experts, etc… can all execute within their respective disciplines.

This concept is especially important for classes like Orders and Invoices. In today’s world, there is a spaghetti connection between Orders, Invoices and Payments. The same is true for the connections between the UI and persistence. The alternative is to separate the repositories by functional APIs. Note that a class’ public methods does not constitute an API. Instead, publish an OSGi API bundle for a given functional object that is independent of the implementation logic. One of OSGi’s greatest strengths is its ability to compile against an API without having the implementation present.

The first step toward OSGi has been accomplished where an multiple projects can exist within a single application (within Buckminster/Eclipse). This separates iDempiere’s massive core from external process, callouts, etc… The next step is to go beyond Eclipse by using bnd and the full arsenal of OSGi technologies which includes the ability create an application from a collection of remote repositories. If iDempiere’s vision is to model itself after Linux, this would be a great step forward toward making real distributions (as opposed to repository branches) possible.

One of the best ways to see API-based OSGi programming in action is to complete of OSGi Enroute examples.

When Successful Other Benefits Follow

If we had a magic wand and were able to wish iDempiere into a OSGi bnd-enabled collection of API-based repositories, many of iDempiere’s current challenges and visions we be solved.

Testing

One of iDempiere’s greatest weaknesses is its lack of automated testing. This point is particularly painful for the iDempiere community because it does not follow a release process. Instead, they follow a branch process. iDempiere does not create releases; they open and close branches periodically. This means that building iDempiere off of what iDempiere calls 3.1 on any given day might produce different results depending on who committed what on that day. This effectively means that each day could be an upgrade. Daily upgrades without robust test suites are the foundation of technical horror movies.

The owner of a functional repository would be responsible for both API level and unit level testing. If you are the owner of ALL of iDempiere, testing is daunting because there thousands of classes and tens to hundreds of functional areas. If you are the functional owner of Order management, your life is much easier. You have a couple of classes and one functional area.

Versioning

One challenge of supporting an API is managing versions. What does it mean to produce a new version of the Tax API? What does it mean if others are still pointing at your old version of tax? OSGi bnd handles this situation quite well. When you release a new version through a repository, the old version continues to exist. This means that iDempiere instances (distributions) pointing to your old version will still continue to function.

Going back to the vision of modeling the iDempiere community after Linux and its distributions, OSGi’s version abilities brings a flavor of package management to iDempiere.

Looking Forward

What happens if nothing happens? …if iDempiere’s structure does not change, and everyone stays in line behind a single individual? Nothing really. iDempiere continues to exist as an obscure project that people happen to find out about. It won’t really grow or shrink. Community members will make enhancements. Some of these enhancements will connect iDempiere to other tools. No other tools will actively integrate with iDempiere. The business code that Jorg created in 2000 is good enough that it will probably never die; however, will most likely never reach mainstream either. History has proven both. It is not a bad life for a program to live.

ADempiere and iDempiere Strengths and Weaknesses

Carlos and Heng Sin are probably two of the best developers in the ADempiere/iDempiere community. They are quite, are consistent, write easy-to-read code, work efficiently and maintain a high level of productivity for an extended period of time. When these two left the ADempiere community, the AD community struggled to piece together a viable release. It took years. The ADempiere community was still producing features, they just could not package them into a formal release. Adaxa, the accounting and operations powerhouse, greatly contributed to ADempiere’s flurry of new business features.

The split of ADempiere and iDempiere was as if the business analysts went one way and the developers went another. The result was that ADempiere kept adding new business features and iDempiere re-created the application framework. This is not to say that Carlos and Heng Sin are not good analysts and the the ADempiere does not have good developers. What I am saying is that each group has clearly demonstrated a desire and a talent for one vs the other.

I cannot help but think what the world would be like if iDempiere’s framework strengthened to the point that business analysts could adopt iDempiere’s framework and drive business logic at a healthy technical distance. Let the developers drive the framework and let business analysts drive business logic. Sounds like a powerful co-existence. Sadly, such a scenario is not likely. Words have been said, and actions have been taken to make such a world an unlikely reality.

Up until this year, I have been extremely proud of iDempiere’s position in its community. It was focused on strength of skills and strength of people. The forum remained a focal point to innovation. An opportunity presented itself for iDempiere to help ADempiere this year. Rather than taking action to help, almost nothing was done. What was proposed would have caused much more harm than good. Unfortunately, both communities took a step back in this situation.

Open source ERP is an amazing concept. Let’s keep it moving forward.

What is the best way to Learn iDempiere and ADempiere?

Why consider Open Source ERP?

Open Source ERP Round Rug Effect

Open Source ERP has what I call a “Round Rug Effect”. If you were to liken the ERP evaluation process to a 10′ x 10′ room, the story would go something like this:

Oracle, SAP, and Microsoft are a 10′ x 10′ ERP rug in a ten by ten foot room. They cover the room nicely. You will be hard pressed to find a feature or a use case that they do not cover.
Open Source ERP is like a 10′ round rug in a ten by ten foot room. It will cover the vast majority of the room; however, it will leave the corners bare. The questions are: “Do you live and operate in the corners?” or “Is open source ERP good enough?”. For most, the answers are “sometimes” and “yes”.

Pillars of Cost – Since open source ERP is free, that means that all the cost of proprietary ERP should be allocated to the corners. If you use height to illustrate this allocated cost, the corners turn into tall pillers of cost.
Cost of Innovation – At first look, the price tag of free open source ERP is the most appealing benefit; however, this benefit soon becomes overshadowed by the flexibility of open source ERP. If organizational leaders take just some of the cost that would otherwise be spent on Oracle or SAP, and they invest it back into the organization’s skills and knowledge of how ERP works, operational efficiency will never look the same again. If you know how to change the system for the better, and you know it will work. Why would you not?
Monday to Monday Cycle – Business leaders drive innovation in a company. This innovation is no more apparent than in the traditional Monday morning business meeting where a CEO comes in and paints a picture of the next greatest thing. His or her next comments are “Will it work?” and “Make it happen!”. Open source ERP helps your business and IT teams say yes more often. You are no longer completely dependent on a high-priced Oracle Integrators. You are no longer dependent on spending 18% every year to Oracle for software that you have little control over. Your team applies its knowledge of the system and the knowledge of its world-wide resources to create a proof of concept that paints the real picture the following Monday.
Right Pay Grade – Open source ERP puts the right tools in the right person’s hands at the right pay-grade. there is little more wasteful that paying a $150/hr integrator for something a Jr IT professional should be doing. Open Source ERP removes the artificial barriers that exist in proprietary ERP.
ERP for Everyone – User licenses/seats are no longer a consideration. This point cannot be stated strongly enough. At first look, you might think this point is about saving money. It is much more than that. You now have the freedom and flexibility of allowing everyone in your company to interact the system that drives your operations. You simply assign the right roles to the right people to give them access to the appropriate information.

ADempiere vs iDempiere vs Openbravo vs Compiere

Here is an article that discusses the differences between iDempiere and ADempiere.

iDempiere and ADempiere vs OpenERP

Which one is best for you depends on your internal talent, growth and business complexity. Here is a post to help you learn more.

The post appeared first on iDempiere Training Open Source ERP Chuck Boecking.

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Open Source ERP Power $10K Challenge

July 5, 2016, 12:24 pm

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Hi Everyone,

The purpose of this entry is to pose the question: “How Many $10M+ organizations can go live with an ERP system for less than $10K USD in external costs?” I believe the answer will be more than 100 for 2017. Evaluating an ERP System is difficult. Going live with one is even more challenging. The ERP Academy specializes in helping you evaluate, configure, customize, audit and launch open source ERP for your organization. Going live with an ERP system for less than $10K USD was once thought impossible; however, ERP Academy members have proven this myth busted.

This December will mark the 3rd anniversary of the ERP Academy. During this time, hundreds of organizations have evaluated iDempiere open source ERP. Some of them have successfully gone live with iDempiere. Others are currently in the evaluation and audit stage. Some even decided that open source ERP was not a good fit or their specific needs. Most have found the ERP Academy invaluable in helping make good decisions around the ERP selection and deployment process.

Common External Costs

People often ask “what costs are associated with a free ERP system?” The below bullets will drive 90% of these costs:

iDempiere Hosting (cloud or local LAN)
Migrating data from your old system to iDempiere
Custom print formats
Custom reports
Automation to support manual processes
ERP best practices education

What you get when you join the ERP Academy

Topic demonstration videos – over 600
Live discussions – 4+ per week
Email support – provide by Chuck Boecking personally
Community – many organizations and integrators
See the frequently asked questions for more details

Which Organizations have the Most to Gain

iDempiere is a great fit for medium-sized organizations who mange the increased complexity that comes with growth. The following attributes make for an ideal iDempiere candidate:

Multiple financial entities
Multiple warehouses
Multiple currencies
Multiple languages
Multiple projects

If you are small and simple organization, iDempiere might not the best fit for you. There are other system that are better designed for simple, single-entity organizations. If you fit this category and you want to implement iDempiere to support future growth, just make sure you have the required resources to support your project.

Required Resources

What internal resources/skills are needed to stay below the $10K external spend goal?

Strong technology resource(s) – The needed skills are (a) read and write SQL, (b) read Java, (c) working knowledge of Linux.
Strong accounting resource(s) – You must have a talented Controller who understands the connection between operations and the ERP system.
Strong project management – You must have a person and a organzational culture for holding people accountable to task.

Budgets vs Estimates

This posts describes a target goal of less than $10K USD. Please understand this is a goal or an estimate – not a budget. This is a big difference.

An estimate is a number or value that represents known challenges combined with average statistics. For example, you might estimate a task to take 1 month based on what you know of the specific project and the average completion time for similar projects.

A budget is the number that guarantees a project’s success. Even though you estimate a project at 1 month, you might budget 2 months to ensure you can finish the project before other tasks are due.

Planned Project Duration

If you are looking at the entire ERP deployment process (evaluate, configure, customize, audit and launch), you should budget 12 months. Luckily, there are are many milestones in the middle to help you gauge your progress and ensure your project is healthy. When you join the ERP Academy, you will have access to a detailed go-live task chart. You should know quickly if you are on target or not.

Financial Return on Investment (ROI)

Have you received your first six-figure quote from a traditional ERP software vendor? Keep in mind this number is just for the up-front software licensing. It probably does not include the education and professional services needed to actually evaluate and deploy your new system. Also remember that with every upfront six-figure quote, there is almost always the yearly licensing cost as well.

Most iDempiere deployments cost less than (a) the cost of the annual software license plus (b) the modules needed to get the proprietary ERP system up to the level of iDempiere. The most recent example was replacing Microsoft Dynamics Great Plains. The quoted cost for the yearly subscription plus the needed inventory modules were over $60K USD. Keep in mind this total was capped at a specific number of users. If the company wanted to grow, there are additional costs per user per year.

Strategic Return on Investment

Open source ERP changes how you view operational investments.

All hands on: the majority of employees in an organization work to support its core business. Why do companies who purchasing traditional proprietary ERP systems buy seats for about 10% of its employees? Cost is a common answer given. Most organizations implementing iDempiere take the approach that any user supporting its operations should have access to the system.
Ownership: processes and quality standards are considered to be a source of strategic advantage and directly attributed to supporting customer contracts. Implementing core strengths on a platform owned by the organization is believed to represent an appreciable financial goodwill.
Ability to Customize: not only can you modify iDempiere without incurring additional expenses, you are free to modify without requiring special permission or review from Proprietary ERP like Dynamics or SAP. Small changes to automate manual processes can create a 10x increase in productivity.

Is this a Self-Install Program

No. I do not believe that someone can self-install an ERP System. The project is simply too big. The reason this challenge is $10K and not $0K is because you need external resources to help ensure your success. There are resources that are great data migration. Others are great at data visualization. You will need these resources to maximize your productivity and minimize your distractions.

Costs Outside of the $10K Goal

There are times when the ERP system must integrate with other systems. I have excluded external system integration from the $10K goal because (a) not every organization has these requirements, and (b) the complexity of the integrations vary greatly between organizations.

The most common integration requirement is with a webstore. To help minimize integration costs, the ERP Academy offers a Magento Integration Quick Start project. This projects demonstrates best practices with webstores in general, and it greatly catapults you toward a working solution if you are using Magento specifically.

Another common integration requirement is with Point-of-Sale (POS) systems. POS is an art and science all to itself. One of the biggest POS challenges is managing stable Internet connectivity to remote locations. The fastest and easiest path to POS success with iDempiere is to use a POS plugin for Magento. This way each location can host its own POS/Magento instance. The Magento Quick Start project can then aggregate the details from each of the remote sites to a central iDempiere instance.

Some organizations do not have the resources or expereince to support project management. The ERP Academy can help. Of all the ERP Academy members, almost half are current or aspiring iDempiere integrators. If you do not wish to support the project management role in your deployment process, you can hire an integrator/implementer to assume this role for you. Doing so will put you over the $10K goal; however, it is important to assess your talents accurately. If you do not have the needed resources, you are better off hiring an expert.

What is the best way to Learn iDempiere and ADempiere?

Why consider Open Source ERP?

Open Source ERP Round Rug Effect

Open Source ERP has what I call a “Round Rug Effect”. If you were to liken the ERP evaluation process to a 10′ x 10′ room, the story would go something like this:

Oracle, SAP, and Microsoft are a 10′ x 10′ ERP rug in a ten by ten foot room. They cover the room nicely. You will be hard pressed to find a feature or a use case that they do not cover.
Open Source ERP is like a 10′ round rug in a ten by ten foot room. It will cover the vast majority of the room; however, it will leave the corners bare. The questions are: “Do you live and operate in the corners?” or “Is open source ERP good enough?”. For most, the answers are “sometimes” and “yes”.

Pillars of Cost – Since open source ERP is free, that means that all the cost of proprietary ERP should be allocated to the corners. If you use height to illustrate this allocated cost, the corners turn into tall pillers of cost.
Cost of Innovation – At first look, the price tag of free open source ERP is the most appealing benefit; however, this benefit soon becomes overshadowed by the flexibility of open source ERP. If organizational leaders take just some of the cost that would otherwise be spent on Oracle or SAP, and they invest it back into the organization’s skills and knowledge of how ERP works, operational efficiency will never look the same again. If you know how to change the system for the better, and you know it will work. Why would you not?
Monday to Monday Cycle – Business leaders drive innovation in a company. This innovation is no more apparent than in the traditional Monday morning business meeting where a CEO comes in and paints a picture of the next greatest thing. His or her next comments are “Will it work?” and “Make it happen!”. Open source ERP helps your business and IT teams say yes more often. You are no longer completely dependent on a high-priced Oracle Integrators. You are no longer dependent on spending 18% every year to Oracle for software that you have little control over. Your team applies its knowledge of the system and the knowledge of its world-wide resources to create a proof of concept that paints the real picture the following Monday.
Right Pay Grade – Open source ERP puts the right tools in the right person’s hands at the right pay-grade. there is little more wasteful that paying a $150/hr integrator for something a Jr IT professional should be doing. Open Source ERP removes the artificial barriers that exist in proprietary ERP.
ERP for Everyone – User licenses/seats are no longer a consideration. This point cannot be stated strongly enough. At first look, you might think this point is about saving money. It is much more than that. You now have the freedom and flexibility of allowing everyone in your company to interact the system that drives your operations. You simply assign the right roles to the right people to give them access to the appropriate information.

ADempiere vs iDempiere vs Openbravo vs Compiere

Here is an article that discusses the differences between iDempiere and ADempiere.

iDempiere and ADempiere vs OpenERP

Which one is best for you depends on your internal talent, growth and business complexity. Here is a post to help you learn more.

The post appeared first on iDempiere Training Open Source ERP Chuck Boecking.

↧

iDempiere Installation Script Now Supports Ubuntu 16.04LTS

November 2, 2016, 1:15 pm

≫ Next: Learn Open Source ERP Order Management in iDempiere

≪ Previous: Open Source ERP Power $10K Challenge

Hi Everyone,

The purpose of this post is to announce that my automated iDempiere installation script now supports Ubuntu 16.04LTS.

Installation Descriptions

What is the best way to Learn iDempiere and ADempiere?

Why consider Open Source ERP?

Open Source ERP Round Rug Effect

Open Source ERP has what I call a “Round Rug Effect”. If you were to liken the ERP evaluation process to a 10′ x 10′ room, the story would go something like this:

Oracle, SAP, and Microsoft are a 10′ x 10′ ERP rug in a ten by ten foot room. They cover the room nicely. You will be hard pressed to find a feature or a use case that they do not cover.
Open Source ERP is like a 10′ round rug in a ten by ten foot room. It will cover the vast majority of the room; however, it will leave the corners bare. The questions are: “Do you live and operate in the corners?” or “Is open source ERP good enough?”. For most, the answers are “sometimes” and “yes”.

Pillars of Cost – Since open source ERP is free, that means that all the cost of proprietary ERP should be allocated to the corners. If you use height to illustrate this allocated cost, the corners turn into tall pillers of cost.
Cost of Innovation – At first look, the price tag of free open source ERP is the most appealing benefit; however, this benefit soon becomes overshadowed by the flexibility of open source ERP. If organizational leaders take just some of the cost that would otherwise be spent on Oracle or SAP, and they invest it back into the organization’s skills and knowledge of how ERP works, operational efficiency will never look the same again. If you know how to change the system for the better, and you know it will work. Why would you not?
Monday to Monday Cycle – Business leaders drive innovation in a company. This innovation is no more apparent than in the traditional Monday morning business meeting where a CEO comes in and paints a picture of the next greatest thing. His or her next comments are “Will it work?” and “Make it happen!”. Open source ERP helps your business and IT teams say yes more often. You are no longer completely dependent on a high-priced Oracle Integrators. You are no longer dependent on spending 18% every year to Oracle for software that you have little control over. Your team applies its knowledge of the system and the knowledge of its world-wide resources to create a proof of concept that paints the real picture the following Monday.
Right Pay Grade – Open source ERP puts the right tools in the right person’s hands at the right pay-grade. there is little more wasteful that paying a $150/hr integrator for something a Jr IT professional should be doing. Open Source ERP removes the artificial barriers that exist in proprietary ERP.
ERP for Everyone – User licenses/seats are no longer a consideration. This point cannot be stated strongly enough. At first look, you might think this point is about saving money. It is much more than that. You now have the freedom and flexibility of allowing everyone in your company to interact the system that drives your operations. You simply assign the right roles to the right people to give them access to the appropriate information.

ADempiere vs iDempiere vs Openbravo vs Compiere

Here is an article that discusses the differences between iDempiere and ADempiere.

iDempiere and ADempiere vs OpenERP

Which one is best for you depends on your internal talent, growth and business complexity. Here is a post to help you learn more.

The post appeared first on iDempiere Training Open Source ERP Chuck Boecking.

↧

Learn Open Source ERP Order Management in iDempiere

November 11, 2016, 1:10 pm

≫ Next: iDempiere Open Source ERP Disaster Recovery

≪ Previous: iDempiere Installation Script Now Supports Ubuntu 16.04LTS

Hi Everyone,

I recently received feedback that I need to do a better job of letting everyone outside the ERP Academy know what exists in the ERP Academy. The purpose of this post is to identify how the ERP Academy helps you learn, configure and audit the Requisition to Purchase Order to Invoice inside iDempiere, Open Source ERP.

iDempiere provide you wide range of option when it comes to handling procurement cycle.

RFQ to Purchase Order
- Request for Quote (RFQ), sending emails to suppliers for quotation based on rfq.
- Enter RFQ answers.
- Rank the suppliers based on the quotations.
- Create PO or SO from RFQ.
- Creating PO from SO is also an option.
- You can create a requisition , which is like a request to purchase , which can be converted to purchase order
- Purchase order with option of multi currency price list
- You can use different UOM for ordering.
Material Receipt
- Drop shipment.
- You can have different ship partner than bill partner and same with the location.
- Pick receipt confirm or quality confirmation is an option.
Invoicing
- Invoicing allows Landed Cost allocation for Freight , insurance.
- Payment terms and payment schedules are supported.
Tax Management
- Tax management per order / per line

What is the best way to Learn iDempiere and ADempiere?

Why consider Open Source ERP?

Open Source ERP Round Rug Effect

Open Source ERP has what I call a “Round Rug Effect”. If you were to liken the ERP evaluation process to a 10′ x 10′ room, the story would go something like this:

Oracle, SAP, and Microsoft are a 10′ x 10′ ERP rug in a ten by ten foot room. They cover the room nicely. You will be hard pressed to find a feature or a use case that they do not cover.
Open Source ERP is like a 10′ round rug in a ten by ten foot room. It will cover the vast majority of the room; however, it will leave the corners bare. The questions are: “Do you live and operate in the corners?” or “Is open source ERP good enough?”. For most, the answers are “sometimes” and “yes”.

Pillars of Cost – Since open source ERP is free, that means that all the cost of proprietary ERP should be allocated to the corners. If you use height to illustrate this allocated cost, the corners turn into tall pillers of cost.
Cost of Innovation – At first look, the price tag of free open source ERP is the most appealing benefit; however, this benefit soon becomes overshadowed by the flexibility of open source ERP. If organizational leaders take just some of the cost that would otherwise be spent on Oracle or SAP, and they invest it back into the organization’s skills and knowledge of how ERP works, operational efficiency will never look the same again. If you know how to change the system for the better, and you know it will work. Why would you not?
Monday to Monday Cycle – Business leaders drive innovation in a company. This innovation is no more apparent than in the traditional Monday morning business meeting where a CEO comes in and paints a picture of the next greatest thing. His or her next comments are “Will it work?” and “Make it happen!”. Open source ERP helps your business and IT teams say yes more often. You are no longer completely dependent on a high-priced Oracle Integrators. You are no longer dependent on spending 18% every year to Oracle for software that you have little control over. Your team applies its knowledge of the system and the knowledge of its world-wide resources to create a proof of concept that paints the real picture the following Monday.
Right Pay Grade – Open source ERP puts the right tools in the right person’s hands at the right pay-grade. there is little more wasteful that paying a $150/hr integrator for something a Jr IT professional should be doing. Open Source ERP removes the artificial barriers that exist in proprietary ERP.
ERP for Everyone – User licenses/seats are no longer a consideration. This point cannot be stated strongly enough. At first look, you might think this point is about saving money. It is much more than that. You now have the freedom and flexibility of allowing everyone in your company to interact the system that drives your operations. You simply assign the right roles to the right people to give them access to the appropriate information.

ADempiere vs iDempiere vs Openbravo vs Compiere

Here is an article that discusses the differences between iDempiere and ADempiere.

iDempiere and ADempiere vs OpenERP

Which one is best for you depends on your internal talent, growth and business complexity. Here is a post to help you learn more.

The post appeared first on iDempiere Training Open Source ERP Chuck Boecking.

↧

iDempiere Open Source ERP Disaster Recovery

January 23, 2017, 9:18 am

≫ Next: iDempiere Installation Script Now Supports iDempiere 4.1

≪ Previous: Learn Open Source ERP Order Management in iDempiere

Hi Everyone,

The purpose of this post is to discuss iDempiere Open Source ERP disaster recovery. There are times when things out side of your control go badly. Operating systems go into a bad state. Drives fail. Power is disrupted. Data centers become unreachable. People delete files. This list is very, very long. Since you cannot control everything, you should do as much as you can to be ready when chaos happens.

I go to great lengths to help the iDempiere community build strong and resilient ERP systems. The first tool I use to help others is the iDempiere installation script. There are a number of ways this script helps keep you safe:

Installs iDempiere according to best practices
Optimizes the JVM and PostgreSQL Database settings for best performance and resource utilization
Includes utilities for scheduling and executing off-site backups
Includes the ability to install using Amazon’s AWS RDS PostgreSQL service
Includes the ability to maintain a real-time, offsite database replica
Includes utility scripts for scheduling maintenance
Supports advanced configurations like moving your data drive to a separate partition (away from your OS partition)
… the list is quite long …

Another way I go to great lengths is to teach organizations the tools to ensure your iDempiere instance stays safe and available. The ERP Academy includes lessons on:

Basic Linux
Basic PostgreSQL database tools
iDempiere server management
How to restore from an offsite DB backup
How to restore from a an offsite binary backup (the actual server directory)
How to protect your iDempiere server inside AWS (cloud hosting)
How to protect your iDempiere using Apache authentication (authenticates directly against iDempiere without anyone knowing what exists on the server)
How to protect your iDempiere using a VPN server
How to build iDempiere instances that support your user count (up to 400+ concurrent users)
How to create alerts when known issues arise
… the list is quite long…

Installing a test iDempiere play server and knowing how to support a production ERP instance are very different tasks/challenges. The ERP Academy helps you bridge the gap between novice and brilliant ERP Administrator.

What is the best way to Learn iDempiere and ADempiere?

I teach an on-line class that covers how to learn, configure and audit open source ERP. It uses iDempiere as the reference ERP. Here are the course frequently asked questions. I have learned much over the last fourteen years, and I have much to share. I look forward to seeing you there!!

Why consider Open Source ERP?

Open Source ERP Round Rug Effect

Open Source ERP has what I call a “Round Rug Effect”. If you were to liken the ERP evaluation process to a 10′ x 10′ room, the story would go something like this:

Oracle, SAP, and Microsoft are a 10′ x 10′ ERP rug in a ten by ten foot room. They cover the room nicely. You will be hard pressed to find a feature or a use case that they do not cover.
Open Source ERP is like a 10′ round rug in a ten by ten foot room. It will cover the vast majority of the room; however, it will leave the corners bare. The questions are: “Do you live and operate in the corners?” or “Is open source ERP good enough?”. For most, the answers are “sometimes” and “yes”.

Pillars of Cost – Since open source ERP is free, that means that all the cost of proprietary ERP should be allocated to the corners. If you use height to illustrate this allocated cost, the corners turn into tall pillers of cost.
Cost of Innovation – At first look, the price tag of free open source ERP is the most appealing benefit; however, this benefit soon becomes overshadowed by the flexibility of open source ERP. If organizational leaders take just some of the cost that would otherwise be spent on Oracle or SAP, and they invest it back into the organization’s skills and knowledge of how ERP works, operational efficiency will never look the same again. If you know how to change the system for the better, and you know it will work. Why would you not?
Monday to Monday Cycle – Business leaders drive innovation in a company. This innovation is no more apparent than in the traditional Monday morning business meeting where a CEO comes in and paints a picture of the next greatest thing. His or her next comments are “Will it work?” and “Make it happen!”. Open source ERP helps your business and IT teams say yes more often. You are no longer completely dependent on a high-priced Oracle Integrators. You are no longer dependent on spending 18% every year to Oracle for software that you have little control over. Your team applies its knowledge of the system and the knowledge of its world-wide resources to create a proof of concept that paints the real picture the following Monday.
Right Pay Grade – Open source ERP puts the right tools in the right person’s hands at the right pay-grade. there is little more wasteful that paying a $150/hr integrator for something a Jr IT professional should be doing. Open Source ERP removes the artificial barriers that exist in proprietary ERP.
ERP for Everyone – User licenses/seats are no longer a consideration. This point cannot be stated strongly enough. At first look, you might think this point is about saving money. It is much more than that. You now have the freedom and flexibility of allowing everyone in your company to interact the system that drives your operations. You simply assign the right roles to the right people to give them access to the appropriate information.

ADempiere vs iDempiere vs Openbravo vs Compiere

Here is an article that discusses the differences between iDempiere and ADempiere.

iDempiere and ADempiere vs Odoo

iDempiere/ADempiere (iD/AD) and Odoo (formerly OpenERP) approach ERP from two very different directions. Odoo comes out of the box with very simple options. If you are coming from QuickBooks, and you need a simple ERP system help you manage your business, Odoo will look and feel comfortable.

Which one is best for you depends on your internal talent, growth and business complexity. Here is a post to help you learn more.

The post appeared first on iDempiere Training Open Source ERP Chuck Boecking.

↧

iDempiere Installation Script Now Supports iDempiere 4.1

January 23, 2017, 10:55 am

≫ Next: The Open Source ERP Demo

≪ Previous: iDempiere Open Source ERP Disaster Recovery

Hi Everyone,

The purpose of this post is to announce that my automated iDempiere installation script now supports iDempiere 4.1 by default.

Details:

You can still install iDempiere 3.1 using the section named: Install from a different jenkins server (-J name of jenkins server and -j name of jenkins project)
iDempiere Development Environment Automated Installation

What is the best way to Learn iDempiere and ADempiere?

I teach an on-line class that covers how to learn, configure and audit open source ERP. It uses iDempiere as the reference ERP. Here are the course frequently asked questions. I have learned much over the last fourteen years, and I have much to share. I look forward to seeing you there!!

Why consider Open Source ERP?

Open Source ERP Round Rug Effect

Open Source ERP has what I call a “Round Rug Effect”. If you were to liken the ERP evaluation process to a 10′ x 10′ room, the story would go something like this:

Oracle, SAP, and Microsoft are a 10′ x 10′ ERP rug in a ten by ten foot room. They cover the room nicely. You will be hard pressed to find a feature or a use case that they do not cover.
Open Source ERP is like a 10′ round rug in a ten by ten foot room. It will cover the vast majority of the room; however, it will leave the corners bare. The questions are: “Do you live and operate in the corners?” or “Is open source ERP good enough?”. For most, the answers are “sometimes” and “yes”.

Pillars of Cost – Since open source ERP is free, that means that all the cost of proprietary ERP should be allocated to the corners. If you use height to illustrate this allocated cost, the corners turn into tall pillers of cost.
Cost of Innovation – At first look, the price tag of free open source ERP is the most appealing benefit; however, this benefit soon becomes overshadowed by the flexibility of open source ERP. If organizational leaders take just some of the cost that would otherwise be spent on Oracle or SAP, and they invest it back into the organization’s skills and knowledge of how ERP works, operational efficiency will never look the same again. If you know how to change the system for the better, and you know it will work. Why would you not?
Monday to Monday Cycle – Business leaders drive innovation in a company. This innovation is no more apparent than in the traditional Monday morning business meeting where a CEO comes in and paints a picture of the next greatest thing. His or her next comments are “Will it work?” and “Make it happen!”. Open source ERP helps your business and IT teams say yes more often. You are no longer completely dependent on a high-priced Oracle Integrators. You are no longer dependent on spending 18% every year to Oracle for software that you have little control over. Your team applies its knowledge of the system and the knowledge of its world-wide resources to create a proof of concept that paints the real picture the following Monday.
Right Pay Grade – Open source ERP puts the right tools in the right person’s hands at the right pay-grade. there is little more wasteful that paying a $150/hr integrator for something a Jr IT professional should be doing. Open Source ERP removes the artificial barriers that exist in proprietary ERP.
ERP for Everyone – User licenses/seats are no longer a consideration. This point cannot be stated strongly enough. At first look, you might think this point is about saving money. It is much more than that. You now have the freedom and flexibility of allowing everyone in your company to interact the system that drives your operations. You simply assign the right roles to the right people to give them access to the appropriate information.

ADempiere vs iDempiere vs Openbravo vs Compiere

Here is an article that discusses the differences between iDempiere and ADempiere.

iDempiere and ADempiere vs Odoo

Which one is best for you depends on your internal talent, growth and business complexity. Here is a post to help you learn more.

The post appeared first on iDempiere Training Open Source ERP Chuck Boecking.

↧

The Open Source ERP Demo

January 26, 2017, 9:23 am

≫ Next: Open Source ERP for Service Industries and Project Accounting

≪ Previous: iDempiere Installation Script Now Supports iDempiere 4.1

Hi Everyone,

The purpose of this post is to help you understand that an open source ERP demo is (or at least should be) different from that of a traditional ERP system.

Traditional ERP Demonstration

As a former Director of IT, I have sat through my fair share of ERP demonstrations. They usually go something like this:

The person giving the demo is a professional demo dog. This is what they do the majority of their professional day.
This person does not know much about your business other than you work in services, products, construction, etc…
They spend much time demo the software’s automation and beauty.
The demo lasts about 2 hours.
The person is compensated when you sign a licensing contract.
You do not spend much time playing with the software because you have not signed the training and licensing agreement yet.

This style of demonstration is appealing for many reasons. Firstly, it is easy. It only takes a little of your time to see the software. Secondly, it is pretty and smooth. Let’s face it – CEOs and Presidents love pretty and easy. If you are tasked with choosing an ERP, you have to sell the software inside the company. The demo dog approach makes your job easier.

Different Selling Model

In my experience, the software licensing cost of a traditional ERP system is between 33% and 50% of the total ERP implementation expense. In the case of iDempiere, there is no licensing cost. This concept has two impacts on your total budget.

iDempiere projects begins with an instance 33% to 50% discount
There is no licensing profit to pay for your pretty demo dog. In my experience, the average ERP Implementer gets between a 25% and 40% discount on the software they are selling. This profit is paying for your professional demo dog service.

In open source ERP, the person advising is either the owner of the company (often in the case of a smaller implementer), or an actual professional implementer. Either option dramatically changes the ERP discussion and demonstration.

Open Source ERP Demonstration

The first question in an open source ERP discussion is: “Are there any show stoppers?” Said another way: “Is there anything iDempiere cannot do that is critical path to your organization”. There is little worse than trying to get someone to use something that does not help them. Here are example points that disqualify iDempiere in my opinion:

You have 2500+ concurrent users. iDempiere does not have the architecture to scale that big. I have supported 500 concurrent users. I believe it will go to as high as 1,000 with dedicated support.
You have a strong point of sale POS requirement. iDempiere can handle counter sales; however, if you handle many cash drawers at many locations, iDempiere, out of the box, is not a good fit. Be aware there are some firms who specialize in iDempiere POS (SmartJSP for example). I just do not have experience with them.
If you need off-the-shelf plugin integration with other services, iDempiere might not be the best fit. While iDempiere is a very flexible and open system, you will not find many already created integrations with services like ADP, Avalara, Concur, Webstores, etc..

The next question is: “what is your primary happy path scenario?” The happy path scenario/document is a one to two-page list of bullets that describe how your business operates. This scenario exercises 80% of your operational processes. In smaller organizations, you might have only one happy path. In larger organizations, each division will have a primary happy path.

The next question is: “who demonstrates the happy path to your organization?” If you are working with me, the answer is “you”. It is one thing to see a demo dog. It is very different to see a proof from your Director of Operations or your Controller. Who do you trust more?

Evaluating an ERP is hard; however, if you break the ERP down into its tools, and you map these tools into your happy path, you quickly start to evaluate how well iDempiere molds to your unique business. If you have invested the time to eliminate the show stoppers, and describe your happy path, creating a couple of products, services, vendors and customers in iDempiere to exercise a happy path is a logical next step. The effort is especially valuable given that success means reducing ERP budget by 33% to %50.

Demonstrations Costs

The ERP Academy specializes in helping you execute your happy path scenario in iDempiere. The average organization can validate a happy path scenario in iDempiere’s GardenWorld sample company in one month after join the ERP Academy. This assumes you take advantage of the academy’s 4 weekly open discussions, email support and many many video demonstrations (see frequently asked questions). This means the average organization can prepare a rich iDempiere demo spending about $200 USD.

What is the best way to Learn iDempiere and ADempiere?

I teach an on-line class that covers how to learn, configure and audit open source ERP. It uses iDempiere as the reference ERP. Here are the course frequently asked questions. I have learned much over the last fourteen years, and I have much to share. I look forward to seeing you there!!

Why consider Open Source ERP?

Open Source ERP Round Rug Effect

Open Source ERP has what I call a “Round Rug Effect”. If you were to liken the ERP evaluation process to a 10′ x 10′ room, the story would go something like this:

Oracle, SAP, and Microsoft are a 10′ x 10′ ERP rug in a ten by ten foot room. They cover the room nicely. You will be hard pressed to find a feature or a use case that they do not cover.
Open Source ERP is like a 10′ round rug in a ten by ten foot room. It will cover the vast majority of the room; however, it will leave the corners bare. The questions are: “Do you live and operate in the corners?” or “Is open source ERP good enough?”. For most, the answers are “sometimes” and “yes”.

Pillars of Cost – Since open source ERP is free, that means that all the cost of proprietary ERP should be allocated to the corners. If you use height to illustrate this allocated cost, the corners turn into tall pillers of cost.
Cost of Innovation – At first look, the price tag of free open source ERP is the most appealing benefit; however, this benefit soon becomes overshadowed by the flexibility of open source ERP. If organizational leaders take just some of the cost that would otherwise be spent on Oracle or SAP, and they invest it back into the organization’s skills and knowledge of how ERP works, operational efficiency will never look the same again. If you know how to change the system for the better, and you know it will work. Why would you not?
Monday to Monday Cycle – Business leaders drive innovation in a company. This innovation is no more apparent than in the traditional Monday morning business meeting where a CEO comes in and paints a picture of the next greatest thing. His or her next comments are “Will it work?” and “Make it happen!”. Open source ERP helps your business and IT teams say yes more often. You are no longer completely dependent on a high-priced Oracle Integrators. You are no longer dependent on spending 18% every year to Oracle for software that you have little control over. Your team applies its knowledge of the system and the knowledge of its world-wide resources to create a proof of concept that paints the real picture the following Monday.
Right Pay Grade – Open source ERP puts the right tools in the right person’s hands at the right pay-grade. there is little more wasteful that paying a $150/hr integrator for something a Jr IT professional should be doing. Open Source ERP removes the artificial barriers that exist in proprietary ERP.
ERP for Everyone – User licenses/seats are no longer a consideration. This point cannot be stated strongly enough. At first look, you might think this point is about saving money. It is much more than that. You now have the freedom and flexibility of allowing everyone in your company to interact the system that drives your operations. You simply assign the right roles to the right people to give them access to the appropriate information.

ADempiere vs iDempiere vs Openbravo vs Compiere

Here is an article that discusses the differences between iDempiere and ADempiere.

iDempiere and ADempiere vs Odoo

Which one is best for you depends on your internal talent, growth and business complexity. Here is a post to help you learn more.

The post appeared first on iDempiere Training Open Source ERP Chuck Boecking.

↧

Open Source ERP for Service Industries and Project Accounting

February 16, 2017, 2:34 pm

≫ Next: iDempiere Limit SQL Clause

≪ Previous: The Open Source ERP Demo

HI Everyone,

The purpose of this post is to demonstrate how to use iDempiere, open source ERP, for service industries. We use an IT Services company as an example in this demonstration. The demo purchases services from an contractor/consultant and sells the services to a customer. It includes creating financial statements by service and by project.

Reference Links:

What is the best way to Learn iDempiere and ADempiere?

I teach an on-line class that covers how to learn, configure and audit open source ERP. It uses iDempiere as the reference ERP. Here are the course frequently asked questions. I have learned much over the last fourteen years, and I have much to share. I look forward to seeing you there!!

Why consider Open Source ERP?

Open Source ERP Round Rug Effect

Open Source ERP has what I call a “Round Rug Effect”. If you were to liken the ERP evaluation process to a 10′ x 10′ room, the story would go something like this:

Oracle, SAP, and Microsoft are a 10′ x 10′ ERP rug in a ten by ten foot room. They cover the room nicely. You will be hard pressed to find a feature or a use case that they do not cover.
Open Source ERP is like a 10′ round rug in a ten by ten foot room. It will cover the vast majority of the room; however, it will leave the corners bare. The questions are: “Do you live and operate in the corners?” or “Is open source ERP good enough?”. For most, the answers are “sometimes” and “yes”.

Pillars of Cost – Since open source ERP is free, that means that all the cost of proprietary ERP should be allocated to the corners. If you use height to illustrate this allocated cost, the corners turn into tall pillers of cost.
Cost of Innovation – At first look, the price tag of free open source ERP is the most appealing benefit; however, this benefit soon becomes overshadowed by the flexibility of open source ERP. If organizational leaders take just some of the cost that would otherwise be spent on Oracle or SAP, and they invest it back into the organization’s skills and knowledge of how ERP works, operational efficiency will never look the same again. If you know how to change the system for the better, and you know it will work. Why would you not?
Monday to Monday Cycle – Business leaders drive innovation in a company. This innovation is no more apparent than in the traditional Monday morning business meeting where a CEO comes in and paints a picture of the next greatest thing. His or her next comments are “Will it work?” and “Make it happen!”. Open source ERP helps your business and IT teams say yes more often. You are no longer completely dependent on a high-priced Oracle Integrators. You are no longer dependent on spending 18% every year to Oracle for software that you have little control over. Your team applies its knowledge of the system and the knowledge of its world-wide resources to create a proof of concept that paints the real picture the following Monday.
Right Pay Grade – Open source ERP puts the right tools in the right person’s hands at the right pay-grade. there is little more wasteful that paying a $150/hr integrator for something a Jr IT professional should be doing. Open Source ERP removes the artificial barriers that exist in proprietary ERP.
ERP for Everyone – User licenses/seats are no longer a consideration. This point cannot be stated strongly enough. At first look, you might think this point is about saving money. It is much more than that. You now have the freedom and flexibility of allowing everyone in your company to interact the system that drives your operations. You simply assign the right roles to the right people to give them access to the appropriate information.

ADempiere vs iDempiere vs Openbravo vs Compiere

Here is an article that discusses the differences between iDempiere and ADempiere.

iDempiere and ADempiere vs Odoo

Which one is best for you depends on your internal talent, growth and business complexity. Here is a post to help you learn more.

The post appeared first on iDempiere Training Open Source ERP Chuck Boecking.

↧

iDempiere Limit SQL Clause

March 9, 2017, 12:52 pm

≫ Next: iDempiere Open Source ERP – Accounting Engine Scheduler

≪ Previous: Open Source ERP for Service Industries and Project Accounting

Hi Everyone,

The purpose of this post is to publish a quick fix to an slightly annoying problem. In iDempiere, you can not use the LIMIT keyword in your SQL where statements. The reason is that iDempiere was originally created for the Oracle database. When PostgreSQL was introduced, the solution was to create a SQL mapping engine that translates Oracle syntax to PostgreSQL. In most circumstances, the mapping solution is genius. In others, it is completely frustrating. In the case of the LIMIT clause, you just need to remember you cannot use it.

Solution: use FETCH instead of LIMIT. The following two statements are practically identical:

SELECT * FROM M_Product LIMIT 10;

and

SELECT * FROM M_Product FETCH FIRST 10 ROWS ONLY;

The first will most likely fail when going through iDempiere’s PostgreSQL to Oracle translator. The second will work perfectly. I hope this helps!

What is the best way to Learn iDempiere and ADempiere?

I teach an on-line class that covers how to learn, configure and audit open source ERP. It uses iDempiere as the reference ERP. Here are the course frequently asked questions. I have learned much over the last fourteen years, and I have much to share. I look forward to seeing you there!!

Why consider Open Source ERP?

Open Source ERP Round Rug Effect

Open Source ERP has what I call a “Round Rug Effect”. If you were to liken the ERP evaluation process to a 10′ x 10′ room, the story would go something like this:

Oracle, SAP, and Microsoft are a 10′ x 10′ ERP rug in a ten by ten foot room. They cover the room nicely. You will be hard pressed to find a feature or a use case that they do not cover.
Open Source ERP is like a 10′ round rug in a ten by ten foot room. It will cover the vast majority of the room; however, it will leave the corners bare. The questions are: “Do you live and operate in the corners?” or “Is open source ERP good enough?”. For most, the answers are “sometimes” and “yes”.

Pillars of Cost – Since open source ERP is free, that means that all the cost of proprietary ERP should be allocated to the corners. If you use height to illustrate this allocated cost, the corners turn into tall pillers of cost.
Cost of Innovation – At first look, the price tag of free open source ERP is the most appealing benefit; however, this benefit soon becomes overshadowed by the flexibility of open source ERP. If organizational leaders take just some of the cost that would otherwise be spent on Oracle or SAP, and they invest it back into the organization’s skills and knowledge of how ERP works, operational efficiency will never look the same again. If you know how to change the system for the better, and you know it will work. Why would you not?
Monday to Monday Cycle – Business leaders drive innovation in a company. This innovation is no more apparent than in the traditional Monday morning business meeting where a CEO comes in and paints a picture of the next greatest thing. His or her next comments are “Will it work?” and “Make it happen!”. Open source ERP helps your business and IT teams say yes more often. You are no longer completely dependent on a high-priced Oracle Integrators. You are no longer dependent on spending 18% every year to Oracle for software that you have little control over. Your team applies its knowledge of the system and the knowledge of its world-wide resources to create a proof of concept that paints the real picture the following Monday.
Right Pay Grade – Open source ERP puts the right tools in the right person’s hands at the right pay-grade. there is little more wasteful that paying a $150/hr integrator for something a Jr IT professional should be doing. Open Source ERP removes the artificial barriers that exist in proprietary ERP.
ERP for Everyone – User licenses/seats are no longer a consideration. This point cannot be stated strongly enough. At first look, you might think this point is about saving money. It is much more than that. You now have the freedom and flexibility of allowing everyone in your company to interact the system that drives your operations. You simply assign the right roles to the right people to give them access to the appropriate information.

ADempiere vs iDempiere vs Openbravo vs Compiere

Here is an article that discusses the differences between iDempiere and ADempiere.

iDempiere and ADempiere vs Odoo

Which one is best for you depends on your internal talent, growth and business complexity. Here is a post to help you learn more.

The post appeared first on iDempiere Training Open Source ERP Chuck Boecking.

↧

iDempiere Open Source ERP – Accounting Engine Scheduler

March 24, 2017, 8:26 am

≫ Next: iDempiere Plugin Development – Database Queries Made Easy

≪ Previous: iDempiere Limit SQL Clause

Hi Everyone,

The purpose of this post is to discuss best practices when getting ready to deploy iDempiere for production. iDempiere comes out of the box configured to post documents ‘immediately’. I recommend you change this setting to ‘queued’. To make this change, you do the following:

Log in as System Administrator role
Open the System Configurator window
Find the “CLIENT_ACCOUNTING” record
Change the Configured Value field to “Q” with no quotes.
Restart your application server. More details about server management in the ERP Academy.

This change has two benefits:

The accounting engine handles the complex relationship between documents and posting timing much better when run in a batch.
You have you have more control over the posting process.

I prefer running the posting engine once per day if you operate in a single continent. If you have a global instance, you can run it once per day for each of the major continents. If an accounting user wishes to run the accounting processor before the scheduled time, he/she can execute the ‘Client Accounting Processor’ process.

For more information about scheduling services, processes, reports, etc… , join the ERP Academy – see the frequently asked questions. I hope this helps!!

What is the best way to Learn iDempiere and ADempiere?

I teach an on-line class that covers how to learn, configure and audit open source ERP. It uses iDempiere as the reference ERP. Here are the course frequently asked questions. I have learned much over the last fourteen years, and I have much to share. I look forward to seeing you there!!

Why consider Open Source ERP?

Open Source ERP Round Rug Effect

Open Source ERP has what I call a “Round Rug Effect”. If you were to liken the ERP evaluation process to a 10′ x 10′ room, the story would go something like this:

Oracle, SAP, and Microsoft are a 10′ x 10′ ERP rug in a ten by ten foot room. They cover the room nicely. You will be hard pressed to find a feature or a use case that they do not cover.
Open Source ERP is like a 10′ round rug in a ten by ten foot room. It will cover the vast majority of the room; however, it will leave the corners bare. The questions are: “Do you live and operate in the corners?” or “Is open source ERP good enough?”. For most, the answers are “sometimes” and “yes”.

Pillars of Cost – Since open source ERP is free, that means that all the cost of proprietary ERP should be allocated to the corners. If you use height to illustrate this allocated cost, the corners turn into tall pillers of cost.
Cost of Innovation – At first look, the price tag of free open source ERP is the most appealing benefit; however, this benefit soon becomes overshadowed by the flexibility of open source ERP. If organizational leaders take just some of the cost that would otherwise be spent on Oracle or SAP, and they invest it back into the organization’s skills and knowledge of how ERP works, operational efficiency will never look the same again. If you know how to change the system for the better, and you know it will work. Why would you not?
Monday to Monday Cycle – Business leaders drive innovation in a company. This innovation is no more apparent than in the traditional Monday morning business meeting where a CEO comes in and paints a picture of the next greatest thing. His or her next comments are “Will it work?” and “Make it happen!”. Open source ERP helps your business and IT teams say yes more often. You are no longer completely dependent on a high-priced Oracle Integrators. You are no longer dependent on spending 18% every year to Oracle for software that you have little control over. Your team applies its knowledge of the system and the knowledge of its world-wide resources to create a proof of concept that paints the real picture the following Monday.
Right Pay Grade – Open source ERP puts the right tools in the right person’s hands at the right pay-grade. there is little more wasteful that paying a $150/hr integrator for something a Jr IT professional should be doing. Open Source ERP removes the artificial barriers that exist in proprietary ERP.
ERP for Everyone – User licenses/seats are no longer a consideration. This point cannot be stated strongly enough. At first look, you might think this point is about saving money. It is much more than that. You now have the freedom and flexibility of allowing everyone in your company to interact the system that drives your operations. You simply assign the right roles to the right people to give them access to the appropriate information.

ADempiere vs iDempiere vs Openbravo vs Compiere

Here is an article that discusses the differences between iDempiere and ADempiere.

iDempiere and ADempiere vs Odoo

Which one is best for you depends on your internal talent, growth and business complexity. Here is a post to help you learn more.

The post appeared first on iDempiere Training Open Source ERP Chuck Boecking.

↧