Differences of parties - which to use

[Adrian Stern]

Hi

I'm playing around with the AP and AR module and for that i need to create
a Party (Customer). So i went to the Party Manager to create a new Customer
which needs both, a first and a last name. This seems to be wrong since
most customers will be companies themselves.

Ofbiz offers me to create one of the following of which i don't fully
understand the differences:
So in the following i will list the options and try to explain my
understanding of it. Please correct me if i'm wrong. Please fill my gaps.

- Create New Party Group
  => Only way to create a company. Can be billed so it looks OK to use it.

- Create New Person
  => Just a person. Don't know what to use it for.

- Create Customer
  => A Person which is a customer. Like a private account in an online
shop. Has an account.

- Create Prospect
  => Don't see much difference to Customer, Maybe a person in the process
of becoming an employee?

- Create Employee
  => Person which is probably linked directly to my company.

From all of them i can create "party group" and "person". Customer,
prospect and employee can't be created due to the lack of a product store.
I hope AR and AP modules can bi used without a product store since it would
make testing easier.

What i'm trying is simply billing a customer and getting billed by someone.
For this i would like to understand the differences between the choices
above and if / where i can change those later.

I understand that ofbiz uses models from the book "the data modeling
resource book". I've found 3 volumes of that one and i'm not sure which one
to buy. Could you point me to the right book and chapter/page where a can
look this up?

Regards,
Adrian Stern

[Adrian Crum-3]

I would recommend purchasing Volume 1 of The Data Model Resource book.
It will contain most of what you need (and it will answer your questions
here).

Volume 2 contains industry-specific data models, and it would be good to
have as well, but it is not essential.

Adrian Crum
Sandglass Software
www.sandglass-software.com

On 2/11/2014 4:48 AM, Adrian Stern wrote:

> Hi
>
> I'm playing around with the AP and AR module and for that i need to create
> a Party (Customer). So i went to the Party Manager to create a new Customer
> which needs both, a first and a last name. This seems to be wrong since
> most customers will be companies themselves.
>
> Ofbiz offers me to create one of the following of which i don't fully
> understand the differences:
> So in the following i will list the options and try to explain my
> understanding of it. Please correct me if i'm wrong. Please fill my gaps.
>
> - Create New Party Group
>    => Only way to create a company. Can be billed so it looks OK to use it.
>
> - Create New Person
>    => Just a person. Don't know what to use it for.
>
> - Create Customer
>    => A Person which is a customer. Like a private account in an online
> shop. Has an account.
>
> - Create Prospect
>    => Don't see much difference to Customer, Maybe a person in the process
> of becoming an employee?
>
> - Create Employee
>    => Person which is probably linked directly to my company.
>
>  From all of them i can create "party group" and "person". Customer,
> prospect and employee can't be created due to the lack of a product store.
> I hope AR and AP modules can bi used without a product store since it would
> make testing easier.
>
> What i'm trying is simply billing a customer and getting billed by someone.
> For this i would like to understand the differences between the choices
> above and if / where i can change those later.
>
> I understand that ofbiz uses models from the book "the data modeling
> resource book". I've found 3 volumes of that one and i'm not sure which one
> to buy. Could you point me to the right book and chapter/page where a can
> look this up?
>
> Regards,
> Adrian Stern
>

[Adrian Stern]

So. While reading chapter 2 oft volume 1 i see that i was on the right
track. Everything is a party.

Roles:
Are they also optional like the classification?
If i assign BILL_TO_CUSTOMER but not CUSTOMER will that be a problem? Or
can one choose to do it as fine-grained as needed?
=> The book states they will inherit the ID of their super type. Does this
mean adding BILL_TO_CUSTOMER will automatically make them CUSTOMER?

Relationships:
What do the fields "in the role of" and "is A" mean. Person A is a customer
of Company C which is selling both goods and services:

To Party ID: ID_A
in the role of: Customer
is A: Customer ???
From party ID: ID_B
in the role of: Supplier ???

Would this be correct? What would be correct?

I also don't think that i will find anything about the log-in details
provided for Customer, Prospect and Employee in this book, since it seems
too ofbiz specific. Could you enlighten me about what this is used for?

Regards,
Adrian



On 11 February 2014 15:39, Adrian Crum
<[hidden email]>wrote:

> I would recommend purchasing Volume 1 of The Data Model Resource book. It
> will contain most of what you need (and it will answer your questions here).
>
> Volume 2 contains industry-specific data models, and it would be good to
> have as well, but it is not essential.
>
> Adrian Crum
> Sandglass Software
> www.sandglass-software.com
>
>
> On 2/11/2014 4:48 AM, Adrian Stern wrote:
>
>> Hi
>>
>> I'm playing around with the AP and AR module and for that i need to create
>> a Party (Customer). So i went to the Party Manager to create a new
>> Customer
>> which needs both, a first and a last name. This seems to be wrong since
>> most customers will be companies themselves.
>>
>> Ofbiz offers me to create one of the following of which i don't fully
>> understand the differences:
>> So in the following i will list the options and try to explain my
>> understanding of it. Please correct me if i'm wrong. Please fill my gaps.
>>
>> - Create New Party Group
>>    => Only way to create a company. Can be billed so it looks OK to use
>> it.
>>
>> - Create New Person
>>    => Just a person. Don't know what to use it for.
>>
>> - Create Customer
>>    => A Person which is a customer. Like a private account in an online
>> shop. Has an account.
>>
>> - Create Prospect
>>    => Don't see much difference to Customer, Maybe a person in the process
>> of becoming an employee?
>>
>> - Create Employee
>>    => Person which is probably linked directly to my company.
>>
>>  From all of them i can create "party group" and "person". Customer,
>> prospect and employee can't be created due to the lack of a product store.
>> I hope AR and AP modules can bi used without a product store since it
>> would
>> make testing easier.
>>
>> What i'm trying is simply billing a customer and getting billed by
>> someone.
>> For this i would like to understand the differences between the choices
>> above and if / where i can change those later.
>>
>> I understand that ofbiz uses models from the book "the data modeling
>> resource book". I've found 3 volumes of that one and i'm not sure which
>> one
>> to buy. Could you point me to the right book and chapter/page where a can
>> look this up?
>>
>> Regards,
>> Adrian Stern
>>
>>

[Adrian Crum-3]

Inline...

Adrian Crum
Sandglass Software
www.sandglass-software.com

On 2/13/2014 4:25 AM, Adrian Stern wrote:
> So. While reading chapter 2 oft volume 1 i see that i was on the right
> track. Everything is a party.
>
> Roles:
> Are they also optional like the classification?


Yes. OFBiz applications will require users to have certain roles for
them to work. There is very little documentation on that kind of
application detail, so it will be mostly trial-and-error.


> If i assign BILL_TO_CUSTOMER but not CUSTOMER will that be a problem? Or
> can one choose to do it as fine-grained as needed?


See my previous answer.


> => The book states they will inherit the ID of their super type. Does this
> mean adding BILL_TO_CUSTOMER will automatically make them CUSTOMER?


It depends on the application. In a perfect world, entity subtypes would
always be enforced, but some areas of the project don't bother to check
supertypes.

>
> Relationships:
> What do the fields "in the role of" and "is A" mean. Person A is a customer
> of Company C which is selling both goods and services:
>
> To Party ID: ID_A
> in the role of: Customer
> is A: Customer ???
>  From party ID: ID_B
> in the role of: Supplier ???
>
> Would this be correct? What would be correct?

It depends on what you are modeling. Don't worry too much about
relationship type, it is an optional field and it basically duplicates
(or confuses) the two party roles that are already specified. Some
applications might require the relationship type though, so again it is
trial-and-error.


>
> I also don't think that i will find anything about the log-in details
> provided for Customer, Prospect and Employee in this book, since it seems
> too ofbiz specific. Could you enlighten me about what this is used for?


I don't understand the question. It appears you are confusing users and
parties. They are not the same thing. A party might not be a user, and a
user might not be associated to a party.

The USER LOGIN  entity controls access to the applications and provides
some information to the applications about the user. See Fig 9.3 in Vol 2.

A USER LOGIN might be related to a PARTY, but that relationship is optional.

Customer, Prospect and Employee are party roles, they have nothing to do
with a user login. Some applications will control access to certain
things based on a party role related to the party that is related to the
user login.

>
> Regards,
> Adrian
>
>
>
> On 11 February 2014 15:39, Adrian Crum
> <[hidden email]>wrote:
>
>> I would recommend purchasing Volume 1 of The Data Model Resource book. It
>> will contain most of what you need (and it will answer your questions here).
>>
>> Volume 2 contains industry-specific data models, and it would be good to
>> have as well, but it is not essential.
>>
>> Adrian Crum
>> Sandglass Software
>> www.sandglass-software.com
>>
>>
>> On 2/11/2014 4:48 AM, Adrian Stern wrote:
>>
>>> Hi
>>>
>>> I'm playing around with the AP and AR module and for that i need to create
>>> a Party (Customer). So i went to the Party Manager to create a new
>>> Customer
>>> which needs both, a first and a last name. This seems to be wrong since
>>> most customers will be companies themselves.
>>>
>>> Ofbiz offers me to create one of the following of which i don't fully
>>> understand the differences:
>>> So in the following i will list the options and try to explain my
>>> understanding of it. Please correct me if i'm wrong. Please fill my gaps.
>>>
>>> - Create New Party Group
>>>     => Only way to create a company. Can be billed so it looks OK to use
>>> it.
>>>
>>> - Create New Person
>>>     => Just a person. Don't know what to use it for.
>>>
>>> - Create Customer
>>>     => A Person which is a customer. Like a private account in an online
>>> shop. Has an account.
>>>
>>> - Create Prospect
>>>     => Don't see much difference to Customer, Maybe a person in the process
>>> of becoming an employee?
>>>
>>> - Create Employee
>>>     => Person which is probably linked directly to my company.
>>>
>>>   From all of them i can create "party group" and "person". Customer,
>>> prospect and employee can't be created due to the lack of a product store.
>>> I hope AR and AP modules can bi used without a product store since it
>>> would
>>> make testing easier.
>>>
>>> What i'm trying is simply billing a customer and getting billed by
>>> someone.
>>> For this i would like to understand the differences between the choices
>>> above and if / where i can change those later.
>>>
>>> I understand that ofbiz uses models from the book "the data modeling
>>> resource book". I've found 3 volumes of that one and i'm not sure which
>>> one
>>> to buy. Could you point me to the right book and chapter/page where a can
>>> look this up?
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Adrian Stern
>>>
>>>
>

[Adrian Stern]

Thanks for your answers. It's good that so many things seem to be optional
when not using all the applications.
Do i assume correctly that there is no documentations about the meaning of
(Relationships): "To Party X in the ole of Y is A Z" that these three
fields are used for?

My last question, which you did not understand, was a question i asked in
my first email. When i go to the party module and select "create new" i get
these options:

   -
   - Create New Party Group
   - Create New Person
   - Create Customer <https://localhost:8443/partymgr/control/NewCustomer>
   - Create Prospect <https://localhost:8443/partymgr/control/NewProspect>
   - Create Employee <https://localhost:8443/partymgr/control/NewEmployee>


Options 3 (Customer), 4 (Prospect) and 5 (Employee) will force me to create
a login (username + password) at the bottom of the page. It states that *
The person will receive a temporary password by email.

What ist this login used for? This actually leads to my question about the
differences between a "Create New Person" used as Employee and "Create
Employee".
So. Why the login for these three?
How do those options differ?






On 13 February 2014 16:09, Adrian Crum
<[hidden email]>wrote:

> Inline...
>
>
> Adrian Crum
> Sandglass Software
> www.sandglass-software.com
>
> On 2/13/2014 4:25 AM, Adrian Stern wrote:
>
>> So. While reading chapter 2 oft volume 1 i see that i was on the right
>> track. Everything is a party.
>>
>> Roles:
>> Are they also optional like the classification?
>>
>
>
> Yes. OFBiz applications will require users to have certain roles for them
> to work. There is very little documentation on that kind of application
> detail, so it will be mostly trial-and-error.
>
>
>
>  If i assign BILL_TO_CUSTOMER but not CUSTOMER will that be a problem? Or
>> can one choose to do it as fine-grained as needed?
>>
>
>
> See my previous answer.
>
>
>
>  => The book states they will inherit the ID of their super type. Does this
>> mean adding BILL_TO_CUSTOMER will automatically make them CUSTOMER?
>>
>
>
> It depends on the application. In a perfect world, entity subtypes would
> always be enforced, but some areas of the project don't bother to check
> supertypes.
>
>
>
>
>> Relationships:
>> What do the fields "in the role of" and "is A" mean. Person A is a
>> customer
>> of Company C which is selling both goods and services:
>>
>> To Party ID: ID_A
>> in the role of: Customer
>> is A: Customer ???
>>  From party ID: ID_B
>> in the role of: Supplier ???
>>
>> Would this be correct? What would be correct?
>>
>
>
> It depends on what you are modeling. Don't worry too much about
> relationship type, it is an optional field and it basically duplicates (or
> confuses) the two party roles that are already specified. Some applications
> might require the relationship type though, so again it is trial-and-error.
>
>
>
>
>> I also don't think that i will find anything about the log-in details
>> provided for Customer, Prospect and Employee in this book, since it seems
>> too ofbiz specific. Could you enlighten me about what this is used for?
>>
>
>
> I don't understand the question. It appears you are confusing users and
> parties. They are not the same thing. A party might not be a user, and a
> user might not be associated to a party.
>
> The USER LOGIN  entity controls access to the applications and provides
> some information to the applications about the user. See Fig 9.3 in Vol 2.
>
> A USER LOGIN might be related to a PARTY, but that relationship is
> optional.
>
> Customer, Prospect and Employee are party roles, they have nothing to do
> with a user login. Some applications will control access to certain things
> based on a party role related to the party that is related to the user
> login.
>
>
>
>
>
>> Regards,
>> Adrian
>>
>>
>>
>> On 11 February 2014 15:39, Adrian Crum
>> <[hidden email]>wrote:
>>
>>  I would recommend purchasing Volume 1 of The Data Model Resource book. It
>>> will contain most of what you need (and it will answer your questions
>>> here).
>>>
>>> Volume 2 contains industry-specific data models, and it would be good to
>>> have as well, but it is not essential.
>>>
>>> Adrian Crum
>>> Sandglass Software
>>> www.sandglass-software.com
>>>
>>>
>>> On 2/11/2014 4:48 AM, Adrian Stern wrote:
>>>
>>>  Hi
>>>>
>>>> I'm playing around with the AP and AR module and for that i need to
>>>> create
>>>> a Party (Customer). So i went to the Party Manager to create a new
>>>> Customer
>>>> which needs both, a first and a last name. This seems to be wrong since
>>>> most customers will be companies themselves.
>>>>
>>>> Ofbiz offers me to create one of the following of which i don't fully
>>>> understand the differences:
>>>> So in the following i will list the options and try to explain my
>>>> understanding of it. Please correct me if i'm wrong. Please fill my
>>>> gaps.
>>>>
>>>> - Create New Party Group
>>>>     => Only way to create a company. Can be billed so it looks OK to use
>>>> it.
>>>>
>>>> - Create New Person
>>>>     => Just a person. Don't know what to use it for.
>>>>
>>>> - Create Customer
>>>>     => A Person which is a customer. Like a private account in an online
>>>> shop. Has an account.
>>>>
>>>> - Create Prospect
>>>>     => Don't see much difference to Customer, Maybe a person in the
>>>> process
>>>> of becoming an employee?
>>>>
>>>> - Create Employee
>>>>     => Person which is probably linked directly to my company.
>>>>
>>>>   From all of them i can create "party group" and "person". Customer,
>>>> prospect and employee can't be created due to the lack of a product
>>>> store.
>>>> I hope AR and AP modules can bi used without a product store since it
>>>> would
>>>> make testing easier.
>>>>
>>>> What i'm trying is simply billing a customer and getting billed by
>>>> someone.
>>>> For this i would like to understand the differences between the choices
>>>> above and if / where i can change those later.
>>>>
>>>> I understand that ofbiz uses models from the book "the data modeling
>>>> resource book". I've found 3 volumes of that one and i'm not sure which
>>>> one
>>>> to buy. Could you point me to the right book and chapter/page where a
>>>> can
>>>> look this up?
>>>>
>>>> Regards,
>>>> Adrian Stern
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>

[Adrian Crum-3]

I have no idea what that login will be used for. If you don't want a
login for those roles, then use the first two menu options and assign
the roles manually.

Adrian Crum
Sandglass Software
www.sandglass-software.com

On 2/13/2014 8:28 AM, Adrian Stern wrote:

> Thanks for your answers. It's good that so many things seem to be optional
> when not using all the applications.
> Do i assume correctly that there is no documentations about the meaning of
> (Relationships): "To Party X in the ole of Y is A Z" that these three
> fields are used for?
>
> My last question, which you did not understand, was a question i asked in
> my first email. When i go to the party module and select "create new" i get
> these options:
>
>     -
>     - Create New Party Group
>     - Create New Person
>     - Create Customer <https://localhost:8443/partymgr/control/NewCustomer>
>     - Create Prospect <https://localhost:8443/partymgr/control/NewProspect>
>     - Create Employee <https://localhost:8443/partymgr/control/NewEmployee>
>
>
> Options 3 (Customer), 4 (Prospect) and 5 (Employee) will force me to create
> a login (username + password) at the bottom of the page. It states that *
> The person will receive a temporary password by email.
>
> What ist this login used for? This actually leads to my question about the
> differences between a "Create New Person" used as Employee and "Create
> Employee".
> So. Why the login for these three?
> How do those options differ?
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 13 February 2014 16:09, Adrian Crum
> <[hidden email]>wrote:
>
>> Inline...
>>
>>
>> Adrian Crum
>> Sandglass Software
>> www.sandglass-software.com
>>
>> On 2/13/2014 4:25 AM, Adrian Stern wrote:
>>
>>> So. While reading chapter 2 oft volume 1 i see that i was on the right
>>> track. Everything is a party.
>>>
>>> Roles:
>>> Are they also optional like the classification?
>>>
>>
>>
>> Yes. OFBiz applications will require users to have certain roles for them
>> to work. There is very little documentation on that kind of application
>> detail, so it will be mostly trial-and-error.
>>
>>
>>
>>   If i assign BILL_TO_CUSTOMER but not CUSTOMER will that be a problem? Or
>>> can one choose to do it as fine-grained as needed?
>>>
>>
>>
>> See my previous answer.
>>
>>
>>
>>   => The book states they will inherit the ID of their super type. Does this
>>> mean adding BILL_TO_CUSTOMER will automatically make them CUSTOMER?
>>>
>>
>>
>> It depends on the application. In a perfect world, entity subtypes would
>> always be enforced, but some areas of the project don't bother to check
>> supertypes.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> Relationships:
>>> What do the fields "in the role of" and "is A" mean. Person A is a
>>> customer
>>> of Company C which is selling both goods and services:
>>>
>>> To Party ID: ID_A
>>> in the role of: Customer
>>> is A: Customer ???
>>>   From party ID: ID_B
>>> in the role of: Supplier ???
>>>
>>> Would this be correct? What would be correct?
>>>
>>
>>
>> It depends on what you are modeling. Don't worry too much about
>> relationship type, it is an optional field and it basically duplicates (or
>> confuses) the two party roles that are already specified. Some applications
>> might require the relationship type though, so again it is trial-and-error.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> I also don't think that i will find anything about the log-in details
>>> provided for Customer, Prospect and Employee in this book, since it seems
>>> too ofbiz specific. Could you enlighten me about what this is used for?
>>>
>>
>>
>> I don't understand the question. It appears you are confusing users and
>> parties. They are not the same thing. A party might not be a user, and a
>> user might not be associated to a party.
>>
>> The USER LOGIN  entity controls access to the applications and provides
>> some information to the applications about the user. See Fig 9.3 in Vol 2.
>>
>> A USER LOGIN might be related to a PARTY, but that relationship is
>> optional.
>>
>> Customer, Prospect and Employee are party roles, they have nothing to do
>> with a user login. Some applications will control access to certain things
>> based on a party role related to the party that is related to the user
>> login.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Adrian
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 11 February 2014 15:39, Adrian Crum
>>> <[hidden email]>wrote:
>>>
>>>   I would recommend purchasing Volume 1 of The Data Model Resource book. It
>>>> will contain most of what you need (and it will answer your questions
>>>> here).
>>>>
>>>> Volume 2 contains industry-specific data models, and it would be good to
>>>> have as well, but it is not essential.
>>>>
>>>> Adrian Crum
>>>> Sandglass Software
>>>> www.sandglass-software.com
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 2/11/2014 4:48 AM, Adrian Stern wrote:
>>>>
>>>>   Hi
>>>>>
>>>>> I'm playing around with the AP and AR module and for that i need to
>>>>> create
>>>>> a Party (Customer). So i went to the Party Manager to create a new
>>>>> Customer
>>>>> which needs both, a first and a last name. This seems to be wrong since
>>>>> most customers will be companies themselves.
>>>>>
>>>>> Ofbiz offers me to create one of the following of which i don't fully
>>>>> understand the differences:
>>>>> So in the following i will list the options and try to explain my
>>>>> understanding of it. Please correct me if i'm wrong. Please fill my
>>>>> gaps.
>>>>>
>>>>> - Create New Party Group
>>>>>      => Only way to create a company. Can be billed so it looks OK to use
>>>>> it.
>>>>>
>>>>> - Create New Person
>>>>>      => Just a person. Don't know what to use it for.
>>>>>
>>>>> - Create Customer
>>>>>      => A Person which is a customer. Like a private account in an online
>>>>> shop. Has an account.
>>>>>
>>>>> - Create Prospect
>>>>>      => Don't see much difference to Customer, Maybe a person in the
>>>>> process
>>>>> of becoming an employee?
>>>>>
>>>>> - Create Employee
>>>>>      => Person which is probably linked directly to my company.
>>>>>
>>>>>    From all of them i can create "party group" and "person". Customer,
>>>>> prospect and employee can't be created due to the lack of a product
>>>>> store.
>>>>> I hope AR and AP modules can bi used without a product store since it
>>>>> would
>>>>> make testing easier.
>>>>>
>>>>> What i'm trying is simply billing a customer and getting billed by
>>>>> someone.
>>>>> For this i would like to understand the differences between the choices
>>>>> above and if / where i can change those later.
>>>>>
>>>>> I understand that ofbiz uses models from the book "the data modeling
>>>>> resource book". I've found 3 volumes of that one and i'm not sure which
>>>>> one
>>>>> to buy. Could you point me to the right book and chapter/page where a
>>>>> can
>>>>> look this up?
>>>>>
>>>>> Regards,
>>>>> Adrian Stern
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>
>