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Do you think OFBiz is the 'right' choice for us.

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Karl Martindale-Vale

Do you think OFBiz is the 'right' choice for us.

Hi guys,

I've been lurking on the ofbiz-user list and in the archives for about a
week in an attempt to assess whether OFBiz is the right tool for our job and
was hoping to get your opinion 'from the inside'.

We're a fairly small point-of-sale company based in Australia and are in the
initial stages of developing a 'head office' package. The primary functions
of this package would be:
- Administration of product records,
- promotion admin,
- loyalty program admin, and
- reporting.

I've watched the FrameworkIntro_* movies and had a play with the opentaps
release (& installed eclipse/wtp) and believe that I have a basic
understanding of the way the major components of ofbiz fit together.

If we were to use the ofbiz framework I think that in order to create a more
visually rich and responsive UI than a markup based interface is capable of
producing I'd like to implement a compiled UI in something like Swing,
Swing&XUI, SWT, .Net running under Mono, or GTK.

I see from David's May '03 posting to OFBiz-Devel
(http://lists.ofbiz.org/pipermail/dev/2003-May/002411.html) that we'd be
interacting primarily with the Service Engine as our interface to the
framework.

Given that the size of the development team would be 2-3 and our Java
experience is currently fairly basic, and what we'd initially like to use
the framework for, in your opinion would making use of the ofbiz framework
(and traversing its learning curve) be a more feasible alternative to to
starting 'from scratch'?

Thanks for your time,

Karl Martindale

_________________________________________________________________
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Anil Patel

Re: Do you think OFBiz is the 'right' choice for us.

While Ofbiz has most out of feature set you are looking
I am not sure if you really need UI to be implemented using Swing/SWT/.NET
etc, it will be lot of work.

Regards
Anil

On 1/9/07, Karl Martindale-Vale <[hidden email]> wrote:

>
> Hi guys,
>
> I've been lurking on the ofbiz-user list and in the archives for about a
> week in an attempt to assess whether OFBiz is the right tool for our job
> and
> was hoping to get your opinion 'from the inside'.
>
> We're a fairly small point-of-sale company based in Australia and are in
> the
> initial stages of developing a 'head office' package. The primary
> functions
> of this package would be:
> - Administration of product records,
> - promotion admin,
> - loyalty program admin, and
> - reporting.
>
> I've watched the FrameworkIntro_* movies and had a play with the opentaps
> release (& installed eclipse/wtp) and believe that I have a basic
> understanding of the way the major components of ofbiz fit together.
>
> If we were to use the ofbiz framework I think that in order to create a
> more
> visually rich and responsive UI than a markup based interface is capable
> of
> producing I'd like to implement a compiled UI in something like Swing,
> Swing&XUI, SWT, .Net running under Mono, or GTK.
>
> I see from David's May '03 posting to OFBiz-Devel
> (http://lists.ofbiz.org/pipermail/dev/2003-May/002411.html) that we'd be
> interacting primarily with the Service Engine as our interface to the
> framework.
>
> Given that the size of the development team would be 2-3 and our Java
> experience is currently fairly basic, and what we'd initially like to use
> the framework for, in your opinion would making use of the ofbiz framework
> (and traversing its learning curve) be a more feasible alternative to to
> starting 'from scratch'?
>
> Thanks for your time,
>
> Karl Martindale
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Advertisement: Fresh jobs daily. Stop waiting for the newspaper. Search
> now!
> www.seek.com.au
>
> http://a.ninemsn.com.au/b.aspx?URL=http%3A%2F%2Fninemsn%2Eseek%2Ecom%2Eau&_t=757263760&_r=Hotmail_EndText_Dec06&_m=EXT
>
>

Karl Martindale-Vale

Re: Do you think OFBiz is the 'right' choice for us.

Thanks for your reply Anil.

Yes I realise there's quite some work in reimplementing the interface but I
do believe the change is important. The two angles I'm trying to weigh up
are:
- ofbiz with a new front-end, and
- starting from scratch.

The functionality in ofbiz that is in addition to what we'd like to achieve
in the initial release of the 'head office' app will be useful in future for
additional features and maybe taking ofbiz to a store level but for today's
discussion I'd like to leave that aside (a short sighted measure I know, but
a simplifying one nevertheless).

-Karl

>From: "Anil Patel" <[hidden email]>
>Reply-To: [hidden email]
>To: [hidden email]
>Subject: Re: Do you think OFBiz is the 'right' choice for us.
>Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 15:42:25 -0800
>
>While Ofbiz has most out of feature set you are looking
>I am not sure if you really need UI to be implemented using Swing/SWT/.NET
>etc, it will be lot of work.
>
>Regards
>Anil
>

Anil Patel

Re: Do you think OFBiz is the 'right' choice for us.

I am sure you already know there is POS component in Ofbiz.
Regarding change in UI for Admin apps in Ofbiz, I'll say if you really don't
just HATE HTML Web apps, Based on your requirements there are few things you
can do, Like Creating a Webapp that uses Forms and Screens from Ofbiz
component and Customize them to do how you like, Add some ease of use using
Ajax etc. At different times I have read in mailing list, people thinking to
do something like this and finally either they did a closed room
implementation so I don't know, else they settled for Webapp path.

We've done such things and have helped.

Regards
Anil Patel

On 1/9/07, Karl Martindale-Vale <[hidden email]> wrote:

>
> Thanks for your reply Anil.
>
> Yes I realise there's quite some work in reimplementing the interface but
> I
> do believe the change is important. The two angles I'm trying to weigh up
> are:
> - ofbiz with a new front-end, and
> - starting from scratch.
>
> The functionality in ofbiz that is in addition to what we'd like to
> achieve
> in the initial release of the 'head office' app will be useful in future
> for
> additional features and maybe taking ofbiz to a store level but for
> today's
> discussion I'd like to leave that aside (a short sighted measure I know,
> but
> a simplifying one nevertheless).
>
> -Karl
>
> >From: "Anil Patel" <[hidden email]>
> >Reply-To: [hidden email]
> >To: [hidden email]
> >Subject: Re: Do you think OFBiz is the 'right' choice for us.
> >Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 15:42:25 -0800
> >
> >While Ofbiz has most out of feature set you are looking
> >I am not sure if you really need UI to be implemented using
> Swing/SWT/.NET
> >etc, it will be lot of work.
> >
> >Regards
> >Anil
> >
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Advertisement: Fresh jobs daily. Stop waiting for the newspaper. Search
> Now!
> www.seek.com.au
>
> http://a.ninemsn.com.au/b.aspx?URL=http%3A%2F%2Fninemsn%2Eseek%2Ecom%2Eau&_t=757263760&_r=Hotmail_EndText_Dec06&_m=EXT
>
>

Sam Benz

Re: Do you think OFBiz is the 'right' choice for us.

In reply to this post by Karl Martindale-Vale

Karl,

I am working on a team of 3 in my group and I would suggest checking out
the following site to get started,
http://www.opensourcestrategies.com/ofbiz/tutorials.php The learning curve
is heavy but it provides just about anything you may need. The hard part is
customizing it.

On 1/9/07, Karl Martindale-Vale <[hidden email]> wrote:

Si Chen-2

Re: Do you think OFBiz is the 'right' choice for us.

Samuel Benz wrote:

> Karl,
>
> I am working on a team of 3 in my group and I would suggest checking out
> the following site to get started,
> http://www.opensourcestrategies.com/ofbiz/tutorials.php The learning
> curve
> is heavy but it provides just about anything you may need. The hard
> part is
> customizing it.
>
> On 1/9/07, Karl Martindale-Vale <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>
>> Hi guys,
>>
>> I've been lurking on the ofbiz-user list and in the archives for about a
>> week in an attempt to assess whether OFBiz is the right tool for our job
>> and
>> was hoping to get your opinion 'from the inside'.
>>
>> We're a fairly small point-of-sale company based in Australia and are in
>> the
>> initial stages of developing a 'head office' package. The primary
>> functions
>> of this package would be:
>> - Administration of product records,
>> - promotion admin,
>> - loyalty program admin, and
>> - reporting.
>>
>> I've watched the FrameworkIntro_* movies and had a play with the
>> opentaps
>> release (& installed eclipse/wtp) and believe that I have a basic
>> understanding of the way the major components of ofbiz fit together.
>>
>> If we were to use the ofbiz framework I think that in order to create a
>> more
>> visually rich and responsive UI than a markup based interface is capable
>> of
>> producing I'd like to implement a compiled UI in something like Swing,
>> Swing&XUI, SWT, .Net running under Mono, or GTK.
>>
>> I see from David's May '03 posting to OFBiz-Devel
>> (http://lists.ofbiz.org/pipermail/dev/2003-May/002411.html) that we'd be
>> interacting primarily with the Service Engine as our interface to the
>> framework.
>>
>> Given that the size of the development team would be 2-3 and our Java
>> experience is currently fairly basic, and what we'd initially like to
>> use
>> the framework for, in your opinion would making use of the ofbiz
>> framework
>> (and traversing its learning curve) be a more feasible alternative to to
>> starting 'from scratch'?
>>
>> Thanks for your time,
>>
>> Karl Martindale
>>
>> _________________________________________________________________
>> Advertisement: Fresh jobs daily. Stop waiting for the newspaper. Search
>> now!
>> www.seek.com.au
>>
>> http://a.ninemsn.com.au/b.aspx?URL=http%3A%2F%2Fninemsn%2Eseek%2Ecom%2Eau&_t=757263760&_r=Hotmail_EndText_Dec06&_m=EXT
>>
>>
>>
>

OFBIZ is big and can be hard to learn, but it can be learned even by
people who have no prior programming backgrounds (like me!) I wouldn't
worry too much about having limited Java experience--OFBIZ does a lot of
that stuff for you, so you don't have to get too level with Java to
write pretty fancy applications.

The alternative of course is to go on your own and write it from
scratch. I think the problem you'll have is that a small team such as
yours could never match the pace of an open source project like ours or
a big commercial vendor competing in your market. By building off our
project and getting involved it, you can eventually deliver a lot more
value to your users.

Also, I'd think given what you're talking about, it might be improving
or implementing a new user interface, but you'd be using the other
applications as well, not just the framework.

Andrew Sykes

Re: Do you think OFBiz is the 'right' choice for us.

In reply to this post by Karl Martindale-Vale

Karl,

I think success or failure will depend to a great extent on the mindset
of developers you have at your disposal.

Before you jump headlong into adoption, it's probably important to
consider just exactly how your team will respond to the relentless trek
up the learning curve! Does your team have a good track record of self-
education, this doesn't have to be in technology, people who know how to
learn generally will be a big bonus.

OfBiz seems to work best for teams who are aggressively progressive,
i.e. those who eat new technology for breakfast and miss supper because
they just can't sleep until they know how something works!

If you notice any resistance to change within your team or if your team
prefer to stay well within their "comfort zone" then OfBiz could end up
being a really bad choice. The normal symptoms of such a team are a
tendency to avoid refactoring and a proliferation of arguments against
technology adoption that go along the "sledgehammer to crack a nut" line
you are really going to need your developers "onboard" with the decision
to make things run smoothly.

If you are really sold on OfBiz, but have doubts about keeping morale up
during the initial learning period, or see morale starting to flag under
the weight of the task, consider employing an experienced OfBizer to
help you through some of the trickier parts. Ok, so obviously I have a
vested interest in this type of argument, but I really do think it's
better, for morale and budget, to pay for a few hours of OfBiz
consultancy than watch dozens of man hours just slip by with no
progress!

So assuming all this hasn't put you off, which is certainly not the
objective, and please understand that the OfBiz community are a pretty
inclusive bunch. OfBiz can offer you pretty impressive productivity and
there will be loads of stuff which you can use straight out of the box,
so the long term gains are impressive. Remember to study the existing
code hard, there's nothing more frustrating than discovering that the
code you spent two weeks on is already available and better written, but
just has a name you didn't think of!

The very best of luck with it all, I'm sure we will all be watching
keenly for your first tech related questions ;-)
--
Kind Regards
Andrew Sykes <[hidden email]>
Sykes Development Ltd
http://www.sykesdevelopment.com

Cameron Smith-6

Re: Do you think OFBiz is the 'right' choice for us.

In reply to this post by Karl Martindale-Vale

We are putting a "nicer, simpler" front-end (using ZK from potix.com) onto the OFBiz Accounting module, and once we had got over the initial technical and "its so big" hurdles, there is no question that our work is much more productive and fun working this way than creating something from scratch.

We spend more time talking to the client, discussing requirements, writing tests and making a usable UI. Very little time on grunge code. I would post some screenshots in a week or so, if there was a good place to do that, for you to have an idea.

cameron

----- Original Message ----
From: Karl Martindale-Vale <[hidden email]>
To: [hidden email]
Sent: Wednesday, 10 January, 2007 1:54:53 AM
Subject: Re: Do you think OFBiz is the 'right' choice for us.

Thanks for your reply Anil.

Yes I realise there's quite some work in reimplementing the interface but I
do believe the change is important. The two angles I'm trying to weigh up
are:
- ofbiz with a new front-end, and
- starting from scratch.

The functionality in ofbiz that is in addition to what we'd like to achieve
in the initial release of the 'head office' app will be useful in future for
additional features and maybe taking ofbiz to a store level but for today's
discussion I'd like to leave that aside (a short sighted measure I know, but
a simplifying one nevertheless).

-Karl

_________________________________________________________________
Advertisement: Fresh jobs daily. Stop waiting for the newspaper. Search Now!
www.seek.com.au
http://a.ninemsn.com.au/b.aspx?URL=http%3A%2F%2Fninemsn%2Eseek%2Ecom%2Eau&_t=757263760&_r=Hotmail_EndText_Dec06&_m=EXT

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Karl Martindale-Vale

Re: Do you think OFBiz is the 'right' choice for us.

In reply to this post by Karl Martindale-Vale

Thanks for taking the time to write what were some pretty encouraging
responses.

Samuel: The opensourcestrategies material will come in most useful.

Si: I think you've nicely summed up the implications of one of our main
weaknesses as a (currently) cathedral model development house. You also
lend some weight to my current arguments in house for the (a?) open source
development model.

Andrew: Having the right mindset for this kind of undertaking is something I
hadn't considered but is certainly food for thought. If overcoming the
learning curve is an onerous (although necessary and achievable) task it's
valuable to be able to put this to people before to ensure they are indeed
"onboard" :)

Cameron: That's great to hear there's another group undertaking a project
similar to ours. In regard to somewhere appropriate to put screenshots the
wiki seems an ideal spot. Although the WikiEtiquette page encourages folk
to make a page about themselves, I'm not sure how to go about creating one.

I hope to be in touch again soon. For now though, once more into the OFBiz,
dear friends, once more.

- Karl

_________________________________________________________________
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