Non IT-person evaluation of ERP

[CallMeAndy]

I am sure I read somewhere that OfBiz was a solution that would remove the neccesity of IT staff.

That statement is a joke.

I am fortunate as a Business evaluator that I have a master's in Business Information Technology and touched on J2EE applications during that study, but It was a while back. I am also sure a lot of business users would evaluate this for themselves without having to rely on IT sorting it all out for them.

My experience on XP so far has almost already turned me away from the product, and I have barely even scratched the surface. I want this to work for me; on the face of it it looked like a good product using the open source model.

But after I dont know how many hours I finally got to be able to login.

The most basic information that less-technical evaluators need seems difficult to find.

First off:
A simple thing like the difference between JDK and SDK both specified as requirements in different locations and "J2SE SDK" does that even exist anymore, not obviously on the oracle site, took a while before I could decide what was needed. I plumped for Java EE SDK in the end. That wasted time as an aborted install due to needing JRE. Of course the OfBiz community is not responsible for the naming confusion at Sun ( I could never be sure that version 1.5 was actualy version 5 of Java2 - or am I still confused) and furthered by Oracle but you need business evaluators to have as smooth a ride with this as possible.

Ok I got Java running. Luckily I new how to use the commandline. Not that it was made clear that that is what I should have been doing to run the ant script.

Som searching probably 30 mins or so. Nothing

Then lets try Startofbiz.bat. Nothing appears to happen apart from the verbose server output. No interface in which to login. Hum maybe ofbiz is in the browser?

No nothing obvious there: ofbiz.jar double click - nothing.

Loads more googling. an hour or so.

Oh hang on its a server application so maybe localhost

http://localhost nope
http://localhost/ofbiz nope
http://127.0.0.1 nope
http://127.0.0.1/ofbiz nope

Loads more googling. an hour or so or maybe more.

Ah just remembered portaddres in the browser sometimes required.

http://localhost:8080/ofbiz/ ....hooray

oh actually nothing here of any use at all.

Next day now - loads more searching still dont know how to bloody get into the application.

http://localhost:8080/accounting  - finally I saw from a web address example at hotwax  - not even on the ofbiz site.

and so close to having thrown this out, just at the limit of my tolerance, and now there are localisation issues.

How to set up the main company? A party!  in the UK to me this would seem oblique. Of course I realise its a generic term that covers any kind of organisation, department, or individual but I am already up-tight and I am wasting more time looking for another interface.

So running through setting up a company and hey I have input a company name and the address, and already set the preference for the company profile currency as GBP and the other demo departments inherit from company - what? its still inheriting dollars! The accounting preferences are different from the company currency and you cant change the default currency of the main company, without some clunky workaround.
 
...more searching here we go again and getting to the end of the day - it doesnt bode well and is costing me an arm and a leg for a product that might not be of value to me!!

I hope you "the ofbiz community" get my point with this this mail. Whather the product is valuable or not is kind of irrelevent, if you loose in my guess a large potential user base, simply because they get frustrated and go away before they give the product a fair appraisal.

[David E. Jones-2]

On Oct 18, 2010, at 9:43 AM, CallMeAndy wrote:

>
> I am sure I read somewhere that OfBiz was a solution that would reove the
> neccesity of IT staff.
>
> That statement is a joke.

Yes, that does sound like a joke. Do you recall who the comedian is?

I suppose in general unless you stick with simple hardware and software that has good end-user support options (like AppleCare for example) then it is very difficult even without something like OFBiz to "reove the neccesity of IT staff". If you want to do that, QuickBooks might be better for you. I suppose that's true of many things, ie keep it simple or learn to do it yourself or get help... even true of things like spelling.

In many rants such as this the standard response is that there seems to be a misunderstanding about what OFBiz is. The things to keep in mind are that Apache OFBiz is a community (not corporate) driven open source project with an emphasis on being easy to customize and applicable to a wide range of business processes. What this means is that the OOTB screens (with a few exceptions) are not streamlined for any specific type or size of organization.

In the case of your particular feedback, I think different response might be more helpful to you (inline below)...

> I am fortunate as a Business evaluator that I have a master's in Business
> Information Technology and touched on J2EE applications during that study,
> but It was a while back. I am also sure a lot of business users would
> evaluate this for themselves without having to rely on IT sorting it all out
> for them.
>
> My experience on XP so far has almost already turned me away from the
> product, and I have barely even scratched the surface. I want this to work
> for me; on the face of it it looked like a good product using the open
> source model.
>
> But after I dont know how many hours I finally got to be able to login.
>
> The most basic information that less-technical evaluators need seems
> difficult to find.
>
> First off:
> A simple thing like the difference between JDK and SDK both specified as
> requirements in different locations and "J2SE SDK" does that even exist
> anymore, not obviously on the oracle site, took a while before I could
> decide what was needed. I plumped for Java EE SDK in the end. That wasted
> time as an aborted install due to needing JRE. Of course the OfBiz community
> is not responsible for the naming confusion at Sun ( I could never be sure
> that version 1.5 was actualy version 5 of Java2 - or am I still confused)
> and furthered by Oracle but you need business evaluators to have as smooth a
> ride with this as possible.
>
> Ok I got Java running. Luckily I new how to use the commandline. Not that it
> was made clear that that is what I should have been doing to run the ant
> script.
>
> Som searching probably 30 mins or so. Nothing
>
> Then lets try Startofbiz.bat. Nothing appears to happen apart from the
> verbose server output. No interface in which to login. Hum maybe ofbiz is in
> the browser?
>
> No nothing obvious there: ofbiz.jar double click - nothing.
>
> Loads more googling. an hour or so.
>
> Oh hang on its a server application so maybe localhost
>
> http://localhost nope
> http://localhost/ofbiz nope
> http://127.0.0.1 nope
> http://127.0.0.1/ofbiz nope
>
> Loads more googling. an hour or so or maybe more.
>
> Ah just remembered portaddres in the browser sometimes required.
>
> http://localhost:8080/ofbiz/ ....hooray
>
> oh actually nothing here of any use at all.
>
> Next day now - loads more searching still dont know how to bloody get into
> the application.
>
> http://localhost:8080/accounting  - finally I saw from a web address example
> at hotwax  - not even on the ofbiz site.
>
> and so close to having thrown this out, just at the limit of my tolerance,
> and now there are localisation issues.
>
> How to set up the main company? A party!  in the UK to me this would seem
> oblique. Of course I realise its a generic term that covers any kind of
> organisation, department, or individual but I am already up-tight and I am
> wasting more time looking for another interface.
>
> So running through setting up a company and hey I have input a company name
> and the address, and already set the preference for the company profile
> currency as GBP and the other demo departments inherit from company - what?
> its still inheriting dollars! The accounting preferences are different from
> the company currency and you cant change the default currency of the main
> company, without some clunky workaround.
>
> ...more searching here we go again and getting to the end of the day - it
> doesnt bode well and is costing me an arm and a leg for a product that might
> not be of value to me!!

The main thing I'd say is that it sounds like some documentation might be helpful to you. I don't know how you went about trying to find docs, but here is the logical path I'd recommend:

1. start with the project's home page: http://ofbiz.apache.org
2. reading through the page there are two links that seem applicable to this: "Apache OFBiz Getting Started" in the main column, and "Main Documentation Page" in the right column
3. those pages have various links on them and while they are meant for different audiences and purposes, they both point to some docs that might be helpful to you, namely the "Demo and Test Setup Guide", the "Technical Production Setup Guide" and the "Business Setup Guide"
4. in addition to those docs there are many others with information that might be helpful as you get into trying out different parts of the project's functionality, or as you try to configure the software for different purposes, or even as you get into customizing the software
5. there are also some links scattered about to resources available on other sites, and especially for understanding the business side of OFBiz some of those are very helpful (such as the books from Ruth Hoffman at myofbiz.com, and for general concepts the Data Model Resource books)

Did you happen to find and read any of those documents? If not, I'd recommend starting there.

As an after thought, yes I agree, it is a total waste of time to try to evaluate something of the size and complexity of OFBiz without the help of some documentation.

-David

[BJ Freeman]

General Rule is you have to expend time or money and sometimes both.

Ofbiz was originally design to have a consultant do the setup for you.
In that Regard you don't need to have On-Board IT staff.
Those of us that have the know how have spend great deal of time
learning what we need, to make it work the way we want.
Ofbiz is not the typical out of Box up and run software.

However if you compare the Cost of getting the equivalent Commercial
ERP, like SAP, up and running, Ofbiz is less costly.


CallMeAndy sent the following on 10/18/2010 8:43 AM:

>
> I am sure I read somewhere that OfBiz was a solution that would reove the
> neccesity of IT staff.
>
> That statement is a joke.
>
> I am fortunate as a Business evaluator that I have a master's in Business
> Information Technology and touched on J2EE applications during that study,
> but It was a while back. I am also sure a lot of business users would
> evaluate this for themselves without having to rely on IT sorting it all out
> for them.
>
> My experience on XP so far has almost already turned me away from the
> product, and I have barely even scratched the surface. I want this to work
> for me; on the face of it it looked like a good product using the open
> source model.
>
> But after I dont know how many hours I finally got to be able to login.
>
> The most basic information that less-technical evaluators need seems
> difficult to find.
>
> First off:
> A simple thing like the difference between JDK and SDK both specified as
> requirements in different locations and "J2SE SDK" does that even exist
> anymore, not obviously on the oracle site, took a while before I could
> decide what was needed. I plumped for Java EE SDK in the end. That wasted
> time as an aborted install due to needing JRE. Of course the OfBiz community
> is not responsible for the naming confusion at Sun ( I could never be sure
> that version 1.5 was actualy version 5 of Java2 - or am I still confused)
> and furthered by Oracle but you need business evaluators to have as smooth a
> ride with this as possible.
>
> Ok I got Java running. Luckily I new how to use the commandline. Not that it
> was made clear that that is what I should have been doing to run the ant
> script.
>
> Som searching probably 30 mins or so. Nothing
>
> Then lets try Startofbiz.bat. Nothing appears to happen apart from the
> verbose server output. No interface in which to login. Hum maybe ofbiz is in
> the browser?
>
> No nothing obvious there: ofbiz.jar double click - nothing.
>
> Loads more googling. an hour or so.
>
> Oh hang on its a server application so maybe localhost
>
> http://localhost nope
> http://localhost/ofbiz nope
> http://127.0.0.1 nope
> http://127.0.0.1/ofbiz nope
>
> Loads more googling. an hour or so or maybe more.
>
> Ah just remembered portaddres in the browser sometimes required.
>
> http://localhost:8080/ofbiz/ ....hooray
>
> oh actually nothing here of any use at all.
>
> Next day now - loads more searching still dont know how to bloody get into
> the application.
>
> http://localhost:8080/accounting  - finally I saw from a web address example
> at hotwax  - not even on the ofbiz site.
>
> and so close to having thrown this out, just at the limit of my tolerance,
> and now there are localisation issues.
>
> How to set up the main company? A party!  in the UK to me this would seem
> oblique. Of course I realise its a generic term that covers any kind of
> organisation, department, or individual but I am already up-tight and I am
> wasting more time looking for another interface.
>
> So running through setting up a company and hey I have input a company name
> and the address, and already set the preference for the company profile
> currency as GBP and the other demo departments inherit from company - what?
> its still inheriting dollars! The accounting preferences are different from
> the company currency and you cant change the default currency of the main
> company, without some clunky workaround.
>
> ...more searching here we go again and getting to the end of the day - it
> doesnt bode well and is costing me an arm and a leg for a product that might
> not be of value to me!!
>
>
>
>

[Jacques Le Roux]

I'd have first try the demos from http://ofbiz.apache.org/. We prefer trunk.

Jacques

From: "CallMeAndy" <[hidden email]>

> I am sure I read somewhere that OfBiz was a solution that would reove the
> neccesity of IT staff.
>
> That statement is a joke.
>
> I am fortunate as a Business evaluator that I have a master's in Business
> Information Technology and touched on J2EE applications during that study,
> but It was a while back. I am also sure a lot of business users would
> evaluate this for themselves without having to rely on IT sorting it all out
> for them.
>
> My experience on XP so far has almost already turned me away from the
> product, and I have barely even scratched the surface. I want this to work
> for me; on the face of it it looked like a good product using the open
> source model.
>
> But after I dont know how many hours I finally got to be able to login.
>
> The most basic information that less-technical evaluators need seems
> difficult to find.
>
> First off:
> A simple thing like the difference between JDK and SDK both specified as
> requirements in different locations and "J2SE SDK" does that even exist
> anymore, not obviously on the oracle site, took a while before I could
> decide what was needed. I plumped for Java EE SDK in the end. That wasted
> time as an aborted install due to needing JRE. Of course the OfBiz community
> is not responsible for the naming confusion at Sun ( I could never be sure
> that version 1.5 was actualy version 5 of Java2 - or am I still confused)
> and furthered by Oracle but you need business evaluators to have as smooth a
> ride with this as possible.
>
> Ok I got Java running. Luckily I new how to use the commandline. Not that it
> was made clear that that is what I should have been doing to run the ant
> script.
>
> Som searching probably 30 mins or so. Nothing
>
> Then lets try Startofbiz.bat. Nothing appears to happen apart from the
> verbose server output. No interface in which to login. Hum maybe ofbiz is in
> the browser?
>
> No nothing obvious there: ofbiz.jar double click - nothing.
>
> Loads more googling. an hour or so.
>
> Oh hang on its a server application so maybe localhost
>
> http://localhost nope
> http://localhost/ofbiz nope
> http://127.0.0.1 nope
> http://127.0.0.1/ofbiz nope
>
> Loads more googling. an hour or so or maybe more.
>
> Ah just remembered portaddres in the browser sometimes required.
>
> http://localhost:8080/ofbiz/ ....hooray
>
> oh actually nothing here of any use at all.
>
> Next day now - loads more searching still dont know how to bloody get into
> the application.
>
> http://localhost:8080/accounting  - finally I saw from a web address example
> at hotwax  - not even on the ofbiz site.
>
> and so close to having thrown this out, just at the limit of my tolerance,
> and now there are localisation issues.
>
> How to set up the main company? A party!  in the UK to me this would seem
> oblique. Of course I realise its a generic term that covers any kind of
> organisation, department, or individual but I am already up-tight and I am
> wasting more time looking for another interface.
>
> So running through setting up a company and hey I have input a company name
> and the address, and already set the preference for the company profile
> currency as GBP and the other demo departments inherit from company - what?
> its still inheriting dollars! The accounting preferences are different from
> the company currency and you cant change the default currency of the main
> company, without some clunky workaround.
>
> ...more searching here we go again and getting to the end of the day - it
> doesnt bode well and is costing me an arm and a leg for a product that might
> not be of value to me!!
>
>
>
>
> --
> View this message in context: http://ofbiz.135035.n4.nabble.com/Non-IT-person-evaluation-of-ERP-tp3000485p3000485.html
> Sent from the OFBiz - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>

[Mike Z]

I think the reference to "no IT staff" may have come from here:

http://www.infoverto.com/2010/03/now-you-can-run-your-erp-without-it.html

An interview with Ruth.  However, I think she qualifies as her own IT
staff member.

On Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 9:09 AM, David E Jones <[hidden email]> wrote:

>
> On Oct 18, 2010, at 9:43 AM, CallMeAndy wrote:
>
>>
>> I am sure I read somewhere that OfBiz was a solution that would reove the
>> neccesity of IT staff.
>>
>> That statement is a joke.
>
> Yes, that does sound like a joke. Do you recall who the comedian is?
>
> I suppose in general unless you stick with simple hardware and software that has good end-user support options (like AppleCare for example) then it is very difficult even without something like OFBiz to "reove the neccesity of IT staff". If you want to do that, QuickBooks might be better for you. I suppose that's true of many things, ie keep it simple or learn to do it yourself or get help... even true of things like spelling.
>
> In many rants such as this the standard response is that there seems to be a misunderstanding about what OFBiz is. The things to keep in mind are that Apache OFBiz is a community (not corporate) driven open source project with an emphasis on being easy to customize and applicable to a wide range of business processes. What this means is that the OOTB screens (with a few exceptions) are not streamlined for any specific type or size of organization.
>
> In the case of your particular feedback, I think different response might be more helpful to you (inline below)...
>
>> I am fortunate as a Business evaluator that I have a master's in Business
>> Information Technology and touched on J2EE applications during that study,
>> but It was a while back. I am also sure a lot of business users would
>> evaluate this for themselves without having to rely on IT sorting it all out
>> for them.
>>
>> My experience on XP so far has almost already turned me away from the
>> product, and I have barely even scratched the surface. I want this to work
>> for me; on the face of it it looked like a good product using the open
>> source model.
>>
>> But after I dont know how many hours I finally got to be able to login.
>>
>> The most basic information that less-technical evaluators need seems
>> difficult to find.
>>
>> First off:
>> A simple thing like the difference between JDK and SDK both specified as
>> requirements in different locations and "J2SE SDK" does that even exist
>> anymore, not obviously on the oracle site, took a while before I could
>> decide what was needed. I plumped for Java EE SDK in the end. That wasted
>> time as an aborted install due to needing JRE. Of course the OfBiz community
>> is not responsible for the naming confusion at Sun ( I could never be sure
>> that version 1.5 was actualy version 5 of Java2 - or am I still confused)
>> and furthered by Oracle but you need business evaluators to have as smooth a
>> ride with this as possible.
>>
>> Ok I got Java running. Luckily I new how to use the commandline. Not that it
>> was made clear that that is what I should have been doing to run the ant
>> script.
>>
>> Som searching probably 30 mins or so. Nothing
>>
>> Then lets try Startofbiz.bat. Nothing appears to happen apart from the
>> verbose server output. No interface in which to login. Hum maybe ofbiz is in
>> the browser?
>>
>> No nothing obvious there: ofbiz.jar double click - nothing.
>>
>> Loads more googling. an hour or so.
>>
>> Oh hang on its a server application so maybe localhost
>>
>> http://localhost nope
>> http://localhost/ofbiz nope
>> http://127.0.0.1 nope
>> http://127.0.0.1/ofbiz nope
>>
>> Loads more googling. an hour or so or maybe more.
>>
>> Ah just remembered portaddres in the browser sometimes required.
>>
>> http://localhost:8080/ofbiz/ ....hooray
>>
>> oh actually nothing here of any use at all.
>>
>> Next day now - loads more searching still dont know how to bloody get into
>> the application.
>>
>> http://localhost:8080/accounting  - finally I saw from a web address example
>> at hotwax  - not even on the ofbiz site.
>>
>> and so close to having thrown this out, just at the limit of my tolerance,
>> and now there are localisation issues.
>>
>> How to set up the main company? A party!  in the UK to me this would seem
>> oblique. Of course I realise its a generic term that covers any kind of
>> organisation, department, or individual but I am already up-tight and I am
>> wasting more time looking for another interface.
>>
>> So running through setting up a company and hey I have input a company name
>> and the address, and already set the preference for the company profile
>> currency as GBP and the other demo departments inherit from company - what?
>> its still inheriting dollars! The accounting preferences are different from
>> the company currency and you cant change the default currency of the main
>> company, without some clunky workaround.
>>
>> ...more searching here we go again and getting to the end of the day - it
>> doesnt bode well and is costing me an arm and a leg for a product that might
>> not be of value to me!!
>
> The main thing I'd say is that it sounds like some documentation might be helpful to you. I don't know how you went about trying to find docs, but here is the logical path I'd recommend:
>
> 1. start with the project's home page: http://ofbiz.apache.org
> 2. reading through the page there are two links that seem applicable to this: "Apache OFBiz Getting Started" in the main column, and "Main Documentation Page" in the right column
> 3. those pages have various links on them and while they are meant for different audiences and purposes, they both point to some docs that might be helpful to you, namely the "Demo and Test Setup Guide", the "Technical Production Setup Guide" and the "Business Setup Guide"
> 4. in addition to those docs there are many others with information that might be helpful as you get into trying out different parts of the project's functionality, or as you try to configure the software for different purposes, or even as you get into customizing the software
> 5. there are also some links scattered about to resources available on other sites, and especially for understanding the business side of OFBiz some of those are very helpful (such as the books from Ruth Hoffman at myofbiz.com, and for general concepts the Data Model Resource books)
>
> Did you happen to find and read any of those documents? If not, I'd recommend starting there.
>
> As an after thought, yes I agree, it is a total waste of time to try to evaluate something of the size and complexity of OFBiz without the help of some documentation.
>
> -David
>
>
>