[OFBiz] Users - Can OfBiz actually run a business?

[glenn rice-3]

I was just wondering if anyone is actually using OfBiz in a real
business environment? (other than simply using the e-commerce/online
store aspects)

I may be missing something but I'm struggling to see how it can be used
in a production environment when there is so little reporting
implemented in the system.

I am very interested in the concepts and ideas behind OfBiz, but
currently there seem to be huge holes in it's functionality which would
prevent its use "for real".

Can anyone shed some light on the situation?

Thanks.

Glenn
 
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[Matthew E. Porter-2]

Glenn:
   There are a number of companies using OFBiz in production.  With  
regard to reporting, this is fairly common in a number of systems -  
hence the proliferation of Crystal Reports.

   What specific features are missing for your needs?


Cheers,
   Matthew

On Aug 22, 2005, at 6:32 PM, Glenn Rice wrote:

>
> I was just wondering if anyone is actually using OfBiz in a real  
> business environment? (other than simply using the e-commerce/
> online store aspects)
>
> I may be missing something but I'm struggling to see how it can be  
> used in a production environment when there is so little reporting  
> implemented in the system.
>
> I am very interested in the concepts and ideas behind OfBiz, but  
> currently there seem to be huge holes in it's functionality which  
> would prevent its use "for real".
>
> Can anyone shed some light on the situation?
>
> Thanks.
>
> Glenn
> _______________________________________________
> Users mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users
>

 
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[Ram Vijapurapu]

Matthew E. Porter wrote:

Glenn:
  There are a number of companies using OFBiz in production.  With  regard to reporting, this is fairly common in a number of systems -  hence the proliferation of Crystal Reports.

  What specific features are missing for your needs?


Cheers,
  Matthew

Dear Matthew, Glenn,

I would like to counter this.

I think its fair to say that I am not able to find any real examples of OfBiz in use in a Brick and Mortar industries.

If any of the users could help me understand if this is really possible.

I am happy to help develop a case-study for OfBiz if I can get some good leads for this. I have an FMCG company which would be ideal for a case study.

Regards,

Ram.

On Aug 22, 2005, at 6:32 PM, Glenn Rice wrote:

I was just wondering if anyone is actually using OfBiz in a real  business environment? (other than simply using the e-commerce/ online store aspects)

I may be missing something but I'm struggling to see how it can be  used in a production environment when there is so little reporting  implemented in the system.

I am very interested in the concepts and ideas behind OfBiz, but  currently there seem to be huge holes in it's functionality which  would prevent its use "for real".

Can anyone shed some light on the situation?

Thanks.

Glenn
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[glenn rice-3]

Matthew E. Porter wrote:

>   There are a number of companies using OFBiz in production.  With  
>regard to reporting, this is fairly common in a number of systems -  
>hence the proliferation of Crystal Reports.
>
>   What specific features are missing for your needs?
>  
>
Every area of the package, aside from the ecommerce, appears mostly
unfinished. If you go into the ORDERS section, there are two reports,
and that appears to be it! Two reports for something that is supposed to
run a real business seems a tad unrealistic?! Especially, when there
doesn't appear to be any mention anywhere of how to design and add your
own reports. i.e. Can Crystal be used?

Neogia appears to fill in a lot of the missing accounts features, but
still provides no way to report on the information you enter.

It seems as if I've missed something as, from looking through the list
archives, it appears lots of people are using the system... I wonder if
they're all just basically using it for on-line stores & ecommerce
applications and using other, more complete, accounting, HR, etc solutions.

Perhaps we could all take up Ram's offer and develop a case-study for
his company - that will help us see exactly what OfBiz can/can't do...
the ideas behind have a lot of potential.

Regards,
Glenn

 
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[David E. Jones]

Glenn,

Which version of OFBiz are you looking at? It sounds like you may be  
looking at 3.0.0. Still, in the latest revision there are not a whole  
lot of reports. We have started including some basic ones but there  
are maybe half a dozen or so (plus more in the new accounting  
component, not yet in the open source project, search the mailing  
lists or look even at the last couple of days for more info on that).

Most OFBiz users, even for just ecommerce and such, use some other  
reporting tool and run it against the database directly. Open source  
reporting tools are improving, but aren't quite there yet for anyone  
we have worked with (yet, getting close, one maybe using an open  
source tool soon), so it has made it difficult to include easy to  
modify reports in OFBiz. Also, most that create custom reports result  
in something that is not generic enough to include in the project.

For real world use... The list of sites on the ofbiz.org home page is  
mostly public sites. Many of these were found via Google. No one has  
to tell us they are using OFBiz, so finding internal deployments is a  
lot tougher, but there are various that we are aware of. A couple of  
testimonials and use stories have been added recently, see the  
Marketing page on the ofbiz.org site for a couple of them there.

Can OFBiz actually run a business? Yes. Can it run your business out  
of the box? Probably not. Is it running a number of businesses? Yes.

-David


On Aug 22, 2005, at 11:30 PM, Glenn Rice wrote:

> Matthew E. Porter wrote:
>
>
>>   There are a number of companies using OFBiz in production.  
>> With  regard to reporting, this is fairly common in a number of  
>> systems -  hence the proliferation of Crystal Reports.
>>
>>   What specific features are missing for your needs?
>>
>>
> Every area of the package, aside from the ecommerce, appears mostly  
> unfinished. If you go into the ORDERS section, there are two  
> reports, and that appears to be it! Two reports for something that  
> is supposed to run a real business seems a tad unrealistic?!  
> Especially, when there doesn't appear to be any mention anywhere of  
> how to design and add your own reports. i.e. Can Crystal be used?
>
> Neogia appears to fill in a lot of the missing accounts features,  
> but still provides no way to report on the information you enter.
>
> It seems as if I've missed something as, from looking through the  
> list archives, it appears lots of people are using the system... I  
> wonder if they're all just basically using it for on-line stores &  
> ecommerce applications and using other, more complete, accounting,  
> HR, etc solutions.
>
> Perhaps we could all take up Ram's offer and develop a case-study  
> for his company - that will help us see exactly what OfBiz can/
> can't do... the ideas behind have a lot of potential.
>
> Regards,
> Glenn
>
> _______________________________________________
> Users mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users
>

 
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[Jacopo Cappellato]

Hi Glenn,

and thanks for your interest for the OFBiz project.
First of all, to see what is currently available, my suggestion is to
run the latest OFBiz version (SVN).
There are a lot of features in OFBiz that are somewhat 'hidden'...
For example, in the manufacturing application there are now about 15
(PDF) reports available; however, it is necessary to perform a few setup
before you can run them, so many of the links to run them are now hidden.
Yes, as it is now OFBiz can be run in production... but yes, there are
also a lot of areas than need to be completed (reports are definitely a
good example).

Jacopo

Glenn Rice wrote:

> Matthew E. Porter wrote:
>
>>   There are a number of companies using OFBiz in production.  With  
>> regard to reporting, this is fairly common in a number of systems -  
>> hence the proliferation of Crystal Reports.
>>
>>   What specific features are missing for your needs?
>>  
>>
> Every area of the package, aside from the ecommerce, appears mostly
> unfinished. If you go into the ORDERS section, there are two reports,
> and that appears to be it! Two reports for something that is supposed to
> run a real business seems a tad unrealistic?! Especially, when there
> doesn't appear to be any mention anywhere of how to design and add your
> own reports. i.e. Can Crystal be used?
>
> Neogia appears to fill in a lot of the missing accounts features, but
> still provides no way to report on the information you enter.
>
> It seems as if I've missed something as, from looking through the list
> archives, it appears lots of people are using the system... I wonder if
> they're all just basically using it for on-line stores & ecommerce
> applications and using other, more complete, accounting, HR, etc solutions.
>
> Perhaps we could all take up Ram's offer and develop a case-study for
> his company - that will help us see exactly what OfBiz can/can't do...
> the ideas behind have a lot of potential.
>
> Regards,
> Glenn
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Users mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users
>
>

 
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[Andrew Sykes]

Hi folks,

I have recently been reading through the recommended book...

Supply Chain Management (Frazelle)

There is a lot of fascinating strategic analysis information in here.

Is there any plans to incorporate some of the Frazelle wisdom into OfBiz
reports?
--
Andrew Sykes <[hidden email]>
Sykes Development Ltd

 
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[David E. Jones]

Andrew,

At the moment I don't know of any concrete plans for things related  
to that book or certain others listed there (like the Accounting Best  
Practices one). Those are very helpful for getting a better  
understanding of certain things might best work, but I think we are  
only just getting to the point where enough of the basics are in  
place to be able to start facilitating many of those best practices.

So, yes, I'd love to see many things in those books adopted as these  
parts of OFBiz mature. And actually once all of the basics are in  
place my hope is that there will be an era in the life cycle of the  
project where more of these sorts of refinements and adoption of  
business level best practices are done.

-David


On Aug 25, 2005, at 7:18 AM, Andrew Sykes wrote:

> Hi folks,
>
> I have recently been reading through the recommended book...
>
> Supply Chain Management (Frazelle)
>
> There is a lot of fascinating strategic analysis information in here.
>
> Is there any plans to incorporate some of the Frazelle wisdom into  
> OfBiz
> reports?
> --
> Andrew Sykes <[hidden email]>
> Sykes Development Ltd
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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> [hidden email]
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>

 
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[Andrew Sykes]

David,

It's heartening to see you express that intention, I've been struck as I
read the book with how compelling a product OfBiz would be to our
(potential) clients if we could give them a simple demo of this type of
data analysis.

It would seem that many of the decision makers in larger businesses
would be more familiar with the analysis of logistics performance than
the physical execution and so more easily wooed by these features.

--
Andrew Sykes <[hidden email]>
Sykes Development Ltd

 
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