OFBiz questions

[DMunaretto]

Hi, I'm new to OFBiz, but I have been analyzing this platform versus a couple of commercial packages for a client.  Seems like OFBiz could be a great fit.  Overall, I've been extremely pleased by the quantity and quality of information that you have compiled on OFBiz, but there were a few miscellaneous things that I wanted to check with those of you who know the platform best.   Really just looking for Y/N answers.
 
I really appreciate your help,
 
David Munaretto
[hidden email]
 
 

BACK OFFICE
 
Can email notifications for new accounts and changes in order status be edited and managed in text and HTML formats?  (We would be manually changing the status of an order, and would want this to trigger emails).  I assume this isn't out of the box but could be the platform could be customized to do this... correct?
 
Does it allow customer data to be efficiently exported to a database or CSV file?
 
Does it offer multi-lingual support and labeling for the store administration features?
 
 
SECURITY
 
Does it follow Payment Application Best Practices (PABP Compliant)?
 
Does it implement IP address tracking and auditing?
 
Does it support AVS verification (address verification) and reporting with orders?
 
Are password and account changes logged?
 
Has a security audit been performed by an independent company?
 

COMPATIBILITY

Do the public facing pages and functionality support the following browsers on the Windows XP and Vista platform: Internet Explorer 6 and 7 and Mozilla Firefox 2?

Do the public facing pages and functionality support the following browsers on the Mac OS X v 10.4 and 10.5 platform: Safari 2 and 3 and Mozilla Firefox 2?

Do the internal administration pages and functionality support the following browsers on the Windows XP and Vista platform: Internet Explorer 7?

 

[cjhowe]

I'll try to answer as many questions as I can, inline.
--- "Munaretto, David" <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Hi, I'm new to OFBiz, but I have been analyzing this platform versus
> a couple of commercial packages for a client.  Seems like OFBiz could
> be a great fit.  Overall, I've been extremely pleased by the quantity
> and quality of information that you have compiled on OFBiz, but there
> were a few miscellaneous things that I wanted to check with those of
> you who know the platform best.   Really just looking for Y/N
> answers.
>  
> I really appreciate your help,
>  
> David Munaretto
> [hidden email]
>  
>  
>
> BACK OFFICE
>  
> Can email notifications for new accounts and changes in order status
> be edited and managed in text and HTML formats?  (We would be
> manually changing the status of an order, and would want this to
> trigger emails).  I assume this isn't out of the box but could be the
> platform could be customized to do this... correct?

Certainly can be customized.  Depending what you mean by manually
changing status, it may exist for the most part OOTB

>  
> Does it allow customer data to be efficiently exported to a database
> or CSV file?
>

Can be customized quite easily
 
> Does it offer multi-lingual support and labeling for the store
> administration features?

Yes

>  
>  
> SECURITY
>  
> Does it follow Payment Application Best Practices (PABP Compliant)?

personally not familiar with that compliance standard

>  
> Does it implement IP address tracking and auditing?

Tracking, yes.  Auditing is catch all phrase that means different
things to different people.  My standard of auditing, yes.  Be sure
you're using a database that supports subsecond storage of datetime (eg
not MySQL)

>  
> Does it support AVS verification (address verification) and reporting
> with orders?

I think I saw that somewhere.  This would depend on who your shipping
carrier is as I believe the service uses their api

>  
> Are password and account changes logged?

Most account changes are based on expiration and not on overwriting, so
those parts yes. Password changes I'm unsure of, if it's not it would
be rather simple to implement.

>  
> Has a security audit been performed by an independent company?
>  

unknown

>
> COMPATIBILITY
>
> Do the public facing pages and functionality support the following
> browsers on the Windows XP and Vista platform: Internet Explorer 6
> and 7 and Mozilla Firefox 2?
>

As well as can be expected.  I'm pretty sure most if not all front end
issues have been resolved

> Do the public facing pages and functionality support the following
> browsers on the Mac OS X v 10.4 and 10.5 platform: Safari 2 and 3 and
> Mozilla Firefox 2?
>

I can not verify this, but it is my understanding that it does.

> Do the internal administration pages and functionality support the
> following browsers on the Windows XP and Vista platform: Internet
> Explorer 7?
>
To the best of my knowledge yes.  That is the target and no longer
worries about compatibility with older browsers.

>  
>

[David E Jones]

Your answers look great Chris. Just a few additional comments:


On Jan 14, 2008, at 9:17 AM, Chris Howe wrote:

> I'll try to answer as many questions as I can, inline.
> --- "Munaretto, David" <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
>> BACK OFFICE
>>
>> Can email notifications for new accounts and changes in order status
>> be edited and managed in text and HTML formats?  (We would be
>> manually changing the status of an order, and would want this to
>> trigger emails).  I assume this isn't out of the box but could be the
>> platform could be customized to do this... correct?
>
> Certainly can be customized.  Depending what you mean by manually
> changing status, it may exist for the most part OOTB

This actually is available pretty much out of the box. There is a  
setting to put orders initially into a pending status and then you can  
manually approve them, and just use the order confirmation email that  
is triggered on this status change (which is one of many available  
stock in OFBiz).

>> SECURITY
>> Does it support AVS verification (address verification) and reporting
>> with orders?
>
> I think I saw that somewhere.  This would depend on who your shipping
> carrier is as I believe the service uses their api

Yes, there are quite a few options for this including independent  
services and those that are part of a shipper's API. Some are included  
in OFBiz, and it's pretty easy to integrate to other service when/if  
needed.

>> Has a security audit been performed by an independent company?
>>
>
> unknown

Technically all companies are independent of OFBiz on one hand, and on  
the other hand many OFBiz users are not independent because in  
contributing to the project they are acting on behalf of the Apache  
Software Foundation.

Anyway, quite a few security audits have been done by organizations  
using OFBiz, usually by a third party security company that does a  
review. Usually OFBiz does pretty well, but keep in mind that most  
security issues for web apps and such are dependent on how the  
application is deployed, and many others are dependent on how public  
facing things are customized, etc.


>> COMPATIBILITY
>>
>> Do the public facing pages and functionality support the following
>> browsers on the Windows XP and Vista platform: Internet Explorer 6
>> and 7 and Mozilla Firefox 2?
>>
>
> As well as can be expected.  I'm pretty sure most if not all front end
> issues have been resolved

Quite a few issues have been resolved but chances are various remain.  
Most users who do significant work based on OFBiz create their own  
HTML/CSS from scratch rather than trying to refine and then customize  
the stuff that comes in the OFBiz ecommerce webapp.

-David

[Adrian Crum]

One more clarification for the responses so far...

David E Jones wrote:

>>> COMPATIBILITY
>>>
>>> Do the public facing pages and functionality support the following
>>> browsers on the Windows XP and Vista platform: Internet Explorer 6
>>> and 7 and Mozilla Firefox 2?
>>>
>>
>> As well as can be expected.  I'm pretty sure most if not all front end
>> issues have been resolved
>
>
> Quite a few issues have been resolved but chances are various remain.  
> Most users who do significant work based on OFBiz create their own  
> HTML/CSS from scratch rather than trying to refine and then customize  
> the stuff that comes in the OFBiz ecommerce webapp.
>
> -David

The back office (non-eCommerce) apps are designed to work with the latest browsers. IE 6 support
would need some changes in the maincss.css file - check the mailing lists for more information.

The public facing eCommerce component works with most browsers. As David mentioned, few users deploy
the supplied eCommerce web UI - they typically replace it with their own.

-Adrian