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Nicolas Malin (Jira)

[jira] Commented: (OFBIZ-455) Selecting active organization party

[ http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-455?page=comments#action_12450587 ]

Adrian Crum commented on OFBIZ-455:
-----------------------------------

The context would filter out the ones that the user interacts with.

Let's say an organization has 10 warehouses and 30 facilities. User Joe Schmoe is only responsible for working with 2 warehouses and one facility. By setting up a context for Joe Schmoe, the UI could present the subset of data he is responsible for, instead of the whole organization.

One of OFBiz's strengths is the ability to scale and support huge organizations. One of OFBiz's weaknesses is the ability to scale and support huge organizations. At some point, the amount of data presented to the user gets overwhelming. All we're suggesting in this issue is a system to allow an application to present the user with subsets of data. How it is used depends on the developers.

> Selecting active organization party
> -----------------------------------
>
> Key: OFBIZ-455
> URL: http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-455
> Project: OFBiz (The Open for Business Project)
> Issue Type: New Feature
> Reporter: Eriks Dobelis
> Attachments: orgContext.diff, selectingOrganizationalContext.jpg
>
>
> Idea is to provide possibility to select active organization party id, which then could be used:
> 1) to provide default in different components (e.g. in creating invoices, payments, accounting transactions, etc.);
> 2) in implementation of OFBIZ-118, i.e. to show or hide data based on the active organization;
> 3) to improve current Accounting/Companies/Admin so that organizationPartyId is remembered throughout the session (if not changed).

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Nicolas Malin (Jira)

[jira] Commented: (OFBIZ-455) Selecting active organization party

In reply to this post by Nicolas Malin (Jira)

[ http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-455?page=comments#action_12450590 ]

Si Chen commented on OFBIZ-455:
-------------------------------

So are you saying *this* particular patch will read the organization from the context and then change to a select box for facility or product store of the organization?

While we're at it, how do you even know what the product store associated with an organization is?

Nicolas Malin (Jira)

[jira] Commented: (OFBIZ-455) Selecting active organization party

In reply to this post by Nicolas Malin (Jira)

[ http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-455?page=comments#action_12450657 ]

Jacopo Cappellato commented on OFBIZ-455:
-----------------------------------------

Si,

the approach taken by other ERP systems is that of letting the user select the company (if the user is associated to the company) for the session and it is useful only for big companies that are organized in different divisions, where each division has its own facilities, fixed assets etc...
For example:

Company
|____> Division A
| |_____> Facility A
| |_____> Facility B
|____> Division B
|_____> Facility C

In OFBIz, facilities are assigned to one division using the Facility.ownerPartyId
For ProductStore... well I don't know, but maybe the ProductStore.billToPartyId could be a good candidate.

The idea could be that if the user selects Division A then, in the facility manager only Facility A and Facility B will be available.

Again, I'm not sure this will be a good choice for OFBiz (that are probably other solutions to accomplish something like this) and, by the way, a full implementation of multidivisional processes would be a big task...

Nicolas Malin (Jira)

[jira] Commented: (OFBIZ-455) Selecting active organization party

In reply to this post by Nicolas Malin (Jira)

[ http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-455?page=comments#action_12450685 ]

Eriks Dobelis commented on OFBIZ-455:
-------------------------------------

My vision is certainly similar to what Jacopo describes, and I trully believe we have to get this at least as an option. As it really is a big task I suggest starting with something small and tangible before going to complex issues.

If we think that this might be used primarily by larger companies, we can make a preference whether to show this select at all. On the other hand I see a benefit for even the smallest companies to automatically fill in Party from field for Sales Invoice, etc.

So as the simple start I suggest:
1) agreeing where Organization Context select is located;
2) agreeing on interface for getting current Organization Context (which would return PartyId);
3) agreeing whether Organization Context should be stored in session, in table, or it should be selectable by some preferences;
4) implementing selection and storage of Organization Context;

My current patch does this and nothing more by storing Organization Context in session.

When we have this (at least the interface), then we can improve it further with things like:
a) security checks for selecting Organization Context, security administration of these rights;
b) using the Organization Context in each component where it makes sense (e.g. showing only specific facilities, accounts, etc.)

If we will try implementing everything at once then the initial step will be too huge to take off in a reasonable time. If we try to start with something simple then I already see next practical improvements I could implement in reasonably short time.

Adrian, please, post what you have so that we could discuss it. It shouldn't be something finished as we still should agree on basic things (location of select, storage, interface, etc.)

Nicolas Malin (Jira)

[jira] Commented: (OFBIZ-455) Selecting active organization party

In reply to this post by Nicolas Malin (Jira)

[ http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-455?page=comments#action_12450778 ]

Adrian Crum commented on OFBIZ-455:
-----------------------------------

Si,

What we're proposing is a SYSTEM to allow components to control subsets of data. How the system is implemented in each component is up to the developer working on that component. It's similar to security services - you have permissions and permission groups. How those are used in the component is up to the component's designer.

Jacopo,

Thank you for the illustration - that helps. It's not just for big companies - we're a small business and we use the feature here.

Eriks,

After having this discussion, I've decided that my current implementation is too limited. In my implementation I was trying not to create any new entities, so I just used entities that are already there. Now I can see that I'll need one or two new entities to make this feature universally usable. Bottom line is, my current code won't be of much use.

In order to get any of this going, we need to be able to persist the user's current selection. I'm trying to get a User Preferences service going in the OFBiz Dev mailing list.. I hope to have that implemented soon. Then I can move on to this issue.

In the meantime, maybe someone could work on a way to have a global "on/off" setting for this feature and then use it to control the display of the drop down list.

Nicolas Malin (Jira)

[jira] Commented: (OFBIZ-455) Selecting active organization party

In reply to this post by Nicolas Malin (Jira)

[ http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-455?page=comments#action_12451816 ]

Si Chen commented on OFBIZ-455:
-------------------------------

Jacopo -

You're right - this is going to be a lot of work for whoever would like to do it. It's nice if Eriks would like to work on this, but please learn a little more about ofbiz first before trying something this big. Specifically, you should realize that not all the ofbiz applications have the same organizational context:

1. Accounting - mostly organized by Internal Organization, but the tax stuff for example is independent of organization.

2. Content - no organization context. No particular context at all.

3. Catalog manager - no context at all. Perhaps you can group by ProductStore, but a product and a category is not store-specific.

4. Facility - strongly Facility oriented context.

5. Marketing - no context.

6. Manufacturing - some is Facility-oriented (job shop), rest is not (BOMs are independent of organization)

7. Order - sales order is product store-centric, purchase order is organization-centric, requirements, requests, and reports have no context

8. Party, WorkEffort, WebTolols - essentially no context of any kind.

So imposing an artificial context by organization would in some cases make the application less useful or meaningful.

In any case, it should be implemented per organization and not done with a whole bunch of code spread across party, common, and so forth. Setting and retrieving context in session is actually very easy and does not require so much code.

Nicolas Malin (Jira)

[jira] Commented: (OFBIZ-455) Selecting active organization party

In reply to this post by Nicolas Malin (Jira)

[ http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-455?page=comments#action_12451818 ]

Si Chen commented on OFBIZ-455:
-------------------------------

Also, whoever wants to work on this kind of stuff, please remember that there are many organizations that only use pieces of ofbiz, for example content manager, facility manager, or catalog manager + pos or + ecommerce, so imposing on them a different organizational context than what is natural for them is not a good thing.

Nicolas Malin (Jira)

[jira] Commented: (OFBIZ-455) Selecting active organization party

In reply to this post by Nicolas Malin (Jira)

[ http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-455?page=comments#action_12451879 ]

Eriks Dobelis commented on OFBIZ-455:
-------------------------------------

Si,

One thing I want to emphasize once more - this feature should be optional in the system, thus it should be possible to switch it off, which means that those organizations, which use just parts of Ofbiz or just don't need will see the system as it is now, the others will change some configuration setting value and get the functionality.

Another thing I (and Adrian) have written - the idea is to provide the infrastructure: select box+saving the value in session or table+some function/service that returns current selection. Ideas how to use this can come up slowly, after discussions in community. It doesn't harm anybody if we have this infrastructural component if we can switch it off even if we don't use it at all. If we will make a huge project out of this - implementing it in all components at once - then we will finish it in something like 2 years, and this is certainly not what I am aiming at. Let's take it step by step and discuss possible applications in various components one at a time.

Adrian,

Let's first agree on interface - methods we use to set and get organizational context. We can later change the implementation of the storage mechanism. If we will have interface and at least something working (like I have in the patch), then we can start thinking and actually implementing features that actually use it.

Si, Jacoppo, Jacques,

Please, somebody review the patch, and if you think it's fine, I will add configuration option switching this functionality off (suggestions, which configuration file should it be?). Then we can submit the first version to SVN. Afterwards, Adrian can come up with implementation saving the session in the tables.

Nicolas Malin (Jira)

[jira] Commented: (OFBIZ-455) Selecting active organization party

In reply to this post by Nicolas Malin (Jira)

[ http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-455?page=comments#action_12452326 ]

Jacques Le Roux commented on OFBIZ-455:
---------------------------------------

Hi Eriks,

I will try to review the patch next week. I can't do it seriously before, sorry...

Nicolas Malin (Jira)

[jira] Commented: (OFBIZ-455) Selecting active organization party

In reply to this post by Nicolas Malin (Jira)

[ http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-455?page=comments#action_12452480 ]

Si Chen commented on OFBIZ-455:
-------------------------------

If you want to implement this just for accounting that's fine, but it should involve only files in accounting, not common or party, and you need to make sure that it does not affect parts of accounting which are independent of context like tax authority.

Nicolas Malin (Jira)

[jira] Commented: (OFBIZ-455) Selecting active organization party

In reply to this post by Nicolas Malin (Jira)

[ http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-455?page=comments#action_12452549 ]

Adrian Crum commented on OFBIZ-455:
-----------------------------------

Eriks,

I just created OFBIZ-495 - the user preferences feature. That is where the current selection would be saved/retrieved.

Nicolas Malin (Jira)

[jira] Commented: (OFBIZ-455) Selecting active organization party

In reply to this post by Nicolas Malin (Jira)

[ http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-455?page=comments#action_12452580 ]

Eriks Dobelis commented on OFBIZ-455:
-------------------------------------

Adrian,

It's great that you added user preferences feature. When you will have it finalized we will use it as one of the possible mechanisms for storage.

Do you agree with the interface (method names parameters, etc.) for getting/setting organizational context that I have in the patch?

Nicolas Malin (Jira)

[jira] Commented: (OFBIZ-455) Selecting active organization party

In reply to this post by Nicolas Malin (Jira)

[ http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-455?page=comments#action_12454462 ]

Adrian Crum commented on OFBIZ-455:
-----------------------------------

Now that I'm finished with the User Preferences stuff I can get back to this. Two things come to mind:

(1) The "Organization Context" term seems to be causing confusion. I don't know what else to call it. Yes, the feature can be used to specify a default company or facility or whatever, but it can be used to do more. The idea is to have a system where subsets of data can be configured - per user, (maybe call it a "User Context"). In our implementation here I just linked parties using the feature. But it has become apparent from these discussions that my current implementation won't work OFBiz-wide. The general concept that I believe will be useful is if it is something like the "context" a user logs into on a Netware network, or the "domain" a user logs into on a Windows network. (Don't ask me what the *nix equivalent is, I have no idea.) When the user logs into the context or domain, they see only a subset of all of the network's resources.

With that said, I'm picturing a few simple entities to accomodate the feature:

ContextType (one record for each context)
------------------
ContextTypeId
Description

ContextMembers (one record for each context member)
------------------------
MemberId
MemberTypeId
ContextTypeId

MemberTypes (one record for each context member type)
--------------------
MemberTypeId
Description

So, Organization (or User) Contexts would be defined in ContextType. An OFBiz user becomes a member of a context by putting their UserLoginId in the MemberId field of ContextMembers, set MemberTypeId to "USERLOGINID", and put the context Id in ContextTypeId. Any other element of data can be made a member of a context just by adding another ContextMember record. Example: MemberId contains a FacilityId and MemberTypeId contains "FACILITYID" - to make a facility a member of the context.

The context services perform a simple lookup to see if a particular data element is a member of the specified context.

On the UI level, each screen calls the context services to control the subset of data that is presented to the user.

This description is simplified. I'll go into more detail later.

(2) Eriks patch is based upon my original implementation, so it isn't really applicable to what I have just described above. I'd like to make this feature a part of the framework/common/user subcomponent I introduced with the OFBIZ-495 framework_v2 patch. The UI elements needed for the new implementation should be simple: a modified header.ftl file. The modifications would involve making calls to the context services, NOT the party component. Let me get some of this roughed out and a patch submitted, then you will see what is needed in header.ftl. I have some catching-up to do at work, then I'll work on this.

Nicolas Malin (Jira)

[jira] Commented: (OFBIZ-455) Selecting active organization party

In reply to this post by Nicolas Malin (Jira)

[ http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-455?page=comments#action_12458095 ]

Eriks Dobelis commented on OFBIZ-455:
-------------------------------------

Jacques,
Could you, please, review the patch I've added (~month ago already)? Seems that otherwise this is not moving anywhere.

Adrian, when you will have the advanced version then we can update the code or make a choice between simple and advanced one. Until that time it's better we have something than nothing at all.

Nicolas Malin (Jira)

[jira] Assigned: (OFBIZ-455) Selecting active organization party

In reply to this post by Nicolas Malin (Jira)

[ http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-455?page=all ]

Jacques Le Roux reassigned OFBIZ-455:
-------------------------------------

Assignee: Jacques Le Roux

> Selecting active organization party
> -----------------------------------
>
> Key: OFBIZ-455
> URL: http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-455
> Project: OFBiz (The Open for Business Project)
> Issue Type: New Feature
> Reporter: Eriks Dobelis
> Assigned To: Jacques Le Roux
> Attachments: orgContext.diff, selectingOrganizationalContext.jpg
>
>
> Idea is to provide possibility to select active organization party id, which then could be used:
> 1) to provide default in different components (e.g. in creating invoices, payments, accounting transactions, etc.);
> 2) in implementation of OFBIZ-118, i.e. to show or hide data based on the active organization;
> 3) to improve current Accounting/Companies/Admin so that organizationPartyId is remembered throughout the session (if not changed).

Nicolas Malin (Jira)

[jira] Commented: (OFBIZ-455) Selecting active organization party

In reply to this post by Nicolas Malin (Jira)

[ http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-455?page=comments#action_12458167 ]

Adrian Crum commented on OFBIZ-455:
-----------------------------------

Eriks,

I don't agree that "this is not moving anywhere" - we've had several people review your patch and offer very good comments. I believe the comments indicate that your patch needs additional work.

In a project the size of OFBiz you have to be patient. I've committed myself to getting this implemented and I will accomplish it. If you have a pressing need to implement this before I've done that, then feel free to apply your patch to your local copy.

> Selecting active organization party
> -----------------------------------
>
> Key: OFBIZ-455
> URL: http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-455
> Project: OFBiz (The Open for Business Project)
> Issue Type: New Feature
> Reporter: Eriks Dobelis
> Assigned To: Jacques Le Roux
> Attachments: orgContext.diff, selectingOrganizationalContext.jpg
>
>
> Idea is to provide possibility to select active organization party id, which then could be used:
> 1) to provide default in different components (e.g. in creating invoices, payments, accounting transactions, etc.);
> 2) in implementation of OFBIZ-118, i.e. to show or hide data based on the active organization;
> 3) to improve current Accounting/Companies/Admin so that organizationPartyId is remembered throughout the session (if not changed).

Nicolas Malin (Jira)

[jira] Commented: (OFBIZ-455) Selecting active organization party

In reply to this post by Nicolas Malin (Jira)

[ http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-455?page=comments#action_12458215 ]

Si Chen commented on OFBIZ-455:
-------------------------------

Perhaps my subtlety is being lost here.

On Nov 24 I suggested that you submit a revised patch.

As it is right now, I am against this patch and would NOT want to see it committed.

> Selecting active organization party
> -----------------------------------
>
> Key: OFBIZ-455
> URL: http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-455
> Project: OFBiz (The Open for Business Project)
> Issue Type: New Feature
> Reporter: Eriks Dobelis
> Assigned To: Jacques Le Roux
> Attachments: orgContext.diff, selectingOrganizationalContext.jpg
>
>
> Idea is to provide possibility to select active organization party id, which then could be used:
> 1) to provide default in different components (e.g. in creating invoices, payments, accounting transactions, etc.);
> 2) in implementation of OFBIZ-118, i.e. to show or hide data based on the active organization;
> 3) to improve current Accounting/Companies/Admin so that organizationPartyId is remembered throughout the session (if not changed).

Nicolas Malin (Jira)

[jira] Commented: (OFBIZ-455) Selecting active organization party

In reply to this post by Nicolas Malin (Jira)

[ http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-455?page=comments#action_12458248 ]

Jacques Le Roux commented on OFBIZ-455:
---------------------------------------

So Eriks,

As indicated by Si... Waiting for a new patch...

Thanks

> Selecting active organization party
> -----------------------------------
>
> Key: OFBIZ-455
> URL: http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-455
> Project: OFBiz (The Open for Business Project)
> Issue Type: New Feature
> Reporter: Eriks Dobelis
> Assigned To: Jacques Le Roux
> Attachments: orgContext.diff, selectingOrganizationalContext.jpg
>
>
> Idea is to provide possibility to select active organization party id, which then could be used:
> 1) to provide default in different components (e.g. in creating invoices, payments, accounting transactions, etc.);
> 2) in implementation of OFBIZ-118, i.e. to show or hide data based on the active organization;
> 3) to improve current Accounting/Companies/Admin so that organizationPartyId is remembered throughout the session (if not changed).

Nicolas Malin (Jira)

[jira] Commented: (OFBIZ-455) Selecting active organization party

In reply to this post by Nicolas Malin (Jira)

[ http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-455?page=comments#action_12459570 ]

David E. Jones commented on OFBIZ-455:
--------------------------------------

Another quick thought on this: if something like this goes in that is application specific, which this is as it wouldn't have meaning for all applications, then it should go below the application title and link bars, not in the header.

> Selecting active organization party
> -----------------------------------
>
> Key: OFBIZ-455
> URL: http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-455
> Project: OFBiz (The Open for Business Project)
> Issue Type: New Feature
> Reporter: Eriks Dobelis
> Assigned To: Jacques Le Roux
> Attachments: orgContext.diff, selectingOrganizationalContext.jpg
>
>
> Idea is to provide possibility to select active organization party id, which then could be used:
> 1) to provide default in different components (e.g. in creating invoices, payments, accounting transactions, etc.);
> 2) in implementation of OFBIZ-118, i.e. to show or hide data based on the active organization;
> 3) to improve current Accounting/Companies/Admin so that organizationPartyId is remembered throughout the session (if not changed).