I've been avidly reading about various OSS solutions to my organisation's needs over the past few months. We have sent out an RFP to the usual suspects (SAP and oracle) who've constructed an interesting set of proposals for our requirements. They could not however meet the end-to-end requirement we have.
A little bit about our company. We are a large distribution / retail company with a media arm (a TV station and Magazine) focused around mobile telephony solutions. We are operating in 25 countries in the Middle East, North Africa, East Africa, West Africa & Europe. With over 60 warehouses, 300 shops and 75 service centers.
What we want.
We're looking for an INTEGRATED Single Sign On solution that integrates:
Zimbra for E-mail/Exchange (integrated to asterisk)
Asterisk for telephony (already integrated to centric)
CentricCRM for our service centers/POS/call centers.
Funambol to push emails / tasks and documents to employees mobile phones.
Liferay for the front end website (already integrated with alfresco), but we need to expose the 'shopping' portlet to be the e-commerce front end for openbravo/adempiere.
Alfresco for the ECM/document management
TinaPOS (or alternative) for the POS (we actually have licences for Microsoft RMS already, but are open to alternatives)
Adempiere / Openbravo / OpenTaps for our Inventory /Accounts / treasury and to integrate all the above components into
HR / Payroll module added on.
jasperreports for reporting.
that's about it.
From what I've done already, I've worked with compiere 2.5.1 in years gone in Iraq, we had localised it for arabic and created an hr/payroll module. I do like the AD... however the UI for the system as it stands today would be unacceptable for our users (they like 'modern looking eye candy' you understand).
We are willing to invest into helping this integration and also to OSS it for the good of the community in the future (pending approval from higher ups), but I really want to know if it would be practical to achieve the above end-end REALLY COMPLETE business integration around the adempiere core? perhaps with jitterbit?
This would be the killer solution to sell it to ME and I believe it would put adempiere into a different league pushing the boundaries of how the solution can be pushed to potential users both small and large.
Finally, from my perspective the two points I want to end this message with:
1- integrate the high end CRM functions with connection to asterisk/zimbra and the high end portal/ECM solution combo liferay/alfresco into the solution and jasperreports/ireport to provide a complete solution.
2- Have a new paradigm for user interaction with the application. The main advantages I can see of SAP ECC 6.0 (which will remain current for the next 5 years) is the fact that its a ubiquitous application. the users interact with the system and feed information into it from heterogenous sources in 'passive' automated fashion.
I do hope to hear from the community and build a fruitful relationship. I also hope that openbravo/adempiere will work together to create a solution that pushes the boundaries of the OS solution further rather than duplicating effort.
best regards
hayder
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I think that Adempiere would get a lot of kudos if adempiere went the XBRL route www.xbrl.org for financial reporting. For listed companies (and even for unlisted) XBRL will be the way to go especially for any international company that has to consolidate accounts from multiple legal entities in multiple countries in a standardised manner. This would be an essential component of a n ERP system in the 2008-2009 time frame. If adempiere would have its COA structured the XBRL way and have XBRL compliant financial statements at company/consolidated level it would be an AMAZING value proposition to so many organisations.
Also if we can come to an agreement with my organisation then we would be able to fund a good chunk of development as well as provide hands on help from 2-3 guys to work pretty much full time on adempiere integration within the OSS Business super-suite.
best regards
hayder
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i would liek to comment that such intergation is possible and that there is such integration projects already on the scene. Particularly JikiBlume from Marco(It uses Compiere). OpenBravo has intergation with TinaPOS(which can be done in Adempiere too).
I think that most important is to choose which project would you like to use as ERP system (Adempiere or OpenBravo) and what resources you can put to have the work done.
Kind regards,
Trifon
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The choice of whether to use adempiere / openbravo is a difficult one. Whilst openbravo 2.3 already has an improved UI and TinaPOS integration, I can also see a massive potential in adempiere due to the weight of its community support. I'm really in a bit of a dilemma on this point. Adempiere is better in a way due to its retention of the old 'thick client' gui (which is something that our accounts and warehouse would prefer over a web UI, but its web-based weakness brings me back to openbravo... some kind of synchronisation of effort for mutual benefit for openbravo 2.5 - adempiere 4 integration would be perfect. Also if best practice elements from other projects could be plugged in to the system to bring up the missing pieces of the 'enterprise system' then that would be AMAZING, truly an amazing achievement and would really turn heads as MS/SAP/Oracle would have really nothing to answer with.
As for resources that we can contribute:
2 developers (full time) with the following skill sets:
-telephony applications / backbone
-Simple compiere AD / modules / localisation knowledge
-knowledge of business requirements and build up detailed specifications for improvements to adempiere
Funding:
-we have sufficient funding set aside for an integrated business system/ERP implementation. I hope that with the help of the community I can build up a solution platform so we can choose adempiere based solution over SAP ECC 6.0. I need to sell this to our CEO/CFO as not only a cost effective solution, but as a functionally superior solution that we can then potentially have a new line of business as an OSS solutions provider based around an integrated OSS core.
In terms of what would be ideal for us.... XBRL for finance, integration with CRM/SFA/funambol/asterisk and liferay/alfresco for DMS .... it would be perfect if attachments would be managed in alfresco, accessible via CIFS (and maintain access control/audit) and the simple liferay webshop can feed data in straight from adempiere... the crm of adempiere integrated with telephony solution / zimbra or use an external CRM like centric... which of course manages customer information... and all the reporting done via a reporting system based on jaspersoft jasper server that feeds reports / charts / kpi based triggers to managers via a message that is pushed to their mobile phones via funambol connector.
I've also looked at some other solutions (there's really three streams in OSS that I can see):
OFBIZ based (opentaps etc..)
Compiere based (adempiere / openbravo)
Zope based (ERP5)
between these three Compiere based solutions are the most mature, but the ofbiz based solutions have distinct advantages in being SOA but with weak vertical functionality that would require a lot more creation of vertical tools, or integration with third parties.
One final thing that just came into my mind... since most people (not just our company) needs a thick client access (in addition to other methods) what about replacing the java client with a eclipse RCP based client and making use of the libraries available there to rapidly build up a client GUI that can act in intermittent connection with an HSQL type database? just a thought.
There really is a mish-mash of ideas there. but I hope that its partly legible.
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>Whilst openbravo 2.3 already has an improved UI and TinaPOS integration, I can also see a massive potential in >adempiere due to the weight of its community support. I'm really in a bit of a dilemma on this point. Adempiere is >better in a way due to its retention of the old 'thick client' gui (which is something that our accounts and warehouse >would prefer over a web UI, but its web-based weakness brings me back to openbravo
Integration with TinaPOs is not a big task my estimate is 2-3 weeks. It requirs a Web service to be developed in Adempiere.
Regarding web interfae. Adempiere already has web interface(even few proposals based on different technologies).
working example of web interface can be found here: http://oslabs.dnsalias.org:8080/adempiere/
For business people or novice developers to Adempiere/Compiere/OpenBravo intgration between this projects looks easy, but at this moment only realistic intergation is bewteen Adempiere and Compiere. OpenBravo has it's own Web Based technology which has it's limitations and OpenBravo team is moving to next generation (OpenBravo GREEN). Example OpenBravo limitation is report generation( user need to compile source code in order to get new report).
>One final thing that just came into my mind... since most people (not just our company) needs a thick client access >(in addition to other methods) what about replacing the java client with a eclipse RCP based client and making use >of the libraries available there to rapidly build up a client GUI that can act in intermittent connection with an >HSQL type database? just a thought.
WEll i do not like word REPLACEMENT. I have clients who need fast data entry only with keyboard. Something very interesting that hapens at Berlin Adempiere conference was demostration of Delphi based GUI for Adempiere build on top of WEB Service. This is just a proof that AD(Application Dictionary) can be used as a base for new functionality. Also plees keep in mind that developers can develop any GUI if they have enough time. But here we come to the moment of price and users who would like to support the effort.
Small comment regarding choices available at the market.
PHP based solutions tend to became expensive and slow when project gets bigger. I do not see any php based ERP system and i do not expect to see in future as java/.NET systems will be more cost effective.
OFBiz, my personaly experience and researched showed that modules based on OFBiz are hard to maintain when module gets bigger. I do not expect to see OFBiz with functionality which Admpiere/OpenBravo/Compiere has in near future. OFBiz is really nice for e-commerce and invoicing, but comparing cost and time needed for modification/new module development AD(Application Dictionary) based systems are much faster.
Adempiere has problems also, we need to move to service oriened architecture(we need to export services to external world), but i think that it is matter of time to have it.
Kind regards,
Trifon
Kind regards,
Trifon
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Do you have comments to make on integration with the third party OSS tools that I listed above and jaspersoft based reporting? How difficult would it be to achieve this and how much time and effort required?
Ever thought of using opentaps just for the ecommerce bit?
and the XBRL ? any thoughts? would it be possible to have a COA based on XBRL?
best regards
hayder
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>Ever thought of using opentaps just for the ecommerce bit?
No. It is much faster to extend existing codebased. Posterita team made web based POS module for Adempiere.
>and the XBRL ? any thoughts? would it be possible to have a COA based on XBRL?
Why not. I tried to research it but more detailed research is necessary for better answer, and i do not have that time now.
Generaly any intergation from the range you described is not less then 10 months work for 3-4 developers ,but this is just my personal opinion. All Adempierians are free to comment it. Usualy hard part is in small details which customer demand. That's why i think that detailed requiremnts are required here and some initial effort should be support for research and work plan creation.
Kind regards,
Trifon
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when I read your thread I thought it was my second soul who was talking, describing what my boldest dream is. Your words I do use when somebody asks me for my VISION. Suddenly, I see it in the forum!
It seems and it is proven by the facts that Adempiere is SCALABLE. The range is wide: you can make small enhancements (like allowing attachments to be in the file system), you can attach modules (like Libero for HR and Posterita for POS), you can integrate Open Source technologies (like Jasper Reports) and you can enhance functionality (like the RMA project). These are samples of what has been added to Adempiere since its birth.
Add to that the very supportive community with transparency and freedom, a community where you with your DEEDS set the limit, then you have an ideal situation for fulfilling your wishes. You can check the veracity of my last sentences in the wiki and the forums.
With that said, there is no other choice but Adempiere if you take all these factors into account and compare Adempiere with other products, even of Sage, MS, Oracle and SAP. I myself searched for years, tried several products, downloaded, installed, attended seminars, read books.... until Adempiere came and I said to myself: "that is IT". Every day I feel more comfortable.
What does Adempiere need? Adempiere needs a bootstrapping, i.e. projects for Adempiere that lift Adempiere to become THE solution. I thought that Adempiere would reach that level step by step, with a project here and there, an enhancement elsewhere. The bootstrap would be done AT ONCE if it gets the functionality you described. Your chance: you are in the team that defines the funtionality.
You can split your reqirements into small projects, define them in the wiki ( "Sponsored Functional Enhancements" in http://www.adempiere.com/wiki/index.php/ADempiere ) and there you go. Hopefully, you may find someone interested in sharing the expenses, you will for sure find people who help defining the requirements and testing (a very important issue, sometimes unregarded).
Best regards,
Mario Calderon
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Dear Dr. Hayder,
The ADempiere latest WebUI link given above is a private small server and is often off. More info on the WebUI is at http://www.adempiere.com/wiki/index.php/WebUI .
Best Regards,
red1
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I've created an account on the wiki and put up some details of my proposed extensions.
Also one item that I was thinking about over the past few years is the creation of an ontology based basis for the adempiere AD and this can be done so efficiently using the protege ontology editor http://protege.stanford.edu/ This would also enable non-programmers to extend the AD very simply and the app also generates the SWING UI elements automatically.
This would be quite a revolutionary move for the app and would borrow something from the pure OO ERP5 system but without the idiosyncrasies of zope.
is there interest in this? Should I refactor the AD into an ontology using protege if the community is interested? But one thing I can't do is actually integrate the ontology within adempiere.
any thoughts? is this feasible?
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> I've created an account on the wiki and put up
> some details of my proposed extensions.
I took a look at the page. Look like a good start but requires more details which you or the community may add to it.
> Also one item that I was thinking about over the
> past few years is the creation of an ontology based
> basis for the adempiere AD and this can be done so
> efficiently using the protege ontology editor
> http://protege.stanford.edu/ This would also enable
> non-programmers to extend the AD very simply and the
> app also generates the SWING UI elements automatically.
Very good idea! I've read some introductory papers about ontology and seen that it might be the future of soft-computing -my humble opinion. That'd be a very nice idea.
> is there interest in this? Should I refactor the
> AD into an ontology using protege if the community
> is interested? But one thing I can't do is actually
> integrate the ontology within adempiere.
Why not?! I'm sure there is and will be interest in the subject. And don't worry! You just start, others will help you finish. Try writing some articles in Wiki about that -so the community can figure out what are you talking about- and you'll see how they will take part -despite the subject being high-tech. In addition, there are some other ideas in this direction as well, which you may start collaborating and coordinating with. Please take a look at http://www.adempiere.com/wiki/index.php/The_Idea_of_iADempiere . It would be nice to have your ideas and thoughts there.
Warm regards,
Bahman
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interesting approach for the iAdempiere. I would certainly participate in this with you. Do you want to refactor the AD into an ontology? Here is what I propose:
use the protege to create the Adempiere data model as an OO data model: This creates two things, an ontology (Web Ontology Language) and the user interface elements (generated automatically by protege). Protege already is integrated with the Touchgraph Graphviz visualisation library, and I've already implemented this for some automotive companies in the UK for managing their internal designs and collaboration with external vendors (suppliers) on a component level. once the ontology is created it pretty much automatically manages synonyms for classes, 'instances' and reified relationships. The system I built for them also allows the construction of assemblies / BoM and definition of product requirements/specifications and design elements (it was a replacement for PLM).
one major weakness of course is SPEED. and another is how the ontology can become the 'new' AD? Since the entire Adempiere application as it stands is based on a relational-database with application logic and UI on top, the way that the ontologies work in Protege are slightly different (at least from the perspective of someone building an ontology).
Protege ontologies consists of the following items:
The configuration file (with layouts and UI elements that are customised)
The ontology definition 'skeleton'
The 'knowledge base' i.e. objects instantiated according to the specifications of the 'ontology'
This is managed in a very simple manner within protege, and its really not something outwardly suitable for an ERP implementation... but if someone with more skills than me can have a look at it and tell me what they think I would be grateful
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Dear adempierans
I've been avidly reading about various OSS solutions to my organisation's needs over the past few months. We have sent out an RFP to the usual suspects (SAP and oracle) who've constructed an interesting set of proposals for our requirements. They could not however meet the end-to-end requirement we have.
A little bit about our company. We are a large distribution / retail company with a media arm (a TV station and Magazine) focused around mobile telephony solutions. We are operating in 25 countries in the Middle East, North Africa, East Africa, West Africa & Europe. With over 60 warehouses, 300 shops and 75 service centers.
What we want.
We're looking for an INTEGRATED Single Sign On solution that integrates:
Zimbra for E-mail/Exchange (integrated to asterisk)
Asterisk for telephony (already integrated to centric)
CentricCRM for our service centers/POS/call centers.
Funambol to push emails / tasks and documents to employees mobile phones.
Liferay for the front end website (already integrated with alfresco), but we need to expose the 'shopping' portlet to be the e-commerce front end for openbravo/adempiere.
Alfresco for the ECM/document management
TinaPOS (or alternative) for the POS (we actually have licences for Microsoft RMS already, but are open to alternatives)
Adempiere / Openbravo / OpenTaps for our Inventory /Accounts / treasury and to integrate all the above components into
HR / Payroll module added on.
jasperreports for reporting.
that's about it.
From what I've done already, I've worked with compiere 2.5.1 in years gone in Iraq, we had localised it for arabic and created an hr/payroll module. I do like the AD... however the UI for the system as it stands today would be unacceptable for our users (they like 'modern looking eye candy' you understand).
We are willing to invest into helping this integration and also to OSS it for the good of the community in the future (pending approval from higher ups), but I really want to know if it would be practical to achieve the above end-end REALLY COMPLETE business integration around the adempiere core? perhaps with jitterbit?
This would be the killer solution to sell it to ME and I believe it would put adempiere into a different league pushing the boundaries of how the solution can be pushed to potential users both small and large.
Finally, from my perspective the two points I want to end this message with:
1- integrate the high end CRM functions with connection to asterisk/zimbra and the high end portal/ECM solution combo liferay/alfresco into the solution and jasperreports/ireport to provide a complete solution.
2- Have a new paradigm for user interaction with the application. The main advantages I can see of SAP ECC 6.0 (which will remain current for the next 5 years) is the fact that its a ubiquitous application. the users interact with the system and feed information into it from heterogenous sources in 'passive' automated fashion.
I do hope to hear from the community and build a fruitful relationship. I also hope that openbravo/adempiere will work together to create a solution that pushes the boundaries of the OS solution further rather than duplicating effort.
best regards
hayder
oh a few more things....
I think that Adempiere would get a lot of kudos if adempiere went the XBRL route www.xbrl.org for financial reporting. For listed companies (and even for unlisted) XBRL will be the way to go especially for any international company that has to consolidate accounts from multiple legal entities in multiple countries in a standardised manner. This would be an essential component of a n ERP system in the 2008-2009 time frame. If adempiere would have its COA structured the XBRL way and have XBRL compliant financial statements at company/consolidated level it would be an AMAZING value proposition to so many organisations.
Also if we can come to an agreement with my organisation then we would be able to fund a good chunk of development as well as provide hands on help from 2-3 guys to work pretty much full time on adempiere integration within the OSS Business super-suite.
best regards
hayder
Hi Hayder,
i would liek to comment that such intergation is possible and that there is such integration projects already on the scene. Particularly JikiBlume from Marco(It uses Compiere). OpenBravo has intergation with TinaPOS(which can be done in Adempiere too).
I think that most important is to choose which project would you like to use as ERP system (Adempiere or OpenBravo) and what resources you can put to have the work done.
Kind regards,
Trifon
Hi Trifon
The choice of whether to use adempiere / openbravo is a difficult one. Whilst openbravo 2.3 already has an improved UI and TinaPOS integration, I can also see a massive potential in adempiere due to the weight of its community support. I'm really in a bit of a dilemma on this point. Adempiere is better in a way due to its retention of the old 'thick client' gui (which is something that our accounts and warehouse would prefer over a web UI, but its web-based weakness brings me back to openbravo... some kind of synchronisation of effort for mutual benefit for openbravo 2.5 - adempiere 4 integration would be perfect. Also if best practice elements from other projects could be plugged in to the system to bring up the missing pieces of the 'enterprise system' then that would be AMAZING, truly an amazing achievement and would really turn heads as MS/SAP/Oracle would have really nothing to answer with.
As for resources that we can contribute:
2 developers (full time) with the following skill sets:
-telephony applications / backbone
-Simple compiere AD / modules / localisation knowledge
-knowledge of business requirements and build up detailed specifications for improvements to adempiere
Funding:
-we have sufficient funding set aside for an integrated business system/ERP implementation. I hope that with the help of the community I can build up a solution platform so we can choose adempiere based solution over SAP ECC 6.0. I need to sell this to our CEO/CFO as not only a cost effective solution, but as a functionally superior solution that we can then potentially have a new line of business as an OSS solutions provider based around an integrated OSS core.
In terms of what would be ideal for us.... XBRL for finance, integration with CRM/SFA/funambol/asterisk and liferay/alfresco for DMS .... it would be perfect if attachments would be managed in alfresco, accessible via CIFS (and maintain access control/audit) and the simple liferay webshop can feed data in straight from adempiere... the crm of adempiere integrated with telephony solution / zimbra or use an external CRM like centric... which of course manages customer information... and all the reporting done via a reporting system based on jaspersoft jasper server that feeds reports / charts / kpi based triggers to managers via a message that is pushed to their mobile phones via funambol connector.
I've also looked at some other solutions (there's really three streams in OSS that I can see):
OFBIZ based (opentaps etc..)
Compiere based (adempiere / openbravo)
Zope based (ERP5)
between these three Compiere based solutions are the most mature, but the ofbiz based solutions have distinct advantages in being SOA but with weak vertical functionality that would require a lot more creation of vertical tools, or integration with third parties.
One final thing that just came into my mind... since most people (not just our company) needs a thick client access (in addition to other methods) what about replacing the java client with a eclipse RCP based client and making use of the libraries available there to rapidly build up a client GUI that can act in intermittent connection with an HSQL type database? just a thought.
There really is a mish-mash of ideas there. but I hope that its partly legible.
Hi Hayder,
>Whilst openbravo 2.3 already has an improved UI and TinaPOS integration, I can also see a massive potential in >adempiere due to the weight of its community support. I'm really in a bit of a dilemma on this point. Adempiere is >better in a way due to its retention of the old 'thick client' gui (which is something that our accounts and warehouse >would prefer over a web UI, but its web-based weakness brings me back to openbravo
Integration with TinaPOs is not a big task my estimate is 2-3 weeks. It requirs a Web service to be developed in Adempiere.
Regarding web interfae. Adempiere already has web interface(even few proposals based on different technologies).
working example of web interface can be found here:
http://oslabs.dnsalias.org:8080/adempiere/
For business people or novice developers to Adempiere/Compiere/OpenBravo intgration between this projects looks easy, but at this moment only realistic intergation is bewteen Adempiere and Compiere. OpenBravo has it's own Web Based technology which has it's limitations and OpenBravo team is moving to next generation (OpenBravo GREEN). Example OpenBravo limitation is report generation( user need to compile source code in order to get new report).
>One final thing that just came into my mind... since most people (not just our company) needs a thick client access >(in addition to other methods) what about replacing the java client with a eclipse RCP based client and making use >of the libraries available there to rapidly build up a client GUI that can act in intermittent connection with an >HSQL type database? just a thought.
WEll i do not like word REPLACEMENT. I have clients who need fast data entry only with keyboard. Something very interesting that hapens at Berlin Adempiere conference was demostration of Delphi based GUI for Adempiere build on top of WEB Service. This is just a proof that AD(Application Dictionary) can be used as a base for new functionality. Also plees keep in mind that developers can develop any GUI if they have enough time. But here we come to the moment of price and users who would like to support the effort.
Small comment regarding choices available at the market.
PHP based solutions tend to became expensive and slow when project gets bigger. I do not see any php based ERP system and i do not expect to see in future as java/.NET systems will be more cost effective.
OFBiz, my personaly experience and researched showed that modules based on OFBiz are hard to maintain when module gets bigger. I do not expect to see OFBiz with functionality which Admpiere/OpenBravo/Compiere has in near future. OFBiz is really nice for e-commerce and invoicing, but comparing cost and time needed for modification/new module development AD(Application Dictionary) based systems are much faster.
Adempiere has problems also, we need to move to service oriened architecture(we need to export services to external world), but i think that it is matter of time to have it.
Kind regards,
Trifon
Kind regards,
Trifon
thanks for the reply trifon.
I will checked out the web interface.
Do you have comments to make on integration with the third party OSS tools that I listed above and jaspersoft based reporting? How difficult would it be to achieve this and how much time and effort required?
Ever thought of using opentaps just for the ecommerce bit?
and the XBRL ? any thoughts? would it be possible to have a COA based on XBRL?
best regards
hayder
hi,
>jaspersoft based reporting? How difficult would it be to achieve this and how much time and effort >required?
Well, we already have JasperReports intergated. I used it in one of my projects to produce PDF reports, store them on file system and send them as attchements in email to users.
http://www.adempiere.com/wiki/index.php/ADempiere/Compiere_JasperReports_Integration_HowTo
>Ever thought of using opentaps just for the ecommerce bit?
No. It is much faster to extend existing codebased. Posterita team made web based POS module for Adempiere.
>and the XBRL ? any thoughts? would it be possible to have a COA based on XBRL?
Why not. I tried to research it but more detailed research is necessary for better answer, and i do not have that time now.
Generaly any intergation from the range you described is not less then 10 months work for 3-4 developers ,but this is just my personal opinion. All Adempierians are free to comment it. Usualy hard part is in small details which customer demand. That's why i think that detailed requiremnts are required here and some initial effort should be support for research and work plan creation.
Kind regards,
Trifon
Hy Hayder,
when I read your thread I thought it was my second soul who was talking, describing what my boldest dream is. Your words I do use when somebody asks me for my VISION. Suddenly, I see it in the forum!
It seems and it is proven by the facts that Adempiere is SCALABLE. The range is wide: you can make small enhancements (like allowing attachments to be in the file system), you can attach modules (like Libero for HR and Posterita for POS), you can integrate Open Source technologies (like Jasper Reports) and you can enhance functionality (like the RMA project). These are samples of what has been added to Adempiere since its birth.
Add to that the very supportive community with transparency and freedom, a community where you with your DEEDS set the limit, then you have an ideal situation for fulfilling your wishes. You can check the veracity of my last sentences in the wiki and the forums.
With that said, there is no other choice but Adempiere if you take all these factors into account and compare Adempiere with other products, even of Sage, MS, Oracle and SAP. I myself searched for years, tried several products, downloaded, installed, attended seminars, read books.... until Adempiere came and I said to myself: "that is IT". Every day I feel more comfortable.
What does Adempiere need? Adempiere needs a bootstrapping, i.e. projects for Adempiere that lift Adempiere to become THE solution. I thought that Adempiere would reach that level step by step, with a project here and there, an enhancement elsewhere. The bootstrap would be done AT ONCE if it gets the functionality you described. Your chance: you are in the team that defines the funtionality.
You can split your reqirements into small projects, define them in the wiki ( "Sponsored Functional Enhancements" in http://www.adempiere.com/wiki/index.php/ADempiere ) and there you go. Hopefully, you may find someone interested in sharing the expenses, you will for sure find people who help defining the requirements and testing (a very important issue, sometimes unregarded).
Best regards,
Mario Calderon
Dear Dr. Hayder,
The ADempiere latest WebUI link given above is a private small server and is often off. More info on the WebUI is at http://www.adempiere.com/wiki/index.php/WebUI .
Best Regards,
red1
HI again.
I've created an account on the wiki and put up some details of my proposed extensions.
Also one item that I was thinking about over the past few years is the creation of an ontology based basis for the adempiere AD and this can be done so efficiently using the protege ontology editor http://protege.stanford.edu/ This would also enable non-programmers to extend the AD very simply and the app also generates the SWING UI elements automatically.
This would be quite a revolutionary move for the app and would borrow something from the pure OO ERP5 system but without the idiosyncrasies of zope.
is there interest in this? Should I refactor the AD into an ontology using protege if the community is interested? But one thing I can't do is actually integrate the ontology within adempiere.
any thoughts? is this feasible?
Hi Hayder,
> I've created an account on the wiki and put up
> some details of my proposed extensions.
I took a look at the page. Look like a good start but requires more details which you or the community may add to it.
> Also one item that I was thinking about over the
> past few years is the creation of an ontology based
> basis for the adempiere AD and this can be done so
> efficiently using the protege ontology editor
> http://protege.stanford.edu/ This would also enable
> non-programmers to extend the AD very simply and the
> app also generates the SWING UI elements automatically.
Very good idea! I've read some introductory papers about ontology and seen that it might be the future of soft-computing -my humble opinion. That'd be a very nice idea.
> is there interest in this? Should I refactor the
> AD into an ontology using protege if the community
> is interested? But one thing I can't do is actually
> integrate the ontology within adempiere.
Why not?! I'm sure there is and will be interest in the subject. And don't worry! You just start, others will help you finish. Try writing some articles in Wiki about that -so the community can figure out what are you talking about- and you'll see how they will take part -despite the subject being high-tech. In addition, there are some other ideas in this direction as well, which you may start collaborating and coordinating with. Please take a look at http://www.adempiere.com/wiki/index.php/The_Idea_of_iADempiere . It would be nice to have your ideas and thoughts there.
Warm regards,
Bahman
HI Bahman
interesting approach for the iAdempiere. I would certainly participate in this with you. Do you want to refactor the AD into an ontology? Here is what I propose:
use the protege to create the Adempiere data model as an OO data model: This creates two things, an ontology (Web Ontology Language) and the user interface elements (generated automatically by protege). Protege already is integrated with the Touchgraph Graphviz visualisation library, and I've already implemented this for some automotive companies in the UK for managing their internal designs and collaboration with external vendors (suppliers) on a component level. once the ontology is created it pretty much automatically manages synonyms for classes, 'instances' and reified relationships. The system I built for them also allows the construction of assemblies / BoM and definition of product requirements/specifications and design elements (it was a replacement for PLM).
one major weakness of course is SPEED. and another is how the ontology can become the 'new' AD? Since the entire Adempiere application as it stands is based on a relational-database with application logic and UI on top, the way that the ontologies work in Protege are slightly different (at least from the perspective of someone building an ontology).
Protege ontologies consists of the following items:
The configuration file (with layouts and UI elements that are customised)
The ontology definition 'skeleton'
The 'knowledge base' i.e. objects instantiated according to the specifications of the 'ontology'
This is managed in a very simple manner within protege, and its really not something outwardly suitable for an ERP implementation... but if someone with more skills than me can have a look at it and tell me what they think I would be grateful