Qualiantech developed an extension module named Consignment Sales Management for handling Consignment Sales process.
This module is registered in Openbravo forge and Qualian have a plan to release it in Openbravo Exchange,probably by next week.
http://forge.openbravo.com/projects/consignmentsales
Functional Specification Document
Contents
1 Functional Specification: Consignment Sales Management
1.1 Section 1: Overview & Justification
1.1.1 Purpose:
1.2 Section 2: Users & Business process description
1.2.1 User goals
1.2.1.1 Consignment Fill-up
1.2.1.1.1 Consignment Fill-up Order
1.2.1.1.2 Consignment Fill-up Delivery
1.2.1.2 Consignment Issue
1.2.1.3 Consignment Returns
1.2.1.4 Consignment Pick-up
1.2.1.4.1 Consignment Pick-up Order
1.2.1.4.2 Consignment Pick-up Delivery
Functional Specification: Consignment Sales Management
Section 1: Overview & Justification
Purpose:
Consignment sales is a form of business in which, as a service to the customer (Eg. A Retail Store), the company or vendor maintains a stock of their materials at a customer’s location. The company or vendor retains ownership of the materials until they are withdrawn from the consignment stores. The customer is only charged for product once it is reported as used.
Module Name = “Consignment Sales Management”
Module language = English and Spanish translation
Module url = [1]
Module author = Qualian Technologies
Module License=OB Commercial License
Section 2: Users & Business process description
User goals
In trading arrangement, Consignment sales play a vital role in placing any material in the hand of another. Business process flow in Consignment Sales consists of four major parts. They are
Consignment Fill-up
Consignment Issue
Consignment Returns
Consignment Pick-up
Consignment Fill-up
The core functionality of Consignment Fillup explains that the stocks can be replenished at the customer site is not accounted for neither invoicing nor pricing because the goods remain the property of your company. The two steps involved in consignment Fill up are
Consignment Fill-up Order
Consignment Fill-up Delivery
Consignment Fill-up Order
It’s a request from the customer through the sales representative of your company based on the demand of the product in market. So it doesn’t involve any invoicing or pricing of the product.
Consignment Fill-up Delivery
After the company has received a fill up order either from customer or through sales representative, the company shall deliver the goods at the customer site based on current stock. Even after the goods have been delivered, the company will retain the ownership until the goods are sold.
Consignment Issue
Consignment issue involves & explains the significant process of selling the goods. It enables the customer to sell the product from the stock available in their warehouse. This business transaction is relevant for billing from company to customer because the customer has sold the goods.
Consignment Returns
Consignment returns enables the customer to return the goods into the consignment stock that were already taken out of it. After consignment Issue, if customer finds any defects or any discrepancies they can return the product to consignment stock. This transaction is relevant for billing since the customer receives a credit for the returned goods.
Consignment Pick-up
After the products have been sold, the remaining consignment goods have to return back to the warehouse of your company.The two steps involved in consignment Pick-up are
Consignment Pick-up order
Consignment Pick-up delivery
Consignment Pick-up Order
Based on products not utilized at customer location, Sales representative or some other in-charge person will place a pickup order.
Consignment Pick-up Delivery
Based on pickup order,the person in charge from company takes the remaining products from customer location and stored it in the warehouse of the company.
http://forge.openbravo.com/plugins/mwiki/index.php/ConsignmentSales/Functional_Specification_Document
http://forge.openbravo.com/plugins/mwiki/index.php/ConsignmentSales/User_Manual
Monday, September 12, 2011
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
208 reasons to choose Openbravo
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Source:
http://paolojuvara.blogspot.com/2010/10/208-reasons-to-choose-openbravo.html
Two key reasons to choose an open source solution over another is the vibrancy of its ecosystem of developers and the amount of contributions that project receives from its community. Projects with more contributors evolve faster deliver more value to its users.
Architecture is a key factor in stimulating contributions and projects with a modular architecture have proven to generate a livelier ecosystem than monolithic ones. This is primarily because modular systems allow decoupled and independent development lowering the barrier to contribution.
Openbravo launched its modular architecture in April 2009, when it introduced release 2.50; in less than 18 months the population of available modules passed the symbolic threshold of 200 units.
Today, Openbravo's ecosystem sports 208 generally available modules with a growth rate of 104% in the first 9 months of the year. More importantly, more than 47% of these modules are developed by third party with no or little support by the core Openbravo development team, proving the efficiency of the ecosystem.
While these are impressive numbers, one has to look at the details to understand the value of these contributions for Openbravo end users:
* 108 modules related to localization in 20 countries; these are not only translations but also accounting rules, tax configurations, tax reports, etc.
* 45 are functional extensions that expand the footprint of Openbravo to support other business processes
* 25 are reports that allow to better leverage the information existing within the ERP
* 7 are tools to simplify the life of System Administrators
* 6 are vertical features or solutions that address needs specific of sectors such as hospitality, apparel, healthcare, or higher education
* 4 are connectors to other applications or services
* 4 are alert rules informing users of anomalies in the data patterns in their business
* 3 are skins
Another interesting dimension of analysis is the usage, measured in terms of downloads, which illustrated by the three charts below.
Finally, a key value of the Openbravo ecosystem is its continuity: it is very easy to port modules from one version to the next. This is illustrated by the chart below showing that 25% of the modules are already compatible with both 2.50 and the newly launched 3.0.
The next time you are evaluating an open source solution, consider its ecosystem as well. In the case of Openbravo, you will find 208 additional reasons to choose it as your ERP.
Source:
http://paolojuvara.blogspot.com/2010/10/208-reasons-to-choose-openbravo.html
Two key reasons to choose an open source solution over another is the vibrancy of its ecosystem of developers and the amount of contributions that project receives from its community. Projects with more contributors evolve faster deliver more value to its users.
Architecture is a key factor in stimulating contributions and projects with a modular architecture have proven to generate a livelier ecosystem than monolithic ones. This is primarily because modular systems allow decoupled and independent development lowering the barrier to contribution.
Openbravo launched its modular architecture in April 2009, when it introduced release 2.50; in less than 18 months the population of available modules passed the symbolic threshold of 200 units.
Today, Openbravo's ecosystem sports 208 generally available modules with a growth rate of 104% in the first 9 months of the year. More importantly, more than 47% of these modules are developed by third party with no or little support by the core Openbravo development team, proving the efficiency of the ecosystem.
While these are impressive numbers, one has to look at the details to understand the value of these contributions for Openbravo end users:
* 108 modules related to localization in 20 countries; these are not only translations but also accounting rules, tax configurations, tax reports, etc.
* 45 are functional extensions that expand the footprint of Openbravo to support other business processes
* 25 are reports that allow to better leverage the information existing within the ERP
* 7 are tools to simplify the life of System Administrators
* 6 are vertical features or solutions that address needs specific of sectors such as hospitality, apparel, healthcare, or higher education
* 4 are connectors to other applications or services
* 4 are alert rules informing users of anomalies in the data patterns in their business
* 3 are skins
Another interesting dimension of analysis is the usage, measured in terms of downloads, which illustrated by the three charts below.
Finally, a key value of the Openbravo ecosystem is its continuity: it is very easy to port modules from one version to the next. This is illustrated by the chart below showing that 25% of the modules are already compatible with both 2.50 and the newly launched 3.0.
The next time you are evaluating an open source solution, consider its ecosystem as well. In the case of Openbravo, you will find 208 additional reasons to choose it as your ERP.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
The Family Grid – part II
by Rob Goris
Simple, real-time business intelligence by manipulating grids
Reporting is an essential part of everyday business and therefore an essential part of an ERP. Today´s businesses need relevant, up-to-date, accurate and consumable metrics that help them make the right decisions. Traditionally, reports are generated once in a while (month, quarter) and are exported to PDF for printing & annotating or Excel for further manipulation. Reports are used in presentations and meetings to look at past performance, understand the status quo and project future performance. The danger lies in the choice of dimensions and the interpretation of the data. Reports are static and generated as a one-off document with a set of dimensions, normally defined by a ready-made SQL query or via a visual query builder. Openbravo´s Sales Dimensional Reports allow the user to choose a number of filters and dimensions and even the sorting order can be set. This works well if the user knows in advance what metrics she is looking for and what data set she wants to look at. The drawback is that it does not allow analyzing the data in realtime by changing the filters and dimensions and looking at the impact on the results while doing so.
A while ago, in the Family Grid, I have presented a fairly abstract idea for basic business intelligence functionality by combining parent and child data in one grid, joining grids and filtering and aggregating columns. Now, I´d like to show you a more simplified version of this idea.
The Family Grid II scenario (download it here) lets the user view sales orders in one grid and a set of order lines for all of these in the other. Both the sales order grid and the order lines grid can be filtered on any attribute using column filters. Columns containing numerical values can be aggregated (sum, count, average, median). The grids can be joined (inner or outer join) with the click of a button which, for example, lets the user find all sales order that contain a certain product (or all sales that do not contain that certain product). Final result sets can be exported to Excel or PDF and the view (which is in fact a query rather than a report) can be saved for reuse.
It should be noted that this approach does not intend to replace traditional reporting because many SQL queries just cannot be build using the Family Grid. However, I believe that this way of manipulating grids is very powerful and can lead to insights that can be hard to discover using traditional one-way reporting. Playing with a data set in real time using parent and child grids, filters, aggregations and joins with an easy-to-use GUI lets non-expert users unlock the power of data in an ERP without having to invest in hi-end business intelligent software.
Are you as convinced as I am about the business value of this feature? Discuss it here.
By the way, we´re not happy with the name of this functionality. Family Grid does not cover it really. What about RapidGrid, GridSift, PowerGrid, Data Distiller, Metrix, EasyAnswer, RapidAnswer, IntelliGrid, "Openbravo RapidEdge Edition – the fastest way to start a competitive edge", "PerfectGrid - the fast & simple way to your information"?
source:
http://planet.openbravo.com/
Simple, real-time business intelligence by manipulating grids
Reporting is an essential part of everyday business and therefore an essential part of an ERP. Today´s businesses need relevant, up-to-date, accurate and consumable metrics that help them make the right decisions. Traditionally, reports are generated once in a while (month, quarter) and are exported to PDF for printing & annotating or Excel for further manipulation. Reports are used in presentations and meetings to look at past performance, understand the status quo and project future performance. The danger lies in the choice of dimensions and the interpretation of the data. Reports are static and generated as a one-off document with a set of dimensions, normally defined by a ready-made SQL query or via a visual query builder. Openbravo´s Sales Dimensional Reports allow the user to choose a number of filters and dimensions and even the sorting order can be set. This works well if the user knows in advance what metrics she is looking for and what data set she wants to look at. The drawback is that it does not allow analyzing the data in realtime by changing the filters and dimensions and looking at the impact on the results while doing so.
A while ago, in the Family Grid, I have presented a fairly abstract idea for basic business intelligence functionality by combining parent and child data in one grid, joining grids and filtering and aggregating columns. Now, I´d like to show you a more simplified version of this idea.
The Family Grid II scenario (download it here) lets the user view sales orders in one grid and a set of order lines for all of these in the other. Both the sales order grid and the order lines grid can be filtered on any attribute using column filters. Columns containing numerical values can be aggregated (sum, count, average, median). The grids can be joined (inner or outer join) with the click of a button which, for example, lets the user find all sales order that contain a certain product (or all sales that do not contain that certain product). Final result sets can be exported to Excel or PDF and the view (which is in fact a query rather than a report) can be saved for reuse.
It should be noted that this approach does not intend to replace traditional reporting because many SQL queries just cannot be build using the Family Grid. However, I believe that this way of manipulating grids is very powerful and can lead to insights that can be hard to discover using traditional one-way reporting. Playing with a data set in real time using parent and child grids, filters, aggregations and joins with an easy-to-use GUI lets non-expert users unlock the power of data in an ERP without having to invest in hi-end business intelligent software.
Are you as convinced as I am about the business value of this feature? Discuss it here.
By the way, we´re not happy with the name of this functionality. Family Grid does not cover it really. What about RapidGrid, GridSift, PowerGrid, Data Distiller, Metrix, EasyAnswer, RapidAnswer, IntelliGrid, "Openbravo RapidEdge Edition – the fastest way to start a competitive edge", "PerfectGrid - the fast & simple way to your information"?
source:
http://planet.openbravo.com/
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Packaging Openbravo 3.0 as a distribution
by Paolo Juvara
Openbravo 3.0 is going to be a landmark release for the Openbravo ecosystem for many reasons, ranging from improved functionality to a completely revised platform.
As the first release candidate milestone of Openbravo 3.0 approaches (the target release is July 2010), I would like to take the time to explore one specific area of innovation: the packaging and delivery of the product.
Unlike previous releases, where Openbravo was offered as a monolithic product on top of which users could install extensions, Openbravo 3.0 is going to be delivered as "distribution" of modules. By distribution, I mean a collection of modules - one of which is Core - selected and integrated to achieve the desired functional footprint of the release.
This approach presents several advantages, including a smoother upgrade for 2.50 users and the ability to reuse 2.50 modules in 3.0. The following presentation illustrates the concept.
Leveraging the modular architecture of 2.50, we have been providing extension modules on top of Core. Some of those extensions are technology oriented, like the Seam Integration or the new User Interface Selector, while others, like Advanced Payables and Receivables, are functional in nature. In both cases, these are pre-3.0 features that can be deployed as modules on top of 2.50.
We can continue to release such modular components until we have all the building blocks we need for 3.0.
This is an effective way to add new capabilities but for 3.0 we also need to remove some unwanted features from Core, in some cases because it is obsolete functionality and in other cases because it is more appropriate as a module rather than a core feature.
Removing functionality is tricky: if we eliminate the code, in fact, we take the risk of breaking a dependency for an existing module therefore negating the objective of ensuring a smooth upgrade and the durability of modules. To avoid this problem, we will improve the License Manager capabilities of Core: currently the License Manager is the technology that allows us to distinguish between a Community Edition and a Professional Edition; we intend to enhance its capabilities to allow us to securely hide unwanted features and ensuring that they cannot be accidentally re-enabled. While still physically present, the unwanted features will be for all intents and purposes de-activated.
Leveraging this technology, we can deliver Openbravo 3.0 as a "template" that combines all the desired modules, plus a configuration script that defines the default configuration of the system.
We have already followed a similar approach for QuickStart, one of the professional solutions that we developed for our partners in 2.50 and we will apply the same technique for 3.0.
Using our 3.0 distribution as starting template, it is then possible to add further configuration scripts and provide additional specializations. In this respect, this packaging approach provides a nice balance between the base product and its vertical specializations as both solutions share the same development and distribution approach.
There are some obvious benefits to this approach:
With 3.0 we fully embrace the distribution approach, coming to a full circle and confirming our commitment to build the ecosystem of reference in the open source ERP space.
As the first release candidate milestone of Openbravo 3.0 approaches (the target release is July 2010), I would like to take the time to explore one specific area of innovation: the packaging and delivery of the product.
Unlike previous releases, where Openbravo was offered as a monolithic product on top of which users could install extensions, Openbravo 3.0 is going to be delivered as "distribution" of modules. By distribution, I mean a collection of modules - one of which is Core - selected and integrated to achieve the desired functional footprint of the release.
This approach presents several advantages, including a smoother upgrade for 2.50 users and the ability to reuse 2.50 modules in 3.0. The following presentation illustrates the concept.
Leveraging the modular architecture of 2.50, we have been providing extension modules on top of Core. Some of those extensions are technology oriented, like the Seam Integration or the new User Interface Selector, while others, like Advanced Payables and Receivables, are functional in nature. In both cases, these are pre-3.0 features that can be deployed as modules on top of 2.50.
We can continue to release such modular components until we have all the building blocks we need for 3.0.
This is an effective way to add new capabilities but for 3.0 we also need to remove some unwanted features from Core, in some cases because it is obsolete functionality and in other cases because it is more appropriate as a module rather than a core feature.
Removing functionality is tricky: if we eliminate the code, in fact, we take the risk of breaking a dependency for an existing module therefore negating the objective of ensuring a smooth upgrade and the durability of modules. To avoid this problem, we will improve the License Manager capabilities of Core: currently the License Manager is the technology that allows us to distinguish between a Community Edition and a Professional Edition; we intend to enhance its capabilities to allow us to securely hide unwanted features and ensuring that they cannot be accidentally re-enabled. While still physically present, the unwanted features will be for all intents and purposes de-activated.
Leveraging this technology, we can deliver Openbravo 3.0 as a "template" that combines all the desired modules, plus a configuration script that defines the default configuration of the system.
We have already followed a similar approach for QuickStart, one of the professional solutions that we developed for our partners in 2.50 and we will apply the same technique for 3.0.
Using our 3.0 distribution as starting template, it is then possible to add further configuration scripts and provide additional specializations. In this respect, this packaging approach provides a nice balance between the base product and its vertical specializations as both solutions share the same development and distribution approach.
There are some obvious benefits to this approach:
- Easy upgrade for 2.50 users to 3.0: technically, an upgrade is reduced to the installation of additional modules and a configuration template (of course, there are many non technical aspects involved with an upgrade, but avoiding technical problems already simplifies the challenge)
- Guaranteed durability of modules: all of the 2.50 modules will be able to work in 3.0 as well because none of their dependencies is altered.
- Opportunity to gather early feedback on 3.0: we do not need to have 100% of the functionality ready to start exposing it to our community. In fact, many of the 3.0 modules have already been independently available for several months and went through their own feedback and stabilization cycle.
- Reduced maintenance cost for 2.50: since 2.50 and 3.0 share a common Core, the cost of maintenance will be largely reduced.
With 3.0 we fully embrace the distribution approach, coming to a full circle and confirming our commitment to build the ecosystem of reference in the open source ERP space.
source: http://planet.openbravo.com/
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Consona acquires Compiere – What about the Community?
Source:planet.openbravo.com
by Paolo Juvara
Last Wednesday the open source ERP community woke up with the news of the Consona acquisition of Compiere, one of the pioneers in open source ERP. The text of the announcement can be found here.
Since the announcement, many observers and commentators started a debate on whether this is a victory for open source or the sad demise of one the pioneers of the open source ERP category. Many also speculated on what might be in the store for the product, with most people interpreting the transaction primarily as a technology acquisition.
A recurring theme among commentators is that Compiere failed to embrace its community.
With such a symbolic event fresh in our mind, it is time to reflect on how Openbravo facilitates the development of its own community.
Last year I had commented on Adam Blum's post on The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Open Source Products. An effective open source product must display "a credible community with a credible effort to involve the community in the development of the product, as described in Adam's seven habits:
The results of these efforts are a community that is lively, growing and productive.
Looking at the public SourceForge statistics - which are public and independent -, for the period of May 2010:
by Paolo Juvara
Last Wednesday the open source ERP community woke up with the news of the Consona acquisition of Compiere, one of the pioneers in open source ERP. The text of the announcement can be found here.
Since the announcement, many observers and commentators started a debate on whether this is a victory for open source or the sad demise of one the pioneers of the open source ERP category. Many also speculated on what might be in the store for the product, with most people interpreting the transaction primarily as a technology acquisition.
A recurring theme among commentators is that Compiere failed to embrace its community.
With such a symbolic event fresh in our mind, it is time to reflect on how Openbravo facilitates the development of its own community.
Last year I had commented on Adam Blum's post on The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Open Source Products. An effective open source product must display "a credible community with a credible effort to involve the community in the development of the product, as described in Adam's seven habits:
- Public source viewing
- Common license
- Public source code checkins
- Public bugs
- Public forums
- Anyone can contribute
- Public, complete and modifiable documentation"
How does Openbravo measures against Adam's seven habits?
- Openbravo offers public source viewing at http://code.openbravo.com
- Openbravo adopts a common license with the Openbravo Public License being a common variation of the popular Mozilla Public License
- Openbravo offers public source code checkins available either at http://code.openbravo.com, through the openbravo-commit mailing list, or on the #openbravo IRC channel on freenode.net.
- Openbravo offer a public issue tracker at http://issues.openbravo.com where any community member can view or report issues
- Openbravo hosts and moderates public forums on the Openbravo Forge mirrored on SourceForge.
- Openbravo accepts open contribution through a documented process either in the form of extension modules, core contributions or in many other ways.
- Openbravo maintains a public, complete and modifiable documentation available in the wiki.
But it does not stop there:
- Openbravo offers a public road map.
- Openbravo engages with its community on the direction of the product.
- Openbravo offers full visibility of the progress of its development process.
- Openbravo engages with its community in the design of upcoming features.
- Openbravo supports its community not only through forums but also through the #openbravo IRC channel on freenode.net.
- Openbravo engages with its community of developers through the openbravo-developer mailing list.
- Openbravo educates its community on its latest version with frequent public webinars.
- Openbravo hosts monthly open community meetings (see the log of the May session as an example).
- Openbravo goes beyond public source checkins and offers public visibility of the testing of those checkins and how they get integrated into the product through our continuous integration infrastructure.
- Openbravo engages its community of users through a collaborative QA process supported by an open test case repository.
- Openbravo offers a public collaboration space with the Openbravo Forge.
- Openbravo hosts and moderates a wiki that contains more than 3,000 articles, with 1,300 monthly edits, and servers around 35,000 unique monthly visitors.
- Openbravo has formalized its commitment to its community through the Openbravo Manifesto.
- Openbravo has adopted a business model that does not divorce its Community Edition users from its Professional Edition solutions but embraces the usage of the Community Edition. There is an easy and smooth transition path for those community users that are ready to enjoy the increased benefits of the Professional Edition. Similarly there is freedom of choice for developers and service providers to distribute their development either as open source or with a commercial license.
Looking at the public SourceForge statistics - which are public and independent -, for the period of May 2010:
- Activity ranking: 2
- Forum post: 655 (and this does not include any of the hundreds of discussions in the Openbravo Forge other than the core ones)
- Downloads: 23,845 (and this does not include the 2,480 downloads from the Ubuntu repository nor any of the thousands of downloads of extension modules from our own Central Repository)
- The Openbravo community is large and growing, with 10,426 registered members at the end of May and increasing at a pace of over 300 new members per month.
- The Openbravo community is engaged giving us feedback on the product, with anywhere between 20 and 30% of the defect and new feature requests reported in any given month coming from the open community.
- The Openbravo community is productive, with 361 public projects registered in the Openbravo Forge at the end of May and managed by our community.
- The Openbravo community is effective, having produced as of the end of May 161 modules distributed through the Central Repository to the entire ecosystem of users.
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