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Just a note to let you know that we recently released an eCommerce site. Check out www.purityproducts.com.

Launched a couple of weeks ago, to very little fanfare, this is a complete replacement of an existing site, with no upgrades to the UI or basic eCommerce structure. A straight conversion to OFBiz as a platform change to allow for future changes, enhancements and growth.

This is on the back of a very successful ERP release last year for the same customer, our first OFBiz implementation. Challenging, to say the least, but very successful in terms of laying the same platform for the back-end processes, with a specific focus on a very intense and customized CSR layer.

Of interest to some, particularly given recent posts about community-driven OFBiz and various discussions about the lack of process and documentation I thought I'd share our experience of using OFBiz during the last 2 years. First a little background on Salmon LLC that I think is relevant:

Our background:

• we have released open-source framework software in the past
• we have developed many custom J2EE solutions
• we have adopted other ERP solutions prior to OFBiz (Compiere / Adempiere - before bailing because it was not really open-source)
• we have adopted other packaged solutions in other business areas
• we're a technical company, with business savvy
• we can figure stuff out

OFBiz, the good:

• nice architecture, we were generally impressed with the service based approach
• the services work. For us, OFBiz is a starting point, the services are available and they work!
• the community support is amazing; the commitment of everyone monitoring this thread and providing responses is commendable

OFBiz, the not so good:

• UI ootb: not the best. BUT, we understand the objective (framework) and we understand the ERP domain to realize that OFBiz is a starting point; and a pretty good one
• architecture: next level of concepts was harder to grasp, as you dig more into the code the more confusing it can get; the lack of good coding standards can make it very confusing as to what exactly is the best practice (particularly when looking at "older" code)
• the devil is in the details, and there are a lot of them; be prepared to make mistakes, having to figure stuff out for yourself, lots of trial and error
• community support: when it gets a little tricky it's much more difficult to explain the issue and get a good community response. Perfectly understandable but this is where the risk comes into play . We spent countless hours on some very tricky payment processing issues (credit, card, returns, refunds) and inventory processing
• what a pity that the documentation cannot encapsulate all the knowledge from the user-group. Yes, I know we can search through email postings. Yes, I know that the documentation is improving. But there are still problems in this area, perhaps I can share one specific example:

One specific example:

• Product A is put with product B in order to offer product C
• Product A and B may (or may not) have inventory associated
• When assembled into C, this can also carry inventory
• When the item is returned, it may be put back into inventory as product C, OR may be disassembled into products A and B
• Fairly straight forward and not uncommon, and I'm sure that OFBiz can handle this but we couldn't find ANY document that would clearly explain product configuration and it's impact on other areas of the ERP solution

• I remember being amazed that a thorough product configuration guide was not available that would explain all the product attributes and a high level description of the impact throughout OFBiz. What's more important is that if you guess wrong then you can cause all sorts of problems
• BTW: since this was a while ago I did review the current documentation, the only item I saw that described setting up a product was the "Business Setup Guide (for users)", the content for Product Setup is pasted below. The best looking resource is I understand that there may be more documentation available that is more appropriate . BUT, if I'm new to OFBiz and cannot find something decent after a few minutes then I'll move on very quickly

So, where are we now? Well, I think we can safely say that we are OFBiz adopters, it took much sweat and tears to get to where we are now but I consider my team to be well versed, near expert, with ERP and eCommerce implementations using OFBiz. I'm very comfortable offering this service to our clients, and very comfortable with our ability to deliver scalable ERP and eCommerce solutions.

HOWEVER, our first implementation was very stressful. And in hindsight, very risky. Remember that ERP solutions are "bet your business" propositions . We cannot make mistakes. If we do, we jeopardize our business and the business of our clients. In our first implementation we are processing 5000 orders per day. For the first 3-4 weeks of go-live the background jobs were taking more than 24 hours to run (build orders from a recurring order list, process orders for fulfillment, manage incoming inventory, process credit card transactions, PLUS any new orders for that day). Saturdays and Sundays were used to make-up the time while we figured out solutions! As you can imagine we had a very stressful time working with our client, tuning our processes and working with our client to keep OFBiz as the ERP solution. I'm happy to report that everything is perfectly fine now, but this is not the way we like to do business.

I consider my team to be extremely committed, technically excellent and business savvy. I wonder how small companies or small integrators adopt OFBiz without these resources?

Conclusion:

• As I re-read my comments and gather my thoughts it basically boils down to documentation
• We did not have the luxury of being able to hire a certified "guru" to help out (we did have David Jones spend a week with us initially and used a couple of committers for specific tasks) but there is generally no "corporate" option to ensure success
• Best practices / coding techniques etc are exposed because of the open-source nature of OFBiz; it's probably better written than other proprietary software; this is not an essential issue
• So everything hinges on community support. Lots of it is required for early adopters and we see these postings every day. For folks that have moved into more complex areas (like we were 12 months ago), the community support is not enough-the issues are too complex
• As an open-source project, without formal corporate backing, the key is documentation, not just technical. And I suspect that we need more than Oracle and SAP because of the community nature of the project

Nick Rosser ([nrosser@salmonllc.com|mailto:nrosser@salmonllc.com)
Salmon LLC

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Ofbiz Content Manager Rocks

I recently implemented Ofbiz using pieces of its vast framework to build a site for a major Research Funder. Major modules used in my implementation are: Content, Project (and WorkEffort by implication). The response has been great. Working with the Content module has been challenging but rewarding. I love this framework and the freedom it gives me to customise on a solid, elegant framework.

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