Page History

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The third was as part of the OFBiz PMC where he wanted to ensure that the OFBiz brand wasnt being misued. Also that we needed to define some strategies for general OFBiz users and the community (One example mentioned was a roadmap to upgrade from one version to another. NOTE: It was noted that this could be a potential opportunity for someone to build an OFBiz upgrade tool that could be extremely useful to the community). He also wanted it to enable companies to contribute back to the project.

As new OFBiz user Anahita spoke from her experience and said that she found it difficult to learn and get started with OFBiz. There seemed a lack of logic and organisation of information and it took patience and perserverance to get familiar with OFBiz. Once you are familiar with it then the idea behind the product is amazing and the potential is huge.

Orignal Project Vision:

Jacopo mentioned that the original vision of the OFBiz was to have an application development framework with some skeleton applications that would be customised per implementation. Over the years because of contributions from the community these 'skeleton' applications have become more and more complete.

Draft Proposals

• Tidy up OFBiz technical framework or "kernel"ll link
• Define and implement a process to manage the cleaned code eg to a sandbox location so could be used by users who want to pick it up and use
• Tidy up / clean up OFBiz business framework (e.g. ensure business processes have a use case to describe the process and that can be used for validation)
• OFBiz in application documentation - have been using docbook but two other proposals mentioned
  • Idea 1: Use SVNPUB: This is committer controlled but may be able to switch to setup a business user expert with write access. This means that the "mini subject matter experts" could easier maintain their specific areas.
  • Idea 2: Wikipedia style documentation where a page linked within the OFBiz application page (e.g. using the '?') will link to the wiki. This is more open and non committer controlled. Means more people can contribute
• External dependencies refactoring
• Build a Roadmap / High level plan that will be used to show details of releases and how they are supported, details of work in development, updates planned. Need to look at tools available eg. JIRA has options to do planning and roadmap, also look for Roadmap and planning info on the Wiki as may be able to collate
• Ensure business success stories are documented (as this is valuable info for potential users). Ask users  to add their stories and also get them to list the applications used / implemented. Existing policy is that there should be no direct links from OFBiz website main pages so need to use the wiki. Investigate whether integraters are willing to share their client links and stories.
• Marketing OFBiz - prepare an end user demo that can be based on roles (e.g accountant, HR manager, Order Clerk, Warehouse Manager etc). Link to user stories that can have a script or supporting documentation (e.g currently on main page there are no instructions about how to login to the demo just in case you are thrown out. Also default user if flexadmin which doesnt have all the permissions for all applications).
• Common Core Marketing Material - Put together some standard OFBiz marketing information that all integrators / users have access to. Integrators can then adapt it to suit their needs if required. Information could be white papers around supported industries etc. Need to define what tool could be used to prepare the material as it needs to be accessible to a common audience. This is important as everyone will need to be able to edit it!
• Maintenance - eg. Tomcat etc. Need to keep a watching brief on external products that are directly used by OFBiz
• Establish a group of  "mini subject matter experts" both business and technical (i.e. dont have to be both but can be). Identify contributors and knowledge. Can refer to these people regarding their specific area
• Work on a strategy to encourage more business users
• Look at the testing strategy - unit testing in isolation is not enough. We need to ensure there is an full end to end test flow
• OFBiz branding and trademarks - need to review the process and contact sites that may be infringing this
  
  

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