THIS IS A TEST INSTANCE. ALL YOUR CHANGES WILL BE LOST!!!!
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| Answer Choices | Percentage | No. Responses |
|---|---|---|
| install or implement OFBIz for other people's businesses? | 80% | 59 |
| use OFBiz to run your own business? | 42% | 31 |
| consult in the ERP space and evaluate or recommend OFBiz to clients? | 31% | 23 |
| plan to look at evaluating OFBiz for your company's use? | 12% | 9 |
| Other (please specify) | 0% | 0 |
| Total Respondents: 74 |
Comments :
- The objective of this question was to find out what the community profile was like.
- This was a multi-answer question meaning that respondents could select more than one option.
- It was surprising for me to find that the majority of respondents are OFBiz integrators or offer OFBiz consulting services as considering how long OFBiz has been around I would have expected a larger end user community.
- Of the 9 respondents that were "evaluating OFBiz for their company's use" 6 of them were not integrators or consultants. This suggests that these 6 are in fact real end users.I suspect the end user community is a lot larger than this but perhaps they dont actively interface with the OFBiz community but rather with their OFBiz integrator or consultant. It would be interesting to survey this group further to gain more insights into their profiles.
- Also the fact that there are so many OFBiz integrators and consultants in the market means that they must think that there is adequate OFBiz business to support them.
Conclusion :
- Currently the OFBiz project and mailing lists attract more integrators and consultants than end users
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| Answer Choices | Percentage | No. Responses |
|---|---|---|
| Trunk | 28% | 21 |
| 13.07 | 35% | 26 |
| 12.04 | 26% | 19 |
| 11.04 | 8% | 6 |
| 10.04 or earlier | 3% | 2 |
| Total Respondents: 74 |
Comments :
- The objective of this question was to find out what version of OFBiz was being used by the community and therefore give some insights on plans for supported releases
- This question allowed respondents to select only one option
- At the time of the survey 12.04 was the current stable release and these figures show that 37% respondents were using 12.04 or earlier
- It would be interesting to understand why respondents are using these earlier releases - do they have problems with the upgrade path to 13.07 or is it that OFBiz is still performing what they need it to do?
- The high number (63%) of people using 13.07 and the trunk (NOTE: At the time of the survey unstable versions) could be closely related to the fact that the community profile is integrator and consultant rather than end user. The means that these versions are likely used for development and customer specific implementation.
Conclusion :
- There tends to be a big focus on patches the trunk and latest branches but we also need to think about what support is available for earlier releases and have a clear plan as well as communication about when a version reaches its end of life.
- Are the upgrade paths clear?
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| Answer Choices | Percentage | No. Responses |
|---|---|---|
| yourself | 60% | 45 |
| with an integrator | 0% | 0 |
| someone else did it for you | 0% | 0 |
| we are an integrator | 40% | 30 |
| Total Respondents: 75 |
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Comments :
- The objective of this question was to find out how OFBiz was installed.
- This question allowed respondents to select only one option
- I would have expected that the majority of non technical end users would have used an integrator or that someone else would have installed it for them but there were no responses in either of these categories
Conclusion :
- The fact that so many respondents installed OFBiz themselves implies that they have (or had found) the technical documentation and knowledge to do so
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| Answer Choices | Strongly Disagree | Disagree | Neither Disagree nor Agree | Agree | Strongly Agree | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Finding documentation to download and install OFBiz was easy | 4% | 21% | 11% | 51% | 14% | 73 |
| Finding documentation about setting up and configuring OFBiz was easy | 4% | 32% | 23% | 34% | 7% | 73 |
| Finding documentation about how to customise or develop with OFBiz was easy | 10% | 35% | 29% | 24% | 3% | 72 |
| Finding documentation about what OFBiz does 'out of the box' was easy | 21% | 40% | 27% | 10% | 3% | 73 |
Comments :
- The objective of this question was to find out how difficult it was for the community to find specific OFBiz documentation.
- This question was multi-answer and allowed respondents to respond to each of the individual answer choice statements. (NOTE: This also means that respondents could skip answering a question)
- The majority of respondents (65%) thought that it was easy to find documentation about how to download and install OFBiz but 25% disagreed meaning there is a potential documentation gap that needs to be filled
- The responses for finding documentation about setting up and configuring OFBiz were a lot closer - 36% disagreed that it was easy while 41% thought it was. This high disagreement figure suggest another documentation gap
- I was surprised to see that 45% disagreed that finding documentation about developing or customising OFBiz was easy. As a development framework I would have thought this information was readily available using the current technical guides. This may indicate that the guides need to be looked at again to ensure that they are up to date and relevent
- The biggest negative response (61%) came from whether they thought that finding documentation about what OFBiz does out of the box was easy. This is a significant result and definitely highlights a huge documentation gap
Conclusions :
- Some documentation gaps have been uncovered, the biggest being documentation about what OFBiz does out of the box.
- In general the community feel that there is documentation available but there is room for improvement.
- Some of these opinions could be caused by the organisation of the data or how it is accessed rather than the documenation itself
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| Answer Choices | Percentage | No. Responses |
|---|---|---|
| Less than 12 months | 9% | 7 |
| 1-2 years | 31% | 23 |
| 2-5 years | 19% | 14 |
| Over 5 years | 39% | 29 |
| Not applicable as only evaluating OFBiz | 1% | 1 |
| Total Respondents: 74 |
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Comments :
- The objective of this question was to find out how long respondents have been using OFBiz and identify new users
- 40% have been using OFBiz for 2 years or less which means they are relatively new users.
- There are more new users (40%) than mature OFBiz users (39% - Over 5 years)
- Having the mature users still involved with the community gives knowledge transfer and continuity
Conclusions :
- New users are still being attracted to OFBiz
- There is a good mature knowledge base of people that have used OFBiz for a long time that are still involved with the community
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| Answer Choices | Percentage | No. Responses |
|---|---|---|
| 1-2 | 25% | 18 |
| 3-5 | 10% | 7 |
| 5-10 | 18% | 13 |
| 10 or more | 47% | 34 |
| Total Respondents: 72 |
Comments :
- The objective of this question was to find out the number of OFBiz users in the respondents installation
- The range of responses indicates that OFBiz is used in smaller sized companies.
- This survey option stopped at 10 or more but it would be interesting to find out what the largest user base for OFBiz was.
Conclusions :
- The community OFBiz implementations tend to have a small user base. NOTE: I think this is because the majority of respondents are integrators and consultants who are generally small companies
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| Answer Choices | Percentage | No. Responses |
|---|---|---|
| Never | 3% | 2 |
| Rarely (less than once a month) | 36% | 27 |
| Sometimes (less than once a week) | 35% | 26 |
| Often (once a week or more) | 27% | 20 |
| Total Respondents: 75 |
Comments :
The objective of this question was to find how often respondents used the OFBiz Wiki
- It is good to see that 97% of respondents use the Wiki and that 61% use it on a regular basis
Conclusions :
- Work is ongoing to update and reorganise information on the Wiki so these figures confirm that it is still worthwhile and will benefit the community
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| Answer Choices | Percentage | No. Responses |
|---|---|---|
| Never | 3% | 2 |
| Rarely (less than once a month) | 20% | 15 |
| Sometimes (less than once a week) | 31% | 23 |
| Often (once a week or more) | 47% | 35 |
| Total Respondents: 75 |
Comments :
The objective of this question was to find out how actively used the mailing lists are used as a source of information
- This was an interesting result because it shows that respondents are currently using a combination of source (Wiki and mailing list) to find out information
- 78% use the mailing lists on a regular basis
Conclusions :
- The mailing list is being used as alternate source of information to the Wiki.
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| Answer Choices | Strongly Disagree | Disagree | Neither Disagree nor Agree | Agree | Strongly Agree | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| I think the Technical Documentation is the highest priority | 3% | 7% | 28% | 33% | 28% | 67 |
| I think the End User Documentation is the highest priority | 3% | 7% | 23% | 25% | 42% | 69 |
| I think both Technical and End User Documentation are important | 4% | 1% | 14% | 38% | 43% | 72 |
Comments :
- The objective of this question was to find out which documenation area was seen as the highest priority
- This question was multi-answer and allowed respondents to respond to each of the individual answer choice statements. (NOTE: This also means that respondents could skip answering a question)
- 61% of respondents thought that the Technical Documentation was the highest priority
- 67% of respondents thought that the End User Documentation was the highest priority
- The highest response (81%) was that both Technical and End User Documentation are important
Conclusions :
- I now think that this question should have been a single answer only (rather than a multi-answer) because a respondent could agree with all three and it doesnt give a clean result breakdown that I was looking for
- In general respondents thought that work needs to be done on both Technical and End User documentation
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| Answer Choices | Percentage | No. Responses |
|---|---|---|
| I am already officially involved | 21% | 16 |
| I would like to get more involved | 28% | 21 |
| I respond to question in the community mailing lists | 8% | 6 |
| I ask questions or read the community mailing lists | 40% | 30 |
| What community ? | 3% | 2 |
| Total Respondents: 75 |
Comments :
- The objective of this question was to find out whether respondents feel part of a community, are currently involved or want to be involved
- Responses from officially involved respondents (21%) imply they are contributors, committers or PMC
- The most exciting figure I see is the 28% of respondents wanting to be more involved with the project. It would be good to somehow identify these people and get them actively involved.
- Another healthy figure is that 48% of respondents read, ask or respond using the community mailing lists
- There were 3% of respondents that didnt feel that they were part of an existing community. This is unfortunate and may highlight a potential gap in how the community is commuicated to.
Conclusions :
- The biggest result here is the number of people wanting to become more involved with the community
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