Using Openbravo Forge to develop extensions

Introduction

This post describes the best practices and polices to apply in Openbravo Forge to develop and organize an extension. These are a simplified version of the same guidelines that we use to develop Openbravo ERP core project plus some specific guidelines for the Openbravo Forge usage.

Let's start by defining some key concepts:

• Module: provides an atomic functionality. Examples of modules are reports, connectors, functional extensions, etc.
• Pack: group all the modules necessary to enable Openbravo ERP for a mean. For example, a vertical pack that collects all the modules required to enable Openbravo ERP for a specific industry.
• Template: a configuration file plus a collection of packs and modules
  

Documentation

Before starting any development, we recommend to create a set of documentation that will guide the development and will help users in the future to understand what the module achieves.

We recommend to have the following documentation:

• A Main Page that serves as an entry point to the projects' documentation and describes its objective and links to the related documentation.
• A Functional Specification that describes the functional requirements, use cases and other documentation that describe the needs that the module is willing to cover.
• A Technical Documentation that covers all the technical aspects to be taken into consideration when developing the module (such as database structure, etc).
  

You can take a reference the Human Capital Module to better understand how to organize this documentation.

Source Control System

Developers can use the source control system of their choice. Openbravo Forge provides Subversion as source control system. The instructions given in this section apply only to Subversion, including the recommended repository structure for Openbravo modules. You can leverage on your source control system specific features for branching and tagging.

The following is a list of common terminology used when working with Subversion:

Subversion client. Software run by a user to access a Subversion server also called Subversion repository.

• Subversion repository. The Subversion server stores a copy of the files of the project. The server retains both the most recent version and every historical version (past changes). * Trunk. Development with Subversion progresses similar to a tree. The main development occurs against the trunk.
• Branch. A split of development off of the trunk or another branch. Branches allow developments to diverge either permanently or temporarily.
• Tag. A tag or label refers to an important snapshot in time, consistent across many files. These files at that point may all be tagged with a user-friendly, meaningful name or revision number.
  

Recommended Repository Structure for Openbravo Modules

Openbravo recommends following structure when organizing the source code of your module:

project_name
* tags
* trunk
* branches

When developing a module, the main development activity occurs in the main development trunk.

All developers commit the changes against this branch. When a version is reach, a tag should be done.

If you want to work with a stable version you usually download the tagged version (a released version) and if you want to follow the development you download trunk.

We recommended the Version Control with Subversion free on-line book.

Registering Modules

As a prerequisite to publish modules into the Central Repository, you have to first register them.

This a list of recommendations when registering modules within the Central Repository from Openbravo ERP:

Use the field help to give precise instructions on how to use the module once is installed. For example, the required steps to access it from Openbravo ERP menu.

• Do not leave the URL field in blank, provide the project's web where users can find more information about your product.
• Do not leave the author's field in blank. It should be clear to the user who the author is.
• Package name. Use the standard package name naming conventions from Java, for example com.yourcompany.project. The package name org.openbravo is reserved for Openbravo as a company.
• If you are registering a module, use the same Single Sign-on username to register and then to associate it.
• Do not use the name of the client in the code or in the module definition
• It is fine to develop in other languages than English but the language of the module must be set accordingly
• If the module has been tested only in one database (Oracle or PostgreSQL), you might want to add that as a note in the module description ("This module should be data base independent; however it has been tested only on Oracle | PostgreSQL").
  

Creating Packs
Packs
When creating a pack project in Openbravo Forge, we recommend to enable the following services in Openbravo Forge:

• Module: to publish the pack in the central repository
• Forums: to discuss issues for the functionality that the pack targets
• Wiki: to document the configuration and link to the rest of the resources
  

We suggest to discard the usage of the rest of the services that the Forge provides.

Additionally, we recommend:

• Since a pack groups modules, they should not contain code, and as result, they should not require a source control system.
• We recommend to report issues, using the bug tracking system, to each particular module instead of reporting to a pack.
• We only recommend to publish files in the download area during the development cycle, you post your obx file in progress in the download area for early adopters to download and evaluate. We do not recommend to publish the files in the download service once they are released since you can already download files published in the central repository.
• When registering the project, assign it to the Openbravo ERP -> Packs category.
  

Module

When creating a module in Openbravo Forge, we recommend to enable the following services:

• Module: to publish the module in the central repository
• Code: to develop the code of the module and be able to work in a collaborative manner with other developers
• Bug Tracking: to allow users to report issues or functionality enhancements
• Wiki: to document the configuration and link to the rest of the resources
  

For modules, we suggest to discard the usage of the rest of the services that the Forge provides.

Additionally, we recommend:

• We only recommend to publish files in the download area during the development cycle, you post your obx file in progress in the download area for early adopters to download and evaluate. We do not recommend to publish the files in the download service once they are released since you can already download files published in the central repository.
• When registering the project, assign it to the Openbravo ERP -> Modules category.
  

Template

A template is a configuration file plus a collection of packs and modules. We recommend to enable the following services in Openbravo Forge:

• Module: to publish the template in the central repository
• Code: to develop the configuration file
• Forums: to discuss about the template
• Bug Tracking: to track issues with the configuration file
• Wiki: to document the configuration and link to the rest of the resources
  

Additional Information

Openbravo ERP development guide that includes all the documentation on how to develop extensions

Contributing to Openbravo ERP QA efforts

Introduction

Quality Assurance is key for having successful software products. Openbravo projects follow an open development process that allows everybody to take part in any part of the development process. Let me describe how you can get involved in the Quality Assurance processes for Openbravo ERP.

Before getting started we recommend that you read the following documents to get familiar with the main Openbravo development concepts and processes:

• Development Process Management. Describes the Openbravo development process from a management perspective.
• Openbravo Releases. Describes Openbravo releases and versions.
  

Openbravo testing methodologies

At Openbravo the following testing methodologies are combined to assurance the product's quality:

• Test cases: These area a set of well defined steps, execution preconditions, and expected results to exercise a particular program scenario or to verify compliance with a specific requirement. For managing test cases TestLink is used.
• Automated testing at Openbravo to automate the testing of Openbravo ERP using test cases.
• Unit testing using pieces of code that verify that functionality of different Openbravo ERP components. Currently in early stage using JUnit.
  

How you can help

Testing early releases

In the Openbravo ERP Early Releases Discussion forum we announce new alpha and beta versions that people can help to test.

Things that you can do to help:

• Verify that bugs that this release addresses have been fixed.
• Executing test cases to make sure that the functionality works.
• Test the new functionality and make sure that works properly.
• Reporting new issue introduced in this release.
  

Reporting issues on any version

Have you found a bug? Please, report it to us using our bug database. Make sure that you carefully read our Bug Reporting Guidelines before submitting your bug report.

Contributing test cases

For every release of Openbravo, at Openbravo's TestLink you have the collection of cases that are executed to verify the compliance of requirements. These test cases focus on assurance the coverage of the major use cases but not all the cases.

You can contribute by providing new test cases that you think that are important for Openbravo to include as part of our test plan (collection of cases) for every release or also cases that you think are critical for a specific module, industry or market segment.

Reaching Openbravo QA team

• Early Releases Discussion forum
• IRC chat channels
• Openbravo's QA blog
  

Tools

• Openbravo Issues. Openbravo bug tracking & enhancements database.
• Openbravo Code. Contains all the Openbravo ERP source code controls.
• Automated build farm. Openbravo continuous integration system.
• Openbravo's TestLink. Openbravo case management tool.
• Continuous Integration for Openbravo ERP.
  

Openbravo Forge User Manual available

We have published the final version of the Openbravo Forge User Manual. The manual covers the basic usage of the Openbravo Forge and its aimed to help project administrators and users on their daily use of the Forge.

The manual contains an introduction to the Forge and the services that provides, a detailed explanation of how to register projects, how users can fine tune their settings and how to use the Forge to develop, communicate and publish projects. We recommend this manual to all users using the Forge and to people willing to learn more about its capabilities.

If you have any question regarding the Openbravo Forge, do not hesitate to ask it on the Openbravo Forge forum.

Using Openbravo Forge to develop an Openbravo ERP localization

Hello there,

One of the earliest adopters of the Openbravo Forge since it was launched two months ago have been the localizers. They appreciate the freedom of been able to setup their project, forums and been able to publish news, files and modules in the Central Repository (before it was necessary our assistance).

In the last weeks of experience working with localization projects on the Forge we have crafted some best practices and polices to apply in Openbravo Forge to develop and organize a localization project.

Let me share them with you.

Introduction

Many countries and regions have similar requirements, like sharing the same language or functional requirement. To be able to reuse localization components, we provide the following types of projects to enable functionality delivery:

• Module: provides an atomic functionality. Examples of modules are chart of accounts, translations, banking interfaces, etc.
  
• Pack: group all the modules necessary to enable Openbravo ERP for a country or region. For example, the Spain Localization Pack that contains a full localization package for Spain.
  

We recommend that:

• Each country or region should create one and only one pack that contains all the relevant modules. A pack should be created for consistency sake even if it contains only one module.
• Each country or region could create zero or more modules (zero if it only reuses modules and does not create any geography specific modules)
  

Packs

When registering your localization pack project for your region, we recommend to enable the following services in Openbravo Forge:

• Module: to publish the pack in the central repository
• Forums: to discuss localization issues for the region that the pack targets

For localization packs, we suggest to discard the usage of the rest of the services that the Forge provides.

Additionally, we recommend:

• Since a pack groups modules, they should not contain code, and as result, they should not require a source control system.
• We recommend to report issues, using the bug tracking system, to each particular module instead of reporting to a pack.
• We only recommend to publish files in the download area during the development cycle, you post your obx file in progress in the download area for early adopters to download and evaluate. We do not recommend to publish the files in the download service once they are released since you can already download files published in the central repository.
• When registering the project, assign it to the 'Openbravo ERP -> Localization Packs category.

Modules

When registering your localization modules, we recommend to enable the following services:

• Module: to publish the module in the central repository
• Code: to develop the code of the module and be able to work in a collaborative manner with other developers
• Bug Tracking: to allow users to report issues or functionality enhancements
• Wiki:to publish documentation for the project and to coordinate work
  

For localization modules, we suggest to discard the usage of the rest of the services that the Forge provides.

Additionally, we recommend:

• We only recommend to publish files in the download area during the development cycle, you post your obx file in progress in the download area for early adopters to download and evaluate. We do not recommend to publish the files in the download service once they are released since you can already download files published in the central repository.
• When registering the project, assign it to the 'Openbravo ERP -> Localization Modules category.
  

Project naming conventions

For naming localization projects we recommend the format Name of the country + Description, except for language modules that we recommend Language name + for + country.

For example, for Spain we use the following names:

Pack

• Spain Localization Pack. Contains all the modules necessary to apply the localization for Spain.
  

Modules

• Spain Chart of accounts - General. Contains the Spanish translation for Spain
• Spain Taxes. Contains the definition of taxes for Spain.
• Spanish for Spain. Contains the Spanish translations customized for Spain.
  

Package name conventions

The following table contains a description of the best practices when naming packages.


Additional links

• Localization process. Recommendations on how to structure packs and develop modules.
• Openbravo ERP localization forum for discussing and getting help on Openbravo ERP related localization issues.
  

Openbravo Wiki Archive namespace

Openbravo Wiki has currently more than 2.000 articles. Many of these articles are legacy documents that belong to older versions of our projects: user manuals, design documents, old coordination documents, etc. A search in Openbravo Wiki returns as results many legacy documents that are no longer useful making more challenging for users to find the information that they are looking for. With the new categorization system, that was introduced some weeks back, the situation has improved since categories are more usable but there is still room for improvement.

To address this situation, we have created the Openbravo Wiki archive namespace. We have started to move all the articles that we consider legacy to this new namespace. The idea is to keep in the main namespace only documentation that is valid for the current stable version, Openbravo ERP R2.50 nowadays. Additionally, we have modified the search UI for Openbravo Wiki enhance the search user experience.

I think that these changes will improve greatly the experience of all users looking for information.

I want also mention that creation of new categories has been blocked. This has been done to prevent the proliferation of categories that ignored our current category system. Please, contact the Wiki administrators if you need a new category.

Openbravo Forge chat meeting on Monday 11st of May 2009

Since the launch of Openbravo Forge a little more than a month ago, we have received lots of questions and ideas. During the Openbravo World Conference lots of people had questions on how the Forge can help them to be more productive and get more exposure on what they do, something that I briefly explained a few days back.

I would like to organize a chat with all of you to discuss about the Forge. Mainly to:

• To solve doubts regarding the usage of the Openbravo Forge that you may have
• Questions on how to develop verticals and extensions through the Forge
  
• To answer questions regarding future plans of the Openbravo Forge
• To get Feedback and ideas for future versions
  

The details are of the chat are:

Date: Monday 11st of May at 14.00 GMT + 1 (16.00 local time in Spain due to daylight savings). Check the World Clock if you want to check the time in your area.
Where: IRC Network FreeNode at the #openbravo channel
Language: English

I will appreciate if you can participate in the meeting if you have ideas or questions about the Forge.

Openbravo World Conference 2009 presentations available

The presentations of the Openbravo World Conference 2009 have been just published.

There are also some pictures available from the event.

Enjoy!

Openbravo Community Awards winners

Openbravo has organized the Openbravo Community Awards to honor individuals and companies for their outstanding contributions to the Openbravo ERP and POS projects during 2008.

Openbravo Community during the last weeks has nominated first and voted later the people that made a difference for them with their contributions. During the Openbravo World Conference, that occurred last weekend, we revealed the winners of every category.


The Individual Awards acknowledge people that have allocated time and resources to make Openbravo POS or ERP better project. The winners in the group are:

Best Quality Assurance. An individual with outstanding contributions in the area of Quality Assurance

Goes to Naveen Chanda for his participation in the Openbravo ERP 2.40 alpha 2 and 2.35 MP4 testing cycles on a number of platforms and for his active participation in Openbravo ERP forums.

Finalists: Paulo Leandro, Juan Reyes, Ville Lindfors, Jignesh, Ronny G.

Best localizer. An individual with outstanding contributions in the area of localization.

Goes to Mohammad Jaffar Fahmi for his work translating Openbravo POS to Arabic, the most popular locale for Openbravo POS.

Finalists: Kenzo Repole, Jens Wilke.

Best developer. An individual with outstanding contributions in the area of software development.

Goes to Andrej Svininykh for this work on developing several features for Openbravo POS and integrating some new devices like scales and receipt printers.

Finalists: Ville Lindfors, Ronny G, Ben Sommerville.

Best support participant. An individual with outstanding participation in Openbravo support channels.

Goes to Telepieza for his work dedicated in documenting HOWTOs for Openbravo ERP in Spanish (55 of them are currently available)‏.

Finalists: Enric Alegre, Miguel Marquez, Victor Gaspar, Jimm.

The Technology Awards recognize outstanding projects lead by companies or organizations build on top of Openbravo technology. The winners in the group are:

Best localization. An organization with outstanding contributions in the area of localization.

Goes to Amorebieta-Etxanoko Udala for leading the Euskara language translation for Openbravo POS

Finalists: CBT Open, Apal Informatique, Mancomun.org

Best implementation. An organization that has performed an outstanding implementation of Openbravo in a challenging environment.

Goes to Conasa for their work on developing and installing a vertical solution for religious services based on Openbravo ERP 2.40 with PostgreSQL.

Finalists: Qualian Technologies, Microgenesis, Open Sistemas.

Best development. An organization that has performed an outstanding development based on Openbravo.

Goes to Open Sistemas for their work developing many features, now part of Openbravo POS, aimed at the fast food business (for client Bocatta)‏.

Finalists: Open Sistemas and Software Engineering Research Center.

Open Sistemas after receiving their award

Congratulations to all the winners and nominees, everybody's contributions are important.

Thanks to everybody that has participated in the nomination and voting process.

Openbravo World Conference - Community Day 2

This is a follow up of my summary of the 1st day of the community days. These are the insights from the second day of the community days. I have not summarized all the sessions as some were demos. Feel free to send me your insights if you want me to include them in this post.

Building an Open Source ERP Ecosystem through Modularity and Core Contribution. Paolo Juvara

Key ideas:

• Community is a A group of people that collaborate around a common project. An ecosystem is a group of autonomous but interdependent communities that collaborate around a number of loosely coupled objectives and projects
• The most significant innovation of version 2.50 of Openbravo ERP is the introduction of a modular architecture support that enables an Openbravo ecosystem very similar to the Linux ecosystem. Openbravo ERP itself is the core of the ecosystem and autonomous communities can collaborate on independent value added components.
  
• Modularity architecture & Openbravo Forge enable the Openbravo ecosystem.
• Templates to provide customized solutions for specific industry segments

The community imperative. Matt Asay

Key ideas:

• Open source is now mainstream. 50% of the companies plan to adopt open source
• People are attracted to Linux because cost
• Open source lowers risk and probability of failure
• People is planing to increase the use of open source in critical mission application
• The real value for open source applications come from ISV
• Community begins when self-interest meets software
• An open source project should be bigger than the company

Matt Asay during his key note.

Localization: Opening New Markets and Developing Unchartered Territory. Richard Morley

Key ideas:

• Localization can benefit tremendously from the Forge & modularity
• Openbravo is taking the rule of the enabler putting the common ground to create any localization
• Areas of prioritization for Openbravo localization efforts in the next years are : flexible Chart of Account (COA) configuration, multilingual & multicultural user interface and master data management, user interface and master data management, configurable multi-currency environment, flexible, configurable tax handling, integration to web services, transaction rounding rules, flexible transaction numbering rules, flexible, document driven, accounting rules, support for the configuration of payment methods, flexible and extensive standard reports, support for “generic” business processes. Notice that this a list of areas to work, it does not represent a commitment in terms of deliveries from Openbravo.
  

Modules: Best Practices. Ismael Ciordia.

Key ideas:

• Modules are the atomic building blocks and deliver the individual functional extensions. They are the lowest level of granularity and the smallest element of reuse.
• Packs are a collection of modules.
• Templates allow you to deliver a combination of modules and packs plus a configuration file as a reusable, packaged solution that installs at the click of a button.
  
• Dependency: a module depends on other module when it requires it to run
• All changes after 2.50 should be done using modules, including customizations, to simplify modularity
  

Openbravo World Conference - Community Day 1

Saturday was the first day of the Openbravo World Conference community days. There were around 200 attendees. Lots of conversations and ideas floating around.

In the next days we will be publishing the slides of all the sessions. Let me share with you some insights from the first day of the community days.


Word from the CEO: empowering the ecosystem. Manel Sarasa

Key ideas:

• Freedom is value for partners, customers and community members
  
• Projected the video truth happens from Red Hat to illustrate how disruptive innovative changes like open source end up been adopted
  
• There is a failure in the ERP market due to the proprietary market tradition: complex price structures, vendor lock-in. Open source means an ERP for everybody. No company has managed to delivered a win-win proposition to the ERP middle market.
• Vision: empowering the ecosystem: a modern product, 100% web based with great functionality footprint, delivered and built through freedom, with a great professional offer. It is mission critical, professional services are key to success
• Some facts about Openbravo. More than 1.250.000 downloads, 5.000 registered developers, 50 localization registered projects, estimated 1.000 implementations, 100 professional partners serving 30 different countries, 100 excellent professionals
  

The Impact of Open Source in a Down economy. Richard Daley

Key ideas:

• The time is right for the open source applications now. It has been already for open source operating system vendors like Red Hat
  
• Open source is the safer option nowadays (lower risk)
  
• At infrastructure tier open source has already consolidated (such as LAMP), now the application tier is consolidating. Increase ratio of adoption of open source solutions
• Community participation is key for better software, more secure, more international, better supported
  
• Lean budgets favor open source. Many open source commercial projects are seeing an increase in activity and commercial operations
• Open source and cloud computing. Open source has commoditized the software industry, the cloud computing is doing the same for hardware. Cloud computing and software as a service. Benefits: pay as go, reduced operational costs, scalability and availability.

Richard Daley during his key note.

Openbravo in the Ecosystem: Integrate it into the Information System. Sandra Massé

Talend is fully integrated with Openbravo ERP allowing data extract, load and transformation with other systems to Openbravo.

Key ideas:

• Talend is an open source ETL tool. Reduces the cost compared to proprietary solutions up 20 times.
• 900.000 product downloads, 20% registered users
• Challenges: high volumes of data, heterogeneity of the environment, differences in data structures, maintain the consistency of old and new systems

The Case for Openbravo ERP on Ubuntu Server Edition. John Pugh

Canonical and Openbravo are working together to make Openbravo ERP ready for the Ubuntu Linux distribution.

Key ideas:

• Contribution between operating systems and open source applications
  
• Community is key to Canonical. LaunchPad.Net, Ubuntu collaboration platform, has more than 12.000 projects registered.
• Ubuntu server edition was released two years ago and it is a good platform to deploy professional applications
  
• Cloud computer included in next release of Ubuntu 9.04 (to be published on the 23rd of April 2009)
  

Expanding your Market Reach with IBM DB2. Antonio Maranhao and Boris Bialek

IBM is working with Openbravo to adapt Openbravo ERP for DB2 database engine.

Key ideas:

• IBM DB2 Express edition is available free for download and has a flexible licensing scheme
• IBM is working on supporting Openbravo ERP on top of DB2 database engine
  
• DB2 has compatibility layers what makes very easy to port applications to DB2 and is highly optimized for very demanding environments
  

Deployment Advances from Sun for the System Integrator. Pedro Yagüe

Sun has been working with Openbravo to enhance the support for OpenSolaris and GlassFish in Openbravo ERP.

• One of the largest open source vendors: every software asset we produce is open source
• Sun allows to try and run their software and have special programs for startups.
• Sun bases its growth with its partners. Sun's partner ecosystem is key to their succeed.
• Openbravo ERP runs on GlassFish, Sun's application server and is going to be packaged for OpenSolaris.
  

Jaspersoft Integration with Openbravo. Tim Cloonan

JasperReports is the default report engine behind Openbravo ERP and POS projects.

Key ideas:

• 10.000 customers in 96 countries. 8 millions downloads, 90.000 members, 350 community projects, 50.000 forums support posts at jaspersoft.org
• Report writing is a key part of Openbravo ERP customization
• Using Jaspersoft iReport, the visual report designer, you can save time lots of time in the report creation process.
  

Business Momentum Integration. Ron Kramer

Business Momentum have created B-Orange, a solution that integrates Openbravo ERP, Alfresco, Zimbra, Funambol and Magento.

Key ideas:

• B-Orange is a cooperation with Bonware, Advanced Projects and Products, Business Momentum.
• Zimbra and Openbravo integration. Part of the e-mail integration is now part of Openbravo ERP since version 2.40
• A demo of the integration was shown that is available on-line at wwww.businesssmomentum.eu
  

Qualian Technologies. Case Vaishnovi Infrastructure. Senthil Palanisamy

Implementing Openbravo ERP on a construction equipment company in India.

Key ideas:

• Customer has 1.000 employees, 1 billion Indian ruppies turn over. Challenges: 100 desktops, independent systems for inventory and accounting, migration from a previous system. Need for new requirements not supported by their legacy system: centralized stock managed, BOM, sales commissions, etc.
  
• The implementation has been very successful. Users and managers are happy because the new level of flexibility and functionality gained
  

Open Sistemas. Bocatta case. Andreu Bartolí (on behalf of Open Sistemas)

Implementing Openbravo POS in Bocatta, one of the largest fast food chain in Spain.

Key ideas:

• Challenge: have all the different locations linked and integrated in a single system with a powerful POS system
• Openbravo POS was further develop to accommodate better the fast food restaurant that was contributed back to Openbravo POS project.
  

Bonware. CaravanTukku case. Ville Lindfors

Implementing Openbravo ERP in a caravan accessory customer.

Key ideas:

• Challenge: to automate sales, supply chain, invoicing, 200 customers, 2.000 stores doing international trade
• Benefits: reduced labour costs, post costs (40.000 euros per year), ware activities are streamline
• Plans to roll the same solution in the same industry and to enhance even further the customer business process

Participating in the Swiss Open Source Software Conference

Next 1st and 2nd of April I'm going to be attending in the in the Swiss Open Source Software Conference in Bern.

On 2nd of April there are two sessions on Openbravo ERP in the conference business track:

• 13:30 Openbravo ERP: Open Source ERP for professional business by Walter Demichiel, Director of DW-Net.
  
• 14.30 Building an open source community: the Openbravo experience by Jordi Mas from Openbravo.

Walter Demichiel is the Direktor DW-Net, a partner of Openbravo. He will focus his talk in Openbravo as a professional solution for business.

I will be focusing my talk on Openbravo community, specially in the latest initiatives that we have been developing and how you can contribute to the Openbravo ecosystem.

Openbravo ERP & POS projects have a new home

Hello everybody!

Openbravo ERP & POS projects have a new home:

• Openbravo ERP is located at http://forge.openbravo.com/projects/openbravoerp
• Openbravo POS is located at http://forge.openbravo.com/projects/openbravopos
  

We have completed the users and forum posts migration that we have previously announced, all the previous forum activity has been migrated to the new Openbravo Forge

The new home includes a complete new forum system with many new features. If you have question regarding the usage of the new Forge, please use the public support forum for Openbravo Forge.

Openbravo ERP & Openbravo POS 28th of March projects migration details & tool map

The Openbravo migration to the new Forge will occur Saturday 28th of March starting at 7.00am GMT+1 and it expecting to be completed by 14.00 GMT+1. During this period of time it will not be possible to create new forum messages in the Openbravo ERP & POS forums. The objective of this process is to migrate all the forum posts from SourceForge to the new Forge.

The people working on the migration will be using the Openbravo IRC as communication channel. That is as you know:

Server: irc.freenode.net
Channel name: #openbravo

You are more details in out Wiki about Openbravo chat channels.

On account synchronization

In case that your SourceForge username does not match with your Openbravo Single Sign on username, your previous activity in SourceForge will not be preserved. This is not desirable since you will loose all the recognition of the activity that you have previously generated and its ownership. For example, in my case my user at SourceForge is jordimash but in our Single Sign On system is just jordimas. I'm interested in having my previous activity generated as jordimash mapped to my new Single Sign On user jordimas. If you are in this case, write your details in our Migration Account List and we will do the mapping for your account

Openbravo ERP core project tool map

• Project home page -> Openbravo ERP project at Openbravo Forge
• Project News -> Openbravo ERP project news (using the new Forge, active after the migration)
  
• Wiki -> Openbravo Wiki
• Forums -> Openbravo ERP forums in the Openbravo Forge (using the new Forge, active after the migration)
  
• Downloads -> SourceForge downloads
• Mailing lists -> SourceForge mailing lists
• Source Control System -> Openbravo Code (Mercurial repository)
• Bug tracking system -> Openbravo Issues
  

Openbravo POS core project tool map

• Project home page -> Openbravo POS project at Openbravo Forge
• Project News -> Openbravo POS project news (using the new Forge, active after the migration)
• Wiki -> Openbravo Wiki
• Forums -> Openbravo POS forums in the Openbravo Forge (active after the migration)
• Downloads -> SourceForge downloads
  
• Source Control System -> Openbravo Dev (Subversion repository)
  
• Bug tracking system -> Openbravo Issues

If you want to see the new forums, have a look to the Support forum for example. Feel free to post here any question that you have.

What's new in Openbravo Forge for Openbravo ERP and Openbravo POS forum users

As I commented recently this Saturday we are going to migrate the Openbravo POS and ERP projects to the new and shiny Openbravo Forge. This means that starting this Saturday 28th of March, Openbravo community is going to use the forums provided by the platform.

Having new forums has been a long time requested feature by our community and we are very happy to be able to answer.

Let me highlight some of the new features that the forums have compared to the ones used until now in SourceForge:

· HTML messages with a full WYIWYG editor. This includes obviously the possibility to use formatted text, images and links. A new world compared to the old plain regular text
· Attachments. Now it is possible to attach files to messages, ranging from logs to screenshots. This is handy when you need help debugging problems or users want to share results.
· Sticky messages. This is really useful for forums that want to highlight a new message to all the newcomers. For example, a FAQ built from the activity of the message, a very hot issue of the week, a reminder to all participants, etc.
· Google indexing. As you have noticed Google does not index SourceForge content. This is specially bad for the forums because it is a very important source of knowledge for Openbravo ERP and POS projects. With the new Openbravo Forge, all the content is indexed by Google, what makes one of our more important knowledge assets fully available to everyone easing the search and resolution of Openbravo related issues.

If you want to see the new forums, have a look to the Support forum for example. Feel free to post here any question that you have.

Tomorrow I will blog about the detailed migration schedule for the Openbravo POS and ERP projects that is taking place this Saturday to 28th of March.

Openbravo Community voting period starts

Openbravo community has already nominated the top candidates for the Community Awards. Of those nominated by the Openbravo community, we have assembled a list of individuals and organizations. Please take note that these nominees were compiled through an open nomination process. We have rephrased some of the nominees’ descriptions, provided additional links, and merged duplicate entries.


The voting process has started and will be open until the 31st of March.

Make your opinion count by voting for the people and organizations that have made a difference to you.

The Community Awards will be granted to the winners during a special Openbravo World Conference session on 19th April, 2009.

For questions or comments regarding the voting process, don’t hesitate to contact me: jmas at openbravo.com

Introducing Openbravo Forge

During the last months we have been working on easing the development and customization of Openbravo ERP. As part from this effort, modularity has been rolled out for Openbravo ERP R2.50, along with the central repository that holds the modules developed for Openbravo ERP. To complement all these initiatives for fuelling the creation of a dynamic ecosystem, today we are presenting the Openbravo Forge.

Openbravo Forge is a collaboration platform where third parties can independently develop projects which are synergistic with Openbravo software, therefore increasing the number of solutions available to the Openbravo ecosystem.

The Openbravo Forge objectives are to:

• Provide an infrastructure for community members to develop verticals, plug-ins and localizations
• Provide an infrastructure for partners and custom development to privately develop verticals, plug-ins and localizations
• Provide a way to recognize peoples' contributions and make them visible
• Host the central repository and the modularity repository (Openbravo Forge is key to developing modularity, which is introduced in Openbravo ERP R2.50).
• Allow people to place their own ads linking to web-stores to sell licenses and/or support (people can place a little ad and link in their projects)
• Provide a directory of available projects for Openbravo ERP & POS
• Provide a member directory
  

It is important to notice that all community members will be able to use this infrastructure for free for any open source product.

The services that we provide for projects are forums, news, downloads, bug tracking, Subversion, Wiki and central repository modules, and obliviously to list them in the projects directory. All these services are independent and not connected to the tools that we use for the core (Openbravo Wiki, Issues and Mercurial). Forge is not an infrastructure to develop Openbravo ERP or POS for which we use Openbravo Issues, Openbravo Wiki and Mercurial services, but will rather provide community services. For Openbravo ERP & POS projects, think of the Forge as a replacement for our current SourceForge services. In case you still have doubts, there is a document that explains how the ecosystem toolmap will look after the migration.

We expect Openbravo community to embrace the Forge, especially to develop extensions and localizations. You can use your already existing accounts for Openbravo Wiki or Openbravo Mantis to login, since Openbravo Forge is connected to our Single Sign On infrastructure. If you have any issue logging in, please let us know at migration@openbravo.com

We think that Openbravo Forge is a tool that will provide tremendous value to our community and we will keep working on it throughout 2009 by having two major releases during this year and a few minor updates. We have some really cool features like Google Gadgets or RSS feeds at site and project level.

Openbravo ERP & POS Migration plans

Today we are entering the soft launch phase of the project where we expect to collect feedback from all of you.

Openbravo Forge is also is going to be the new home for Openbravo ERP and POS projects, replacing SourceForge services. On Saturday 28th of March, we will migrate all the forum messages for Openbravo ERP and POS projects to the new Forge. Starting from that date, http://forge.openbravo.com will be the home for these projects.

In case that your SourceForge username does not match with your Openbravo Single Sign on username, your previous activity in SourceForge will not be preserved. This is not desirable since you will loose all the recognition of the activity that you have previously generated and its ownership. If you are in this case, write your details in our Migration Account List and we will do the mapping for your account.

If you have any questions or issues, we have a public project to support our community in Forge related issues. If you think the answer to your question could be of interest to others, I’d ask you to post it in the project's forum.

During the next days we will blogging about the Forge, how it should be used, and we will keep you updated.

My Openbravo Community Awards nominations

As you know already know we are running the Openbravo Community Awards organized and sponsored by Openbravo to honor individuals and companies for their outstanding contributions to the Openbravo ERP and POS projects.

The nomination period is open. Please nominate the people in the Openbravo Community that have made a difference to you.

I have nominated many people. However, I want to highlight some people and organizations that under my opinion (subjective obviously) made important contributions:

• Jens Wilke, for his work on Openbravo2PO and the initial German translation and chart of accounts. Jens' work on Openbravo2PO set the ground of our a tool that is part of our translator's toolset today. On top of that, we did the first translation of Openbravo to German, identifying issues that after clean the path to other folks.
• Enric Alegre. He has been one of the strongest supporters in the Openbravo forums with 165 forums messages during 2008. Thanks for helping everyone to succeed in Openbravo community. He also is cooperating with the local government as part of our academia program to introduce Openbravo to students.
• Victor Gaspar for starting the idea and contribute some of the Code Snippets, pieces of code that you can reuse in different places.
• The Software Engineering Research Center in Pakistan is one of our members of the Openbravo academia program. They are teaching Openbravo there, contributing to Core with bug fixes and working regularly with the development community. A good example of how the academia world and open source software can work very well.
  
• Mancomun.org, an initiative from the government of Galicia to promote free software. They have localized Openbravo ERP (partially) and Openbravo POS to Galician language.
  

Remember to nominate your our candidates and make your opinion count.

Openbravo Community awards: nomination period starts

The Openbravo Community awards are organized and sponsored by Openbravo to honor individuals and companies for their outstanding contributions to the Openbravo ERP and POS projects. The standards for companies and organizations are higher than for individuals and are proportionate to their level of resources.

Participation for the awards takes place in two phases, so please keep in mind the following dates:

• March 2nd- 16th: Candidate nomination period. This is the time where you can nominate people and companies that you think have done an important job for the Openbravo ecosystem in each of the categories defined. You can also nominate yourself and the company you work for.
  
  
• March 20th-31st: Candidates published and voting period open. This is the time where you can vote for the selected nominees for every category.
  

As of now, you can start nominating the people in the Openbravo Community that have made a difference to you.

Can you think of someone that has been especially helpfully in the forums?
Can you think of a blog or documentation with Openbravo as the main topic which has been useful to you?
How about relevant localization efforts that have been beneficial to you?


Now is the time for you to honor unsung heroes!

Everyone can nominate their favorite candidates for each category. At the end of the process, a list of accepted candidates matching the selection criteria will be compiled for every category.

Participate and make your voice count!

For questions or comments regarding the voting process, don’t hesitate to contact me: jmas at openbravo.com

Openbravo ERP Modularity videos available

Modularity is the most important feature debuting in Openbravo ERP R2.50. As a result of the modularity improvements in 2.50, developers will notice the following:

• Easier to contribute to Openbravo ERP by allowing distributed and decoupled development and maintenance of optional features.
• A rich set of extensions for the Community to meet their unique business requirements without bloating the core product.
• Shorter implementation cycles by enabling system integrators to develop micro-vertical templates.
• Scalable business opportunity by creating modules once that can be easily reused in multiple implementations, or sold to others implementing Openbravo ERP.
  

As part of the modularity program that we offered during the 2.50 alpha process, we created some videos to explain the main modularity concepts and workflows to the participants. We have just edited and published the videos in Openbravo Wiki.

The videos published are the following:

• Course Introduction. A high level introduction of Openbravo modularity capabilities and benefits for users and developers.
• Modularity Concepts‎. An introduction to the main Openbravo modularity concepts, including types of modules, the central repository and the module manager console.
• Create a module. A description of the steps required to create, register, develop and publish a module.
• Install a module‎. A step by step tutorial on how to install an Openbravo ERP module.
• Update a module‎. A step by step tutorial on how to update an Openbravo ERP module.
• Uninstall a module. A step by step tutorial on how to uninstall an Openbravo ERP module.
  

In case that you have little time, I strongly recommend you the modularity concepts videos that gives a good overview of Openbravo modularity from a developer's point of view.

If you have any questions regarding modularity please do not hesitate to post them in the Openbravo ERP developers forum.

Single Sign on launched for Openbravo Wiki and Openbravo Issues

Openbravo actually runs Openbravo.com, Openbravo Issues, Openbravo Wiki, Openbravo Planet and other web properties to provide services to the Openbravo ecosystem. Nowadays, you have to log individually to every service, which requires authentication. For example, you have to login in Mantis and to our Wiki separately since they work as separated systems. You also may use different usernames and passwords. This situation is going to get more complex as we introduce more web services that require authentication for a full user experience.

To address this situation we have been working on a Single Sign-On solution based on CAS. This will allow users to have a single username and password for all Openbravo web site. More convenient yet, when you are authenticated in one Openbravo web sites you are automatically authenticated into the rest of other sites.

We are planning to enter into production of Single Sign-On in Openbravo web sites by 4th of February 20.00 GMT+1.

Users affected with this migration will be notified by email with any required step that they have to perform.

If you have any issue login into the systems, please let us know sending an email to migration@openbravo.com, specifying your name, the email you entered at the time of registration, the username that you usually employ, and the problem you are experiencing.

Thanks for your support!

Openbravo Community awards announced

The Openbravo Community awards are organized and sponsored by Openbravo to honor individuals and companies for their outstanding contributions to the Openbravo ERP and POS projects. The standards for companies and organizations are higher than for individuals and are proportionate to their level of resources.

The Individual Awards acknowledge people that have allocated time and resources to make Openbravo POS or ERP better projects and contain the categories; Best Quality Assurance, Best localizer, Best developer, Best support participant, in order to recognise contribution within these areas.

The Technology Awards recognize outstanding projects led by any company or organization built on top of Openbravo technology. In order to acknowledge contribution within these areas, the categories are; Best Localization, Best Implementation and Best Development.

The winners will be awarded during the Conference's World Community Day 2 - Sunday 19th April, 2009. An award certificate will be given to all the winners.

On 2nd March 2009 the Candidate nomination will open. Stay tuned for more details!