Make sure click "View fullscreen" on the buttom of the slides to visualize the agenda better!

OpenERP OpenDays 2012 Agenda

Write it down your agenda and book your tickets. This year's OpenERP Community, Customers and Partners Summit will take place from April 11th to April 13th in Brussels. Last year was a success and we are confident that this year more people will join and more ideas and knowledge will be shared.

What are these days all about?

The event is dedicated to all our community and partners and, for the first time, also for clients. It's a time when we all come together and we present the new features, future version, achievements and a place where you can showcase your case studies, methodology or developments.Be there and see directly from the source the features of the 6.2 release!

What's new for this edition?

• opened to end user customers (for the 11th and 12th). Partners are encouraged to invite their customers
• new format with plenary session in the morning and workshops in the afternoon. You can choose among over 23 tutorial/ training sessions
• afternoon sessions will be split in 5 tracks: developers track, 2 functional tracks, business track and meet with OpenERP track.

See agenda below:

Practical info:

• we will organize OpenERP Awards, a fun way to thank our community and partners for their contributions!
• email Nicoleta, at ngh(at)openerp.com if you want to present a topic! (limited seats).  
• email our Event Manager for any questions regarding the organization of this event: events(at)openerp.com.

Get you free ticket for the event here!

We have launched a new service called Runbot available now for partners to help them test their own developments. Launchpad allows us to easily collaborate with the community and host all the branches online. Consequently, 'runbot' is a platform where you can test the branches pushed on Launchpad.

With this new service, partners can test very easily, by connecting to any of the available branches. If there are older branches, they can be rebuilt so that they can be tested. If you have branches on Launchpad, even if they are older, you can test them on the runbot. 

Why was runbot developed?

The OpenERP Runbot (or simply runbot) is a program monitoring and running branches on Launchpad belonging to the different OpenERP projects, namely "openobject-server", "openobject-addons", "openobject-client-web", and "openerp-web". Doing so it generates a number of useful HTML reports. 

Initially, the goal was simply to have constantly an up-to-date (i.e. using the latest commits) running OpenERP server (with its associated addons and web client) for testing and demo purposes, for both the trunk and the stable (v6) branches.

After a while, since installing some modules in demo mode already performs some automatic tests, we changed a bit the runbot to also show on a web page if those tests passed or failed. Since then a few other changes were made (e.g. allow multiple Launchpad teams) but the overall goal is still the same.

The runbot is currently running on http://runbot.openerp.com/ where it monitors thousands of branches and keeps 100 of them alive. It is also available from launchpad.net (http://launchpad.net/openerp-tools) so you can run it on your own infrastructure.

How does it work & how can you use it?

The runbot is regularly fetching branches statuses from Launchpad. Every time a branch is modified the runbot fires a new job. The job is responsible for running the tests and reporting whether the tests did pass or fail; it also runs the server and the web client so that anybody with a browser can actually use the freshly started OpenERP instance.

Browsing is public, but the service is dedicated to partners, so they are welcome to register a few specific branches or a complete team (in this case all the team branches will be monitored) via their Partner Portal: http://openerp.my.openerp.com)

Get in touch with us or register your own branches on your Partner Portal!

Public access here: http://runbot.openerp.com/

The brand new OpenERP touchscreen point of sale available with 6.1 allows you to manage your shop sales very easily. It's fully web based so that you don't have to install or deploy any software and all the sales shops can be easily consolidated. It works in connected and disconnected modes so that you can continue to sell if you lose your internet connection.

Here's a summary of its main features and benefits:

100% WEB based

• available for any touchscreen device (ipod, ipad, any tablet)
• mobile (with portable devices)
  
• no installation required
  

Packed as a standard OpenERP module

• no installation, easy deployment
• allows customization & adapts to different needs
  

Integrated with OpenERP

• no synchronization needed, completely integrated
• all OpenERP available, use OpenERP for backend
  
• consolidate shops almost in real time
  

Work offline, with no server connection

• continue working even when your connection is down
• if you close your browser, data won't be lost
  

Sexy & easy to use

• fully web based with a clean interface
• smart interface

If you need to use the POS for your restaurant, for example, your employees can record at the same time multiple tickets without having to wait to do one transaction at a time. Along, to facilitate payment, the application allows multiple payment methods.

The POS application is so simple and accessible to use that your shop or restaurant will never need any other tool to manage orders. Due to its smart and user-friendly interface you don't need any training to learn how to use it. Think of it as an out-of-the-box solution to boost your business' productivity.

We are glad to announce another brilliant and useful development that you might not have heard of, but which can help your business. Taxes are always a drag and can be an excruciating process. But if you are running your business on OpenERP, now you can take advantage of a new solution to help you with your taxes. Recently, Avalara together with one of our USA partners, NovaPoint have developed AvaTax. AvaTax is great solution to help you calculate your tax. Read below more info.

"Avalara, the leading provider of fully automated, up-to-date sales and use tax compliance solutions, announced the certified release of AvaTax for OpenERP, as part of its strategic partnership with NovaPoint Group LLC. NovaPoint, a premier provider of IT Consulting solutions for small to medium-sized businesses is the leading U.S. partner of OpenERP."

"AvaTax is a fully-integrated solution, offering Avalara’s easy-to-use sales tax calculation and filing capability, eliminating the hassle of tax compliance processes and minimizing the risks associated with sales and use tax audits. AvaTax is a web-based service that delivers instant sales tax calculations using a centrally-managed, highly-accurate calculation engine. OpenERP clients receive the most up-to-date sales tax rates, rules and jurisdiction boundaries currently available."

To read the whole article, access the link here!

This announcement is for all the OpenERP partners and community members! We want to give you the heads-up about our annual OpenERP Community and Partners Days!
 
Come and share your experience with community members, the OpenERP team and other partners during these three days. Last year we had a great time, updated everyone with the latest OpenERP news, features and had enough time to network. Read more about last year's edition

This year's edition, we are will focus on the new 6.1 version, all the new features, offers and many other relevant information.
 
When: Wednesday 11, Thursday 12, Friday 13 of April 2012
Where: Université Libre de Bruxelles (Avenue Franklin D. Roosevelt 50, 1050, Bruxelles -           Belgium, map: http://bit.ly/sdmRiK)
More info: http://bit.ly/rLfr9E.
 
Participation is free, but we haven't opened registration for now. Nevertheless, save the date and plan your visit to Brussels.

Today, we are glad to announce the availability of OpenERP 6.1 Release Candidate 1 (RC1). Highly usable, easier to learn, customized to your needs describes best the new OpenERP release. 

With over 50 new features including a streamlined setup and configuration process, a brand new web interface and modern mobile and social features, OpenERP 6.1 will take your business further than ever! Read more about the new features

This new version is the result of one year of improvements, and includes countless contributions from partners and community members, for which we are very grateful! 

We invite you to download it, test it and send us your feedback to make the final version just perfect!

How can you help?

• Download OpenERP 6.1 RC1 (available as a Windows installer, Debian/Ubuntu package, RPM package and source tarball)
• Send us your feedback by reporting any issues you find via our Launchpad bug tracker.
• Please suggest translations via Launchpad translations for areas that are not translated in your language (click View All Languages at the bottom of the list). See also our guide to learn mode about translating OpenERP.

Enjoy your first look at OpenERP 6.1! We are looking forward to your feedback and impressions!

It's not secret anymore that that the main advantage of OpenERP is that it's simple, easy to use and fully integrated. So, it can take as short as a few seconds to create a  sale - purchase workflow, starting from the quotation, confirming your sale order and if not enough stock it will automatically create the Purchase Order to your supplier.

Very good process, but you must make sure that the products are configured in your OpenERP database, manually maintain the prices of those products, confirm manually your Purchase Order to your supplier and so on. 

Now, let's consider an example in a store reselling computer devices. When a customer comes to the shop and asks the price of a product, a quotation will be created to get latest price (which often changes everyday). This requires manual calculation on the margin. Extra info desired by the customer can be date of arrival of the product, so the company has to do its investigation.  

Unfortunately, the customer doesn't always decide right away and will return on a different day  to confirm his order. In many cases, the price and availability from the supplier are not valid any more. So, the store has to begin the process all over again. In the end, the customer will confirms the sales order.  

As a result, a PO is generated by OpenERP but the company has to re-encode manually the PO in the supplier tool. Then, check a few days later why the product was not yet been delivered and what's the new delivery date. Finally, the store will make a small margin of 5% on the 35 EUR product while it spent almost an hour in different steps to make this order.

OpenERP-Ingram module makes your life easier! It simplifies a lot the above list of tasks in the sales purchase traditional flow !

How does it works ?

Once the module is installed, you can configure a new Ingram Micro profile containing your credentials. You can then download automatically the complete list of products from the Ingram Micro catalogue to your OpenERP product database. The best is to schedule a synchronisation (once a week, once a day, several times a day, etc).

As a consequence, when creating an SO you can directly see all the available products from Ingram, their current prices, availability, browse by category, etc... Of course you can apply the price list and have the correct margin applied automatically.

Before confirming a SO  you can check if they were changes in prices and stock availability  between the last update of the SO and now. This is useful to ensure the prices and availability are still correct. Further, the SO confirmation triggers a PO, which you can review and edit manually as usual in OpenERP.

After the PO is confirmed it will trigger automatically the order to Ingram Micro, on which you can follow-up at any time the status of the delivery and the planned delivery date in OpenERP in real-time (it'll check it automatically from the Ingram Micro servers).

The gain of time by using this module is impressive! As in no time, you can provide up to date information to your customers. The module is available on Launchpad, fully Open-Source (AGPL). Nevertheless, BHC team is providing assistance, training and customization for this ule. 

                            Watch here a short video on how this feature works!

You like OpenERP, but feel like you want to personalise it more? Now, OpenERP goes a step further and lets you customize your dashboard. How? you will ask. Thanks to a new feature that allows you to customize your dashboard by adding new boards of any search view.

Let's say you are not a big fan of the default dashboard and you feel like the view provided are not the most relevant to you. So, now you can remove the board you find useless and customize your own one. 

How is it done?

Step 1: access one search view 

Step 2: apply the filter you want to see at each connection to the application (eg. on sales, manufacturing, etc)

Step 3: add it into the dashboard in the same space where you can save the filter

Step 4: choose the application you want it visible on and the name of the array

Look at this simple example below from Purchase, where I want to put on the application's dashboard "Purchases to Approve". After I access the search view and apply the filter for "Purchases to Approve", I can add it immediately to my Purchase dashboard.

In less than a minute, the search view is visible on the dashboard

Of course, you are free to delete what you don't need or like, but just in case you change your mind there is a reset button to return to the default view.

So, go ahead and personalise your OpenERP!

With 15 years of SAP experience and 2 years of OpenERP partnership, Feridis is the author of "OpenERP evaluation with SAP as reference". The book objectively describes the current differences and challenges,  along with the opportunity for you to select a solution, expand your  knowledge and hopefully find new business.

Along with this new exciting book, OpenERP has worked on its latest book to help you improve the management of your company and the ease of use in OpenERP. In this respect, OpenERP has published a total of 4 books this year. The books cover subjects like: CRM, Logistics, Manufacturing and the latest one covering Accounting.

Be among the first to get your hands on these book! Take advantage of this promotion and benefit from our special pack of two books. You can acquire a special pack now, just acces our ecommerce page:
 

•      OpenERP evaluation with SAP as reference
  Through detailed analysis, it evaluates and compares SAP and  OpenERP, the leading open source system, so you can judge for yourself.  
   

•     Open Source Accounting with OpenERP
  Record journal entries, send invoices, control bank statements, customize reports and manage budgets.  

"OpenERP evaluation with SAP as reference"  is a new book which gives you an idea on everything you ever needed to  know about what an open source ERP can do. Through detailed analysis, it  evaluates and compares SAP and OpenERP, the leading open source system.  Why is OpenERP easier to use? How  does its function allow companies to  innovate and customise? Why is open source more affordable when it  comes to implementation? Read more...

"Open Source Accounting with OpenERP"  In this company your accounting can be managed on a national and  international level, also in a multi-company environment. With the smart  user interface, entries, reconciliation and payments can be quickly  managed. Analytic accounting can be integrated with projects, budgets,  timesheets, and warehouse management to name some. Read more...

Order now your pack directly from our website!

How do you keep track of your contracts? Are you sure you are invoicing the right people for the work you or your employees are doing? Well, if you are not sure of the answers to these simple questions, then you should certainly use this OpenERP application. It's nothing new, but it will help you with your transactions and invoices.

Sales contract is planned to be an autonomous application, based on the account analytic analysis module. In two clicks you create it as a menu entry in Sales/Sales/Contract and it will provide you a quick and easy way to create a contract, as well as keep track of the already existing ones.

We know that not all companies work solely based on Sales Orders. As a result, we thought that this app will facilitate companies that work as well with contracts. As a consequence, salesmen will have more accessibility to manage contracts and analytic accounts in OpenERP. A list view is available, which gives you an overall on the status of each contract. 

How does it exactly work?

For example, your company offers IT consultancy and you have multiple projects. To be able to invoice the right project, you will input the amount of hours spent on each of your projects. At the end of the project, you can create directly an invoice, which aggregates all the hours spent per project/employee, which were added in their timesheet. 

Before if the salesman wanted to know all this info, he needed access to Accounting and Project Management to be able to verify this data. But now, this has been simplified and reduced to a clean and straightforward view.  

Renewal reminder 

Not to worry about expiring contracts. OpenERP will automatically send you an email to remind you about end dates of your contracts. So, for instance, once a week the salesman will receive an email to remind him about contracts close to their end date or support hours that have been exhausted, together with instructions to proceed. See example below. 

This is the only application that easily gives to your salesman or your project manager the ability to check the work done and create draft invoices depending on the encoded time on their timesheet according to their projects or contract  

We encourage you to integrate this application with the rest of your system and facilitate easier contract/project invoicing and collaboration between salesman and project manager.

Ever found yourself frustrated that you have to browse through 10 windows just to add a simple task? Or ever forgot where you added your task? Look no longer, OpenERP developed a to-do application in the CRM that enables salesmen to link their opportunities to a light task list. 

This application enables salesmen to have a simple to do list that is pre-filtered on their own tasks. They continue managing their opportunities as usual and are also able to create a to-do list directly in the opportunity itself. 

We give you the freedom to install it only if you want, as the application does not get installed by default. So, just access the configuration and install from the features of the CRM selecting "To Do list". After installing it, an extra tab will appear in your Sales module, called "My Tasks". The good news is that it's available both on the GTK and the webclient. 

Now picture  this: a salesman can create a new task in the "My Tasks" menu entry in  the CRM. In this list, he can see all his to do things, the timing, and even the context. This list is exactly the same as the one you have in Project management. This means that all recorded tasks in the system from project management or opportunities are grouped in the same view.  From this list, the user can see his own tasks, the ones he directly created and the ones that have been assigned to him. This gives him quick access to all things he has to do today, this week this month or  in the long term.  

This  feature is based on the "Getting Things Done" methodology. It is a way to organize and manage tasks following the timing and the context of the  "resolution of the task". It is for this reason that by installing this application, a new menu tab is added also in project management. 

So, get this application and get organized!

At OpenERP we are constantly developing nifty features to make your life easier. OpenERP v6.1 will include a great feature: B2B/B2C exchange of invoices, sale orders and purchase orders, called EDI. 

What is EDI and what's its purpose? In short, EDI (electronic data interchange) has the purpose to simplify and make more efficient the interactions between companies. Instead of sending a bundle of papers to their customers or suppliers, companies can execute their transactions online.

Whether you are working with OpenERP or not, EDI will allow you to export and import specific OpenERP documents between OpenERP instances and 3rd-party systems. 

Let's look at an example: ACME Systems accountant validates an invoice for Agrolait, which triggers an automated email notification to Agrolait. See below:

In turn, Agrolait will be able to:

Accounting, Sales and Purchase modules are integrated with the EDI. So, from these modules you can directly generate a document and email it. It's up to you to customize your email notifications.  

Agrolait can push this invoice in their own management software through 3 solutions. See the screenshot below:

First two options are directed to the OpenERP users. Option one is pretty straight forward and by clicking it, Agrolait automatically imports the invoice into their own database. Second option permits them to create a new instance in case they don't have one already and wish to continue working in OpenERP. Consequently, after they have created their OpenERP instance, the invoice will automatically be imported. 

Third option allows 3rd-party applications. So, if your customers or suppliers use a different application than OpenERP with the EDI it is very easy to extract data. See aside a sample of the code.

Last but not least, you have multiple ways of paying online, as the company is the one that configues the payment methods. For example, Paypal if you already have a Paypal account or bank transfer. OpenERP believes that this will close the gap between the clients and their suppliers by helping businesses worry less about payment logistics. 

This feature will be available in our release of the v6.1. 

We would like to present you the people behind the software, see who's doing what and who is actually the OpenERP team. This past month, we have recruited two new members for our R&D team.

One of them is Thibault and I will let him present himself:

"I am Thibault Delavallée, a new comer in R&D at OpenERP Belgium. I studied civil engineer in electro-mechanics, at the Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium. I also worked 5 years at the university, as a researcher in embedded electronics. Further, I continued to work on projects of the Walloon region in Belgium that promote research and cooperation between the university and industry. Those projects implied both hardware and software aspects, such as respectively low-power embedded processor architecture and an experimental compiler development for multicore processors.

After a 5-year work at the university, I wanted to specialize in software implementation, while still being in a research and development atmosphere; that is why I am at OpenERP now.

More personally, I am 28 and I live in Louvain-la-Neuve. Among my leisure activities, I enjoy board games or pen and paper role-playing games. I spend some of my free time in programming activities, such as testing Django. I also play badminton, so if you are looking for a partner around Louvain-la-Neuve, feel free to contact me!"

Our second new-comer is Michael Vannerom

 "My name is Michael and I am a new OpenERP employee. It is my first job, I have just finished my last school year. I have got a degree in computer science and I would like to become a developer. I am excited to start in this dynamic and young company

In my free time I like team sports, especially soccer. I'm currently playing   indoor soccer. I also like new technology and open source."

We will continue presenting you the people who will join our team in the future and some who have already joined the team! Keep you posted!
 

OpenERP implements automated tests in every module to guarantee the stability of the code. A simple example of a test scenario would be:
 

• I create a purchase order with 5 PCE of PC1

• I test that the purchase order total is 5*450+300 EUR

• I validate the purchase order

• I check that a draft invoice has been generated with 5*450 EUR

 
The main file format used to develop these tests scenario is YAML. You just need to add a .YML file in your module to ship a fully automated test scenario that will be executed at each installation of your module. The above scenario would be implemented like this:
    -
       I create a purchase order for Asus with 5 PCE of PC1, and 1 PCE of PC2
    - 
       !record {model: purchase.order, id: purchase_new}: 
          partner_id: base.res_partner_asus 
          order_line: 
            - product_id: product.product_product_pc1 
              product_qty: 5.0 
            - product_id: product.product_product_pc2


Every YAML file is composed of a set of operations separated by a line containing the character " - ". If you write a line of text without a particular expression, OpenERP will consider it's a log to be displayed when the test is running.
 
The tag "!record" allows to create an OpenERP object. Since the v6.1 (in trunk), you just need to pass the fields you want to write as if you recorded them in the user interface. OpenERP will automatically simulate the default_get and on_change calls to retrieve other fields: shipping address, product unit of measure, etc. The above code creates a purchase order with two lines.
 
The great advantage of this feature is that it tests and executes all these methods on the purchase.order and purchase.order.line object: default_get, fields_get, fields_view_get, onchange_warehouse_id, onchange_partner_id, onchange_product_id.
 
In your YAML file, you can also add assertions to check the values of a record. These assertion can be Python code (using unittests) or YAML assert tag.
    - 
      I test that the purchase order total is 5*450+300 EUR = 2550 EUR
    - 
      !assert {model: purchase.order, id: purchase_new}
        - amount_total: 2550.0
        - state: draft
 
And you can also use any python code to perform your tests.
   - 
     I validate the purchase order and I check that a draft invoice has been generated
   -
     !python: {model: purchase.order}
       self.validate(cr, uid, ref('purchase_new'))
       po = self.browse(cr, uid, ref('purchase_new'))
       assert len(po.invoice_ids)==1, "You should have one invoice related to this PO"
 
That's it!
 
In order to continuously test the evolution of OpenERP, every commit made by a developer is fully tested against the 2300 tests that are provided in OpenERP by default. For this purpose, we use the runbot platform that launches all test scenario at each developer's commit: http://runbot.openerp.com

OpenERP started an initiative that we believe will boost our partners to generate more revenue. How do we plan to do this? We have put in place a sales training that will give you the right tools and know-how to sell OpenERP. 

We had the first session in Brussels, in English. The next training is taking place in Paris, in French (subscribe here). Below there's a short summary of the content:

We are very excited about the results and feedback we had from our first session and we are  confident that the rest of our partners will see the benefits as well. 

“The sales training for partners is absolutely a prerequisite for every sales person how wants to sell OpenERP implementations. In one day you get the insides on how to act and react at your prospect, which approach you can follow and how to win with a minimum of investment a new customer for OpenERP.” Karel Hendrickx, Dynapps

"The  training "How to sale OpenERP?" organised by OpenERP is a must for partners willing to exchange ideas on the way you sell OpenERP with the live support of OpenERP staff." Eric Vermeulen, Haulogy

"The course was a great opportunity to consolidate knowledge of how to demonstrate effectively the OpenERP Platform and confirmed to me, how fantastic a tool it is ,to showcase to our potential clients, who would undoubtedly buy this software with open arms both because it saves money, but most importantly, its easy to use and saves time." Manoj Pandya, Pinakin Consulting

"This training really helped me optimize our sales process for OpenERP as a product. Qualifying leads, follow up with a demo, a proof of concept and quoting improved." Sebastiaan Kleine Staarman, Smile Benelux

There's no doubt about it, you should be the next to participate and get equipped with the right tools to sell OpenERP.

OpenERP is working on the release of its latest version 6.1. As we collaborate with our large network of community members and partners, we wanted to get first hand feedback on our new version. So, we organized a workshop to review the code together with partners and the usability with test users. The way we proceeded was to create scenarios for the test users covering the major OpenERP business flows.
 
Our main goal was to highlight the possible usability issues v6.1 might have through the different scenarios put in place. Secondly, accelerate the process of reviewing the code and correct the found bugs. 
  
The feedback from these two days uncovered a few generic usability issues and some more specific ones (related to particular modules or web client). The most specific issues will be fixed in due time for the release. 
 
Some of the generic usability issues that were found:

• the fact that the form or the editable list are not saved and gives an error message

• the organisation and behavior of buttons in form

   
A few bugs were also uncovered during the workshop, and some of the technically-inclined participants even got their hands dirty starting to fix them on the spot with the help of our R&D engineers. We are thankful for that!

    
We believe that the event was a real success and a great opportunity to discover v6.1 in a different way, with first hand experience. It's also a good way to highlight usability issues with the help of our partners and end users.
 
We plan to repeat this experience for future versions, so next time be the first to subscribe and work together with our R&D team on our premises. 

 
Take a peak at the pictures of the event http://on.fb.me/tK0LYZ
 

The first OpenERP training held in Australia was organized by our first partner in the region Willow IT in collaboration with OpenERP s.a. The training was one week long entirely limited to partners, integrators and developers in need for an in depth coaching on the OpenERP development process.  

The event proved to be very successful and the participants were very happy with the results. Read more about the training. 

"The training has given me the essential knowledge I need to get up and running with my own module development. It was well worth my time attending." 

"Thanks again for a great course, it eclipsed all my expectations." 

OpenERP works with partners around the world to close the gap between the need for training and the resources available. As a result, we have set-up a strategy to respond to this demand and empower our partners. We want to share the revenue and responsibilities with our partners. Consequently, the partners will deliver quality services and OpenERP ensures up-to-date training  material and marketing. Read more about how OpenERP does this.

The website evaluationmatrix.com is meant to help you compare certain ERP software systems.  It has been restructured and improved, with more relevant data to help you have a more efficient and thorough comparison. The software systems taken into consideration for the new platform are both open source like OpenERP and Openbravo, as well as proprietary ones like SAP and Microsoft Dynamics.  

They can be compared by evaluating a number of factors like features, market position or technical quality.  It's very user friendly and it allows you to check the pros and cons of a certain software in literally just a few clicks. You can choose two or more ERPs to compare in one go, depending on your need. 

You will notice that new tabs were added to give you a complete experience and offer you in depth information that will make your assessment of the products more objective and holistic. Thus, you can browse through graphs and softwares to read the individual descriptions of each ERP. Also, there is a tab with News, containing articles on the few ERPs considered.  

It's worth mentioning that the means used to build the data to compare the ERPs is by gathering the personal experience of users shared on the internet, like blogs, forums, planet feed, etc. For example, currently the comparison data is based on 979 criteria and 4264 users' feedbacks, numbers shared in the main page.  

So, feel free to explore it right now and share it !

Before and After

The first payroll module we developed was for v6.0, but until now it was only working for India. The new payroll module will be available in v6.1; cleaned, verified and improved. It has been made generic, so it's up to you to integrate it with the rest of your modules and adapt it to your country's specific payroll rules. This module has been fully developed by OpenERP and it incorporates ideas gathered at the Community & Partner's Days 2011.

Main improvements

Fully integrated and powerful

One of the best features about the new payroll module is that it's easy to customize. So, even your very specific needs can be taken care of.  Also, as you are probably used to by now, the module is fully integrated with the rest of the software. For instance, used in parallel with the hr_payroll_account, it automatically generates accounting entries, that you don't have to input manually later.

Another example is the holiday management that is now integrated with the payroll. This means that if one of your employees has a leave request for 5 days, the system will automatically decrease the number of days worked for this particular employee. 

Flexible & smart

We have eliminated some extra steps for simple tasks. For example, you can generate a batch of pay slips in one go. In the payslip run you can generate a batch of slips by department, month or by picking a number of employees. This allows you to spend less time and have your payslips ready at once. Also, we have set up the feature that permits you to add multiple contracts for a single employee.

Another useful characteristic is that when you want to get the pay slip ready, you only have to select the right employee and the rest of the data fills in automatically. Needless to say that you have the option to add extra data, like extra hours, sick leave, percentage of sales made in the case of sales people, etc. At the end, you have a clear view of the data input, for a final review before you confirm.

Multiple countries

Currently, we provide payroll rules for Belgium, but you can do it as well for your own country. As it's so easy to customize, the only thing you have to do is paramatization. There's no development required for the payroll engine, but you may have to add some fields on the contract form respective to your country, as well as specific payroll rules. 

How will this help your company?

As it is open source, it will be under constant improvement and our community and partners can actively participate to make it viable for their own countries. Also, the database and the rules it requires will continually grow, similar to the case of the Accounting module. 

Another considerable advantage is that if you are already running your company on OpenERP, it will save you costs in outsourcing your payroll to a different software solution. 

You can access the branch here: http://bit.ly/o6Kvim

Read more in the presentation below.

"Extraordinary project in the industry world, Danone deploys a very fast, integrated managing tool in the merging countries. Surprise: it's an open source software package and the integration dealdlines are astonishing!"

Although Danone is a significant SAP client, the industry giant decided to use an open source integrated ERP solution for the emerging  countries where it operates. The OpenERP integration was done in collaboration with Octo Technology.

    OpenERP, a good SAP alternative for Danone's small entities

OpenERP was integrated in three of Danone's entities in Columbia, Argentina and Australia. Although the company has invested a lot for several years integrating SAP, it proved not to fit the needs that Danone had in the green field entities. From 20007, the structure of the group has changed, finding themselves in the position of having to manage smaller entities, which were not necessarily generating big revenue.  So, implementing their core model SAP didn't make sense. Consequently, a less expensive and more flexible solution was sought, allowing  faster implementations. 

Octo Technology said that even though SAP covers a large array of needs, it's an integrated non-modular software, not offering a lot of room for mistakes. They proposed OpenERP as a solution to Danone, as they considered it to be backed by a solid Software Editor and a strong community. 

Octo Technology went on further to explain that it was easy to work with OpenERP as it is well suited to agile implementation methodologies.

Satisfied with the results of the implementation, Danone would like to develop a platform to synchronise OpenERP with SAP.  

Read full article here

Last week we announced a new bugfix release of OpenERP 6.0. If you didn't get the chance to download it yet, find it in our download section. We strongly advise any OpenERP user to migrate to v6.0.3 as the previous versions contain a major security vulnerability issue. 

You can read the full Security Advisory here for more details: http://bit.ly/qBfCYO

Note that OpenERP Enterprise customers have been notified about the issue and the availability of the patch well in advance of this public disclosure, following our Security Alerts policy. OpenERP Online customers are protected against this as well: all the servers were updated transparently as soon as the patch was available. 

If you are still running on 6.0.2 or older, we encourage you to migrate to v6.0.3 as soon as possible to protect yourself against this security threat. OpenERP Enterprise customers can contact their usual support & migration contacts to get more information about the patch, help to apply it or to migrate from a previous version.

6.0.3 Changelogs:

• server and addons: http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~openerp/openobject-server/6.0/view/head:/doc/Changelog

• gtk: http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~openerp/openobject-client/6.0/view/head:/doc/Changelog 
  

• web: http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~openerp/openobject-client-web/6.0/view/head:/doc/ChangeLog

We are proud to launch a new offer of our OpenERP Enterprise product for SMEs with less than 10 users. In order to launch this new offer, we apply a special promotion valid up to 15th of September. You can benefit from all OpenERP Enterprise services for a monthly price of 165€, instead of 185€ after the 15th of September.

OpenERP Enterprise includes the services you need to run OpenERP in a professional environment;

• Functional support
• Unlimited bugfixes
• Migrations
• Security alerts
• Private modules

Normal Price: 1950€ / year (or 185€ / month)

Special Price: 165€ / month

Advantage: 240€ / year

Conditions:

• payment only by credit card
• contract for at least one year

How would this help you?

• Have some questions or difficulties with OpenERP?
  With OpenERP Enterprise you can reach us by phone, email or live chat.
• Want to benefit from our new features?
  Take advantage of our migration service. You will only have to send your DB and we do the rest.
• Concerned about the security of your ERP?
  OpenERP Enterprise gives you a warranty for unlimited bugfixes and security alerts for any issue that may appear.
• Want to avoid sharing your trade secret?
  Now you have the right to use Private Modules with OpenERP Enterprise.

Look into this offer in more detail and see how it fits your needs.

We are very excited to announce the launch of our new partner portal today. The Portal is a great added value to the services and assistance offered to the OpenERP partners.

All the features of the partner portal are described here:
http://www.openerp.com/partner-portal

The goal of the partner portal is to help partners:

• Learn OpenERP:
  • Free bi-weekly webinars on 13 different topics
  • Technical & Functional documents
  • Implementation methodology
• Get more leads and customers
  • Visibility on forwarded leads
  • Access to marketing documents
• Deliver quality services
  • Access to our support services
  • Access to the migration platform
  • Access to our bugfixing services
  • Access to our buildbot and runbot platform
• Develop their OpenERP business
  • Organize shared marketing events
  • Communicate on our channels
  • Follow-up your OpenERP Enterprise contracts
• Find useful information
  • For your daily activities with OpenERP
  • Contracts
  • Follow-up of your OpenERP revenues, etc.

The Portal features the familiar OpenERP user interface, giving access to the necessary information such as Marketing, Sales, Development, etc. On top of that, partners can find all the information about their partnership, their dedicated contact, their current revenue status, visibility and leads.

We want to emphasize that the partner portal is mirroring the needs and demands we have received. The final scope of the partner portal is to help partners learn OpenERP, get more leads and consequently boost their business. It's a great channel to offer quality services and support
partners in developing their OpenERP business.

Important: Partners will receive an email with login and password for the Partner Portal today! If you are an OpenERP partner and did not receive one before monday evening, please contact your account manager.

We hope you will enjoy our new services to partners!

We just launched an updated version of the official OpenERP website, including:

    * A world map of our partners: http://openerp.com/partner-worldmap

    * A centralised place to buy our products and services: http://openerp.com/catalog

The new page "Buy" enables you to to access all OpenERP products in one place and buy directly from the website. Structured in five parts, the clients may purchase our products (OpenERP Enterprise, OpenERP Online), our services (support, custom migration), trainings from our CTP partners and OpenERP books.

Improved OpenERP Enterprise Offer

The previously called "OpenERP Publisher Warranty" offer has been improved and renamed "OpenERP Enterprise". In order to answer customer needs and improve our quality of services, we added two new services in the OpenERP Enterprise offer: technical and functional support and the ability to develop and use private modules for customers who do not want to release their own developments.

OpenERP Enterprise is entirely dedicated to professional use benefiting from a  number of valuable services. Clients will be able to take advantage of:

    * Ability to use and develop Private Modules

    * Support services -  any functional or technical issues, both in English and French

    * Unlimited bug fixing

    * Unlimited migrations to the new OpenERP versions.

    * Security alerts

Read more about these services: http://www.openerp.com/catalog/146

If you need more information about OpenERP Enterprise, you can:

    * Have a look at the complete offer: http://www.openerp.com/catalog/146

    * Read the FAQ: http://www.openerp.com/services/faq-onsite

Release of 3 new paperback books and a special promotion

We cherish our documentation and want to make sure we have everything covered. So, after 6 months of development, we are publishing 3 books that can already be purchased. The three books cover the CRM, Logistics and Manufacturing.

If you dream of a perfect organization, we highly encourage you to acquire your own copy right now. What is more, you can benefit from the special offer we have available until the end of June which includes a big discount and free shipping.

You can check out the details with the offers and buy online:

    * June promotion, get your Three Pack Books

    * Drive your Sales & Marketing Activities with OpenERP

    * Integrate your Logistic Processes with OpenERP

    * Streamline your Manufacturing Processes with OpenERP

We are glad to announce the presence of OpenERP Online on the Google Apps  Marketplace. OpenERP Online has been placed under Accounting &  Finance. All you need to do it create a Google Apps Marketplace account.  This a great opportunity for OpenERP to grow it's global visibility and  expansion, but more particularly make it easier to integrate OpenERP  with your favourite apps.
 

There were some changes that OpenERP had to do in order to become complaint  with the Marketplace's conditions. One of the changes that OpenERP had  to undergo is directly connected to the OpenID. This meant that the customer had to be able to register and log into OpenERP directly from Google Apps without having to re-enter their  OpenERP connection credentials every time. Moreover, other specific  technical changes had to be done which involved the tech SaaS team in its deployment into production.

   
Further,  " to potential customers and users, it shows that OpenERP is willing to  improve and change its product in order to improve their customer  experience, making it even easier for them to integrate it within their  specific company management applications eco-system" (Maxime Glorieux, chief of Saas). It means they can  rely on the OpenERP management and  R&D teams to constantly improve  their ERP system to better support/follow them in their company  management and growth. OpenERP is a solution they can rely on now and  over the long term.

So, explore now OpenERP Online http://bit.ly/lECbsu on Google Apps Marketplace!
  
 

With the renewal of their partnership, Audaxis becomes OpenERP Gold Partner, as well as OpenERP Certified Training Partner (CTP) for France and Tunisia.

 
As a result of sustained investment in OpenERP and additional new projects in different sectors, Audaxis reaches the Gold level as OpenERP partner. This new status confirms the company's presence and strengthens its actions on the market of open source ERP in France and Benelux.

 
Audaxis also became a certified training center for France and Tunisia, joining the Certified Training  Partner Program (CTP). This program aims to respond professionally to the growing demand for OpenERP technical and functional trainings worldwide. In this context, Audaxis OpenERP soon will organize trainings in Paris, Lille and Tunis.

OpenERP will be present at Cloud Expo in New York on June 6-9, 2011.
How To Register as a "VIP Gold" guest @ Cloud Expo:

1. Go to our special registration page: https://www3.sys-con.com/cloud2011east/registernew.cfm?a1=gold
2. Enter the Coupon Code openerpVIPgold[case sensitive]
3. The price will re-set from $2,000 to $0 and you can then complete the brief registration process for full access to all sessions, all four days.

(For these complimentary VIP Gold passes, Luncheon and access to the Cloud Computing Bootcamp is NOT included.)
 
Anyone following these three quick steps will secure for themselves a free "VIP Gold" Pass for the entire event, valid for all four days - one that gives full access to all 140+ sessions across 7 tracks, including all Keynotes, General Sessions, Discussion Panels, and Technical Breakout Sessions...everything that a fully paid $2,000 Golden Pass brings, in fact, with the sole exception of Luncheon and access to the Cloud Computing Bootcamp.
 
We look forward to greeting you personally -- and any colleagues you may choose with our blessing to send this email on to!! – at The Javits in New York City June 6-9, 2011.
 
Cloud Expo 2011 - Conference Schedule:
http://cloudcomputingexpo.com/event/schedule

I like OpenERP! J'aime OpenERP! Me gusta OpenERP! Ich mag OpenERP!
These are just few of the languages that expressed their opinion on OpenERP.

Last week we had three full days where we shared our achievements, vision for the future, new concepts, success stories and of course brilliant ideas for improvements.

First day was dedicated to bringing everyone up to date with OpenERP's 2010 accomplishments, present the V6 R&D road map and get in touch with everyone. Not only that, but  we gave the chance to our community members to show off their developments.

Second day focused on workshops like: Usability, Manufacturing, Localisation, etc. It was impressive to see the results at the end of the day and the OpenERP team took on the decision to implement many of the ideas presented.

Last day was reserved to the OpenERP partners and mainly targeted case studies, success stories and a time to have the partners lined up with the 2011 targets.

The feedback was incredible and we want to share all slides and videos made during these
three days.

1) For all the slides, just access the slideshare account for the 2011 Community Days:
http://www.slideshare.net/OpenERP2011_CommunityDays

If your presentation is not there, please emailed it to ngh(AT)openerp.com

2) We have a dedicated youtube account for OpenERP. You can find the first interviews and presentations here. The rest will follow, we just need some time for editing.
http://www.youtube.com/user/OpenERPonline

3) For all pictures of the event, access our facebook account
http://on.fb.me/hCXSEp

We are very grateful to all our participants and we want to remind everyone that OpenERP is one of the leading open source business applications due to the team work with our community members and partners. Together we have created an amazing product!

Stay open source and Keep on sharing!

«MAPS ARE COOL», said Luc Maurer, Camptocamp's founder and director, when presenting the integration of maps in OpenERP.

As Confucius once said: «A picture is worth a thousand words». This is exactly what Camptocamp achieved by adding the geographical dimension as a new analytical tool within an ERP.

Camptocamp's Business Solutions and Geospatial Solutions teams have merged their long-term technical competencies and experiences to create a unique and exclusive geolocation component for OpenERP. These developments allow, among other things, to display customers within a precise location, to analyze sales figures for a selected country, to visualize different logistic flows, and to provide maps for any other data available in OpenERP.

Users can place simple marks, graphs, and colors per geographical area, as well as calculate distances and surfaces. This map view opens unlimited Geo-BI (Geographic Business Intelligence) possibilities to companies using OpenERP.

Camptocamp pledges that this is only the beginning. By adding this new dimension to the core of OpenERP, the user will carry out effortless following business applications:

• Geographical queries and filters (ex: list of the last sales made within 10km of point of sales);

• Geo-marketing (ex: customer areas analysis, direct marketing);

• Logistics optimization (ex: stock location);

• Improvement of distribution flows (ex: find shorter way to deliver customers);

• Fleet management (vehicles, boats, etc..);

• Dashboards;

• Crises management.

As of today, no other ERP provides this functionality as an integrated view solution. With this breakthrough, Camptocamp demonstrates the benefits of Open Source communitarian development.

Come discover these developments as well as the connector OpenERP and the e-shop Magento at the 2011 eCom conference taking place on May 24 in Geneva (Switzerland): www.salon-ecom.com.

Links

Complete press release: http://bit.ly/hjFhvc

Images and logos: http://bit.ly/f5qye6

Screencast demo: http://bit.ly/dWTVAB

Camptocamp: www.camptocamp.com