Open calling partner in 1 click with the OpenERP-Asterisk connector

Akretion, the author of the OpenERP-Asterisk connector, is proud to announce the immediate availability of a new feature on the connector: the ability to open the calling partner in one click in OpenERP.

Here is a typical usage scenario of this new feature:

1. Someone calls you and you pickup the phone. You click on the button Open calling partner in OpenERP : OpenERP sends a query to Asterisk to get a list of the current phone calls.

2. If OpenERP finds a phone call involving the user’s phone, it gets the phone number of the calling party.

3. OpenERP searches the phone number of the calling party in its database and, if a record matches, it shows the name of the related Partner and proposes to open it, or open its related sale orders or invoices:

Another incredible thing about this new feature is that it’s already fully documented on the dedicated web page on Akretion’s Web site.

This page also presents Akretion’s service offering to help you deploy the OpenERP-Asterisk connector. Who can better help you deploy this solution than the author of the module himself ?

Please note that this new feature is only available for OpenERP version 6.1 for the moment. But Akretion can backport it to your version of OpenERP on request.

OpenERP provides a very flexible way to manage several types of views, like tree, form, kanban, gantt and calendar. This means, for instance, that you can view your or scheduled calls calendar by simply clicking on the ‘calendar’ button from the list view.

But what if you want to see all your deadlines within a unique calendar view?

You can use the super calendar

Configuration

After installing the module you can go to

Super calendar → Configuration → Configurators

and create a new configurator. For instance, if you want to see meetings and phone calls, you can create the following lines

Then, you can use the ‘Generate Calendar’ button or wait for the scheduled action (‘Generate Calendar Records’) to be run.

When the calendar is generated, you can visualize it by the ‘super calendar’ main menu.

Here is a sample monthly calendar:

And here is the weekly one:

As you can see, several filters are available. A typical usage consists in filtering by ‘Configurator’ (if you have several configurators, ‘Scheduled calls and meetings’ can be one of them) and by your user. Once you filtered, you can save the filter as ‘Advanced filter’ or even add it to a dashboard.

As usual, you can find code and bug tracker on our launchpad project.

Every OpenERP developer or integrator knows how can be annoying to create a new module or to add new features (like views,actions, etc) to it. There are several approaches for bootstrapping it.

The first, the most common I think, is to copy & paste an existing module (or an empty one), rename it, and replace all the bits to fit your needs. The second is to use an IDE like Eclipse or TextMate or Sublime-text and create or load all the predefined snippets you need.

This requires a little time but still, can be avoided. Also, could lead to errors, typos, etc, and this must be avoided.

Starting from my Plone background where tools like ZopeSkel and Paste (coupled with Buildout ) are  today mainstream solutions for bootstrapping our  development environments and creating new packages, I tried to get rid of this c&p approach.

I released a package called openerp_bootstrap aimed at speeding up the creation of new modules and new features. For the time being there are only two templates ready to be used:

• openerp_newmodule that lets you create a basic generic module
• openerp_theme that lets you create a basic custom web theme

Let’s see how to use them. First of all install openerp_bootstrap using python setuptools or distribute:

sudo easy_install openerp_bootstrap

sudo pip install openerp_bootstrap

After that, a new executable called ‘paster’ will be available. You can list the available templates by running:

# paster create --list-templates
Available templates:
  basic_package:      A basic setuptools-enabled package
  openerp_newmodule:  Template for creating a basic openerp package skeleton
  openerp_theme:      Template for creating a basic openerp theme skeleton
  paste_deploy:       A web application deployed through paste.deploy

As you can see, there are two openerp_* templates. You can use them by calling ‘paster create -t $TEMPLATE_NAME’. When you call it you will be prompted with step-by-step questions that will allow you to customize your module while creating it. Let’s see an example:

# paster create -t openerp_newmodule
Selected and implied templates:
openerp-bootstrap#openerp_newmodule Template for creating a basic openerp package skeleton

Enter project name: my_new_module
Variables:
egg: my_new_module
package: my_new_module
project: my_new_module
Enter module_name (Module name (like "Project Issue")) ['My Module']: My new shiny module
Enter description (One-line description of the module) ['']: A module that does this and that
Enter version (Version) ['1.0']:
Enter author (Author name) ['']: John Doe
Enter author_email (Author email) ['']: john@doe.com
Enter category (Category) ['']:
Enter website (Website) ['']: www.johndoe.com
Enter depends (Dependencies [space-separated module names]) ['']: account
Enter is_web (Is web addon? [yes/no]) ['no']:
Creating template openerp_newmodule
Creating directory ./my_new_module
Copying __init__.py to ./my_new_module/__init__.py
Copying __openerp__.py_tmpl to ./my_new_module/__openerp__.py

And, here we go! We’ll find all the data we need into our module’s manifest (__openerp__.py):

# cat ./my_new_module/__openerp__.py
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
{
    'name': 'My new shiny module',
    'version': '1.0',
    'category': '',
    'description': """A module that does this and that""",
    'author': 'John Doe (john@doe.com)',
    'website': 'www.johndoe.com',
    'license': 'AGPL-3',
    'depends': ['account'],
    'init_xml': [],
    'update_xml': [],
    'demo_xml': [],
    'active': False,
    'installable': True,
}

Let’s create a theme now:

# bin/paster create -t openerp_theme
Selected and implied templates:
  openerp-bootstrap#openerp_theme  Template for creating a basic openerp theme skeleton

Enter project name: my_custom_theme
Variables:
  egg:      my_custom_theme
  package:  my_custom_theme
  project:  my_custom_theme
Enter module_name (Module name (like "My Theme")) ['My Theme']: My brand new theme
Enter description (One-line description of the module) ['']: Customer X project theme
Enter version (Version) ['1.0']:
Enter author (Author name) ['']: Mr Foo
Enter author_email (Author email) ['']: mr@foo.com
Enter category (Category) ['']:
Enter website (Website) ['']: www.foo.com
Enter depends (Dependencies [space-separated module names]) ['']: project
Enter has_css (Needs CSS? [yes/no]) ['yes']:
Enter has_js (Needs Javascript? [yes/no]) ['yes']:
Enter has_xml (Needs QWeb XML? [yes/no]) ['no']:
Creating template openerp_theme
Creating directory ./my_custom_theme
  Copying __init__.py to ./my_custom_theme/__init__.py
  Copying __openerp__.py_tmpl to ./my_custom_theme/__openerp__.py
  Recursing into static
    Creating ./my_custom_theme/static/
    Recursing into css
      Creating ./my_custom_theme/static/css/
      Copying +normalized_name+.css_tmpl to ./my_custom_theme/static/css/my_custom_theme.css
    Recursing into js
      Creating ./my_custom_theme/static/js/
      Copying +normalized_name+.js_tmpl to ./my_custom_theme/static/js/my_custom_theme.js
    Recursing into xml
      Creating ./my_custom_theme/static/xml/
      Copying +normalized_name+.xml_tmpl to ./my_custom_theme/static/xml/my_custom_theme.xml

This will create a web module with all the static resources you need ready to be customized.

# cat ./my_custom_theme/__openerp__.py
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

{
    'name': 'My brand new theme',
    'version': '1.0',
    'category': '',
    'description': """Customer X project theme""",
    'author': 'Mr Foo (mr@foo.com)',
    'website': 'www.foo.com',
    'license': 'AGPL-3',
    'depends': ['project', 'web'],
    'init_xml': [],
    'update_xml': [],
    'demo_xml': [],
    'active': False,
    'installable': True,
    'web':True,
    'css': [
        'static/css/my_custom_theme.css',
    ],
    'js': [
        'static/js/my_custom_theme.js',
    ],
}

# ls my_custom_theme/static/*
my_custom_theme/static/css:
my_custom_theme.css

my_custom_theme/static/js:
my_custom_theme.js

Was that difficult? And now the most important – but still missing – part: add modules’ contents like views, classes, fields, etc. Using PasteScript ‘local commands’ we’ll be able to add sub-templates for adding new objects and customize them on the fly, doing something like:

# cd my_new_module
# paster addcontent newmodel project.custom.model
[...]
# paster addcontent field project_custom_model
[...]

Wouldn’t be great? That’s all for the moment.

The development package it’s on github. Feel free to fork and contribute back or to submit issues.

NOTE: the package is still in alpha state so it could be a little bit buggy

NovaPoint Group LLC (www.novapointgroup.com), an OpenERP Partner, has created a new Make Deposit Ticket module to help customers create and manage bank deposit tickets made of multiple deposit items (e.g. multiple checks, checks and cash, etc). The module was designed at the request and input of multiple US clients, and after benchmarking the basic capabilities of other ERP/Accounting systems. The module can be found on apps.openerp.com and is named npg_account_make_deposit.

The purpose of the module:

• Easily group customer payments received into deposit tickets

• Help improve bank account and statement reconciliation
  

• Support segregation of duties for financial control
  

• Match existing processes used by many "check centric" or retail companies

• Support multiple types of bank accounts

• Be easy to use
  

The module manages:

• The creation of Deposit Tickets

• Which deposit items are assigned to deposit tickets

• Automatic capturing of Deposit Ticker preparer and verifier information

• Security - Preparer and Verifier Groups

• GL entries automatic generated for deposit tickets

• Correcting deposit tickets

The module supports following Deposit Ticket process:

The sample make deposit form view:

The module also supports tracking the Method of Deposit (e.g. Teller, ATM, Night Drop, Remote Deposit Capture, Mobile Deposit Capture), Deposit Bag #'s, and Deposit Receipt Tracking #'s.

Addition future enhancements planned include a new webkit Deposit Ticket Summary Report, and the ability to print MICR deposit tickets for the bank.

The module also includes detailed documentation.

To learn more visit apps.openerp.com or download it here.

media contact: dphicks (at) novapointgroup.com

NovaPoint Group LLC, an OpenERP Partner, has partnered with CompuPay, a leading provider of online payroll solutions, to offer US customers payroll products and HR-related services for OpenERP. This solution addresses the payroll needs of company's utilizing OpenERP in the United States. The partnership delivers a competitive alternative to leading ERP/Accounting online payroll and HR services found in the market today.

Integration of CompuPay's online payroll and HR services with OpenERP supports the following process:

• Users enter attendance and timesheet information in OpenERP
• HR managers send the attendance and timesheet information directly to CompuPay
• The CompuPay payroll and calculation engine calculates payroll, submits payments and reporting information to the appropriate legal entities
• CompuPay payroll pays employees using either Direct Deposit, Check, or Payroll Card
• The payroll accounting entries are imported directly into OpenERP's GL using a pre-assigned mapping

The solution is a cost-effective way to reduce the burden associated with calculating and processing payroll by outsourcing the processing to an award winning leading firm. Company administrators are relieved of the time-consuming process of monitoring constantly changing payroll requirements, updating a payroll engine and calculations, processing payroll, delivering pay, collecting and remitting taxes to tax collection authorities.

To learn more, fill out the contact form, or visit http://www.compupay.com/l/novapoint/

media contact: dphicks (at) novapointgroup.com

This article follows on (hopefully not unsurprisingly) from the basic 6.1 installation howto.

In this post I’ll describe one way of providing SSL encrypted access to your shiny new OpenERP 6.1 server running on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS.

This time I thought I’d use the nginx (pronounced like “Engine X”) webserver to act as a reverse proxy and do SSL termination for web, GTK client and WebDAV/CalDAV access. nginx is gaining in popularity and is now the second most popular web server in the world according to some figures. It has a reputation for being fast and lean – so it seemed like a good choice for a relatively simple job like this.

I’m indebted to xat for this post which provided the main configuration script for a reverse proxy on OpenERP 6.0. The changes I have made to xat’s original configuration are: different port number, some additional rewrite rules to support WebDAV and the new mobile interface, new location for static files.

NB: For the purposes of this how to, we’ll be using self-signed certificates. A discussion of the pros and cons of this choice is beyond the scope of this article.

Step 1. Install nginx

On your server install nginx by typing:

sudo apt-get install nginx

Next, we need to generate a SSL certificate and key.

Step 2. Create your cert and key

I create the files in a temporary directory then move them to their final resting place once they have been built (the first cd is just to make sure we are in our home directory to start with):

cd
mkdir temp
cd temp

Then we generate a new key, you will be asked to enter a passphrase and confirm:

openssl genrsa -des3 -out server.pkey 1024

We don’t really want to have to enter a passphrase every time the server starts up so we remove the passphrase by doing this:

openssl rsa -in server.pkey -out server.key

Next we need to create a signing request which will hold the data that will be visible in your final certificate:

openssl req -new -key server.key -out server.csr

This will generate a series of prompts like this: Enter the information as requested:

You are about to be asked to enter information that will be incorporated into your certificate request. What you are about to enter is what is called a Distinguished Name or a DN. There are quite a few fields but you can leave some blank For some fields there will be a default value, If you enter ‘.’, the field will be left blank.
—–
Country Name (2 letter code) [AU]:
State or Province Name (full name) [Some-State]:
Locality Name (eg, city) []:
Organization Name (eg, company) [Internet Widgits Pty Ltd]:
Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) []:
Common Name (eg, YOUR name) []:
Email Address []:

Please enter the following ‘extra’ attributes
to be sent with your certificate request
A challenge password []:
An optional company name []:The Client’s Company

And finally we self-sign our certificate.

openssl x509 -req -days 365 -in server.csr -signkey server.key -out server.crt

We only need two of the files in the working directory, the key and the certificate. But before we can use them they need to have their ownership and access rights altered:

sudo chown root:www-data server.crt server.key
sudo chmod 640 server.crt server.key

And then we put them in a sensible place:

sudo mkdir /etc/ssl/nginx
sudo chown www-data:root /etc/ssl/nginx
sudo chmod 710 /etc/ssl/nginx
sudo mv server.crt server.key /etc/ssl/nginx/

Now the key and certificate are safely stored away, we can tell nginx where they are and what it should be doing…

Step 3. Create the nginx site configuration file

We create a new configuration file

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/openerp

with the following content:

Note: You will need to change all references to 10.0.0.26 in the following file to either the domain name or static IP address of your server. This was the IP address of the machine I built this test script on. It will not work unless changed to suit your own system!

upstream openerpweb {
    server 127.0.0.1:8069 weight=1 fail_timeout=300s;
}

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name    10.0.0.26;

    # Strict Transport Security
    add_header Strict-Transport-Security max-age=2592000;

    rewrite ^/mobile.*$ https://10.0.0.26/web_mobile/static/src/web_mobile.html permanent;
    rewrite ^/webdav(.*)$ https://10.0.0.26/webdav/$1 permanent;
    rewrite ^/.*$ https://10.0.0.26/web/webclient/home permanent;
}

server {
    # server port and name
    listen        443 default;
    server_name   10.0.0.26;

    # Specifies the maximum accepted body size of a client request,
    # as indicated by the request header Content-Length.
    client_max_body_size 200m;

    # ssl log files
    access_log    /var/log/nginx/openerp-access.log;
    error_log    /var/log/nginx/openerp-error.log;

    # ssl certificate files
    ssl on;
    ssl_certificate        /etc/ssl/nginx/server.crt;
    ssl_certificate_key    /etc/ssl/nginx/server.key;

    # add ssl specific settings
    keepalive_timeout    60;

    # limit ciphers
    ssl_ciphers            HIGH:!ADH:!MD5;
    ssl_protocols            SSLv3 TLSv1;
    ssl_prefer_server_ciphers    on;

    # increase proxy buffer to handle some OpenERP web requests
    proxy_buffers 16 64k;
    proxy_buffer_size 128k;

    location / {
        proxy_pass    http://openerpweb;
        # force timeouts if the backend dies
        proxy_next_upstream error timeout invalid_header http_500 http_502 http_503;

        # set headers
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forward-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;

        # Let the OpenERP web service know that we're using HTTPS, otherwise
        # it will generate URL using http:// and not https://
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto https;

        # by default, do not forward anything
        proxy_redirect off;
    }

    # cache some static data in memory for 60mins.
    # under heavy load this should relieve stress on the OpenERP web interface a bit.
    location ~* /web/static/ {
        proxy_cache_valid 200 60m;
        proxy_buffering    on;
        expires 864000;
        proxy_pass http://openerpweb;
    }

}

UPDATE: 04/04/2012. I have added a line to the above file: client_max_body_size 200m; thanks to Praxi for reminding me about this. The default setting is just 1MB which will stop users from uploading any files larger than that, including databases!

And then we can enable the new site configuration by creating a symbolic link in the /etc/nginx/sites-enabled directory.

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/openerp /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/openerp

Step 4. Change the OpenERP server configuration file

The next step is to re-configure the OpenERP server so that non-encrypted services are not accessible from the outside world.

In /etc/openerp-server.conf the non-encrypted services will only listen on localhost, i.e. not from external connections so in effect only traffic from nginx will be accepted.

After opening the file for editing, just add 127.0.0.1 to the xmlrpc and netrpc interface lines as shown below.

sudo nano /etc/openerp-server.conf

xmlrpc_interface = 127.0.0.1
netrpc_interface = 127.0.0.1

That’s it. Everything is now configured.

Step 5. Try it out

Restart the services to load the new configurations

sudo service openerp-server restart
sudo service nginx restart

You should not be able to connect to the web client on port 8069 and the GTK client should not connect on either the NetRPC (8070) or XMLRPC (8069) services.

For web access you just need to visit https://your-ip-or-domain and in the GTK client you will need to use port 443 (https) and choose the XMLRPC (Secure) protocol.

The nginx configuration above will also redirect any incoming requests for port 80 to port 443 (https) and it also makes sensible redirects for the mobile and WebDAV/CalDAV services. (From what I can gather however WebDAV clients really don’t handle redirects so this bit is probably not that useful). I think the best bet for WebDAV/CalDAV is just to provide the correct URL in the first place.

For CalDAV access then, the URL to a calendar will be something like this:

https://your-ip-or-domain/webdav/DB_NAME/calendars/users/USERNAME/c/CALENDAR_NAME

There you have it. In OpenERP 6.1 this job actually proved to be a little simpler than the previous version largely due to the integrated web interface. There are also fewer configuration changes required in openerp-server.conf.

Finally, I really wanted to try and make use of the WSGI support in OpenERP 6.1 instead of the method above, but my efforts to get this to work from nginx or Apache have so far ended in failure Obviously if anyone wants to provide a working config for that please feel free to add a comment and link.

Many e-commerce companies running PrestaShop are looking for a global solution that includes stock management and accounting. For a successful e-commerce company, automating stock management, supplier orders and accounting are critical in order to have a profitable business. OpenERP and PrestaShop complement each other perfectly:

• PrestaShop manages the front office: product catalog, customer accounts, carts, order validation and payment by credit card;

• OpenERP handles the back office: stock management, supplier orders, customer claims, accounting, etc.

Until now, the only thing that was missing was a connector between these two software!

Thanks to Camptocamp and Akretion, this link is now possible!

Please find the complete press release here.

Camptocamp: Official Gold partner in Switzerland, France and Austria (localisation of financial accounting for this countries) / Partenaire officiel Gold en Suisse, France et Autriche (localisation de la comptabilité financière pour ces pays) / Offizieller Gold-Partner in der Schweiz, Frankreich und Österreich (Anpassung der Finanzbuchhaltung für diese Länder)

Akretion and Camptocamp announce the release of the PrestaShop-OpenERP connector

February 23rd 2012

Akretion and Camptocamp announce the immediate and worldwide availability of the PrestaShop-OpenERP connector version 0.1.

PrestaShop is an Open Source e-commerce software written in PHP that provides an easy-to-use and high-performance solution to set up an online shop. OpenERP is an Open Source ERP software written in Python that provides an extended functional coverage: Customer Relationship Management (CRM), sales and purchase administration, stock management, Material Requirement Planning (MRP), accounting, etc.

Many e-commerce companies running PrestaShop are looking for a global solution that includes stock management and accounting. For a successful e-commerce company, automating stock management, supplier orders and accounting are critical in order to have a profitable business. OpenERP and PrestaShop complement each other perfectly:

• PrestaShop manages the front office: product catalog, customer accounts, carts, order validation and payment by credit card;
• OpenERP handles the back office: stock management, supplier orders, customer claims, accounting, etc.

The only thing that was missing was a connector between these two software!

This first version of the PrestaShop-OpenERP connector has been developed during a one-week code sprint that took place on February 6th – 10th 2012 in Seythenex (Haute-Savoie, France). This large R&D effort of Akretion and Camptocamp (with the participation of one developer from Julius Network Solutions) is the kick-start of a new Open Source software project called PrestashopERPconnect. Akretion and Camptocamp form the PrestashopERPconnect core editors and are the official maintainers of the project.

Sebastien Beau, e-commerce project manager at Akretion, declares: “Our target was to be capable of importing orders from PrestaShop to OpenERP at the end of our one-week code sprint. But before importing the first order, we needed to develop the synchronization of shops, currencies, languages, countries, carriers and products. We reached our target on Thursday evening, so we deserved to go skiing on Friday afternoon at the La Sambuy ski resort!”

Joël Grand-Guillaume, Business Solution Division Manager at Camptocamp in Lausanne adds: “We did not only bring the finest swiss chocolates to this code sprint; we also brought our long experience of software development on the OpenERP framework and our knowledge of software architecture.”

The PrestaShop company contributed to the development of the connector by providing technical support on the PrestaShop webservices that are used by the connector. Nebojsa Stojanovic, Chief Technical Officer of PrestaShop, declares: “The development of the PrestaShop-OpenERP connector is the proof that our large developers community is a key differentiator compared with proprietary e-commerce solutions. We are very happy to see our award-winning Open Source e-commerce platform connected to one of the leading Open Source ERP solutions.”

FAQ about the PrestaShop-OpenERP connector

1. What is the license of the connector? Where can I get the source code? This connector is published under the GNU Affero General Public License version 3 (the same license as OpenERP). The source code is available on Launchpad: https://launchpad.net/prestashoperpconnect (Launchpad is a development platform that hosts many Open Source software projects, including OpenERP and Ubuntu).

2. Which versions of OpenERP and PrestaShop are supported? Regarding OpenERP, the connector has been developed on OpenERP 6.1, which was released yesterday. And concerning PrestaShop, it supports all versions of PrestaShop starting from version 1.4, which is the first version of PrestaShop to propose a webservice interface. It doesn’t require any module in PrestaShop. The current version of the connector comes with the mapping of objects between OpenERP 6.1 and PrestaShop 1.5 only. PrestaShop 1.5 is currently under development and will introduce multi-shop support and many other features. Adding support for PrestaShop 1.4 should be easy.

3. You publish this connector for free on the Internet… how do you earn a living? Akretion and Camptocamp – the PrestashopERPconnect core editors – have developed this connector as part of their R&D effort. Both companies are strong supporters of Open Source software and have a long history of code contributions to OpenERP and other Open Source projects. Instead of spending millions in Sales and Marketing, they estimate that this code contribution is a better means to generate customer demand for software development on the connector and/or OpenERP and also for their trainings, professional services and SaaS (Software as a Service) offers.

4. Is the connector ready for production use? This version 0.1 has all the essential building blocks to connect OpenERP and PrestaShop and already supports the import of orders from PrestaShop to OpenERP in simple scenarios. Depending on how PrestaShop is used, generic or specific developments on the connector may be required.

5. What should I be aware of before deploying the connector? This connector can be downloaded by anyone on the Internet but it requires deep knowledge of OpenERP, PrestaShop and the connector’s internals to be deployed successfully in production. The PrestashopERPconnect core editors are available to help you deploy this solution for your PrestaShop-based e-commerce business.

About Akretion

Akretion is an OpenERP-expert company based in Brazil (Rio de Janeiro) and France (Lyons) with a strong experience in e-commerce projects. Akretion key contributions to Open Source software include the Magento-OpenERP connector, the Asterisk-OpenERP connector, the Brazilian localization for OpenERP, support for French customs formalities (DEB and DES) in OpenERP and the OOOR connector to use OpenERP from the Ruby programming language. Akretion sells training, consulting, software development and SaaS (Software as a Service) on OpenERP.

About Camptocamp

Incorporated in 2001, Camptocamp is an Open Source software editor and integrator in three complimentary areas: Business Solutions (OpenERP, Business Intelligence, e-commerce), Geospatial Solutions and Infrastructure Solutions. Camptocamp strives to deliver high value-added services (consulting, R&D, training, support) to its customers in order to assist them in deploying efficient and sustainable Open Source applications. Based in Lausanne (Switzerland), Chambéry (France) and Vienna (Austria), Camptocamp counts 43 employees with functional as well as technical skills.

Press contacts

• Akretion: Alexis de Lattre – Mail: alexis.delattre (at) akretion.com

• Camptocamp: Maxime Wiot – Mail: maxime.wiot (at) camptocamp.com – Phone: +33 4 79 44 44 94 or +41 21 619 10 10

The new release of OpenERP 6.1 heralds a great many incremental improvements in the product plus a complete re-write of the web interface; which is a massive improvement and much more an integral part of OpenERP than it’s predecessor.

UPDATE: By popular request here is a subsequent post describing how to set up a reverse proxy and ssl using nginx.

As my previous howto for 6.0 was a such roaring success I thought I’d better do something for the new 6.1 release too.

Before continuing, I should mention that you can simply download a “.deb” package of OpenERP 6.1 and install that on Ubuntu. But that doesn’t provide me with enough fine grained control over what and where things get installed and it restricts our flexibility to modify & customise hence I prefer to do it a slightly more manual way… (It should be said though, that this install process should only take about 10-15 minutes once the host machine has been built)

So without further ado here we go:

Step 1. Build your server

I install just the bare minimum from the install routine (you can install the openssh-server during the install procedure or install subsequently depending on your preference).

After the server has restarted for the first time I install the openssh-server package (so we can connect to it remotely) and denyhosts to add a degree of brute-force attack protection. There are other protection applications available: I’m not saying this one is the best, but it’s one that works and is easy to configure and manage. If you don’t already, it’s also worth looking at setting up key-based ssh access, rather than relying on passwords. This can also help to limit the potential of brute-force attacks. [NB: This isn't a How To on securing your server...]

sudo apt-get install openssh-server denyhosts

Now make sure you are running all the latest patches by doing an update:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Although not always essential it’s probably a good idea to reboot your server now and make sure it all comes back up and you can login via ssh.

Now we’re ready to start the OpenERP install.

Step 2. Create the OpenERP user that will own and run the application

sudo adduser --system --home=/opt/openerp --group openerp

This is a “system” user. It is there to own and run the application, it isn’t supposed to be a person type user with a login etc. In Ubuntu, a system user gets a UID below 1000, has no shell (it’s actually /bin/false) and has logins disabled. Note that I’ve specified a “home” of /opt/openerp, this is where the OpenERP server code will reside and is created automatically by the command above. The location of the server code is your choice of course, but be aware that some of the instructions and configuration files below may need to be altered if you decide to install to a different location.

A question I was asked a few times in the previous how to for 6.0 was how to run the OpenERP server as the openerp system user from the command line if it has no shell. This can be done quite easily:

sudo su - openerp -s /bin/bash

This will su your current terminal login to the openerp user (the “-” between su and openerp is correct) and use the shell /bin/bash. When this command is run you will be in openerp’s home directory: /opt/openerp.

When you have done what you need you can leave the openerp user’s shell by typing exit.

Step 3. Install and configure the database server, PostgreSQL

sudo apt-get install postgresql

Then configure the OpenERP user on postgres:

First change to the postgres user so we have the necessary privileges to configure the database.

sudo su - postgres

Now create a new database user. This is so OpenERP has access rights to connect to PostgreSQL and to create and drop databases. Remember what your choice of password is here; you will need it later on:

createuser --createdb --username postgres --no-createrole --no-superuser --pwprompt openerp
Enter password for new role: ********
Enter it again: ********

Finally exit from the postgres user account:

exit

Step 4. Install the necessary Python libraries for the server

Update 27/02/2012: Many thanks to Gavin for reporting. Have added python-simplejson to the package list.

sudo apt-get install python-dateutil python-feedparser python-gdata \
python-ldap python-libxslt1 python-lxml python-mako python-openid python-psycopg2 \
python-pybabel python-pychart python-pydot python-pyparsing python-reportlab \
python-simplejson python-tz python-vatnumber python-vobject python-webdav \
python-werkzeug python-xlwt python-yaml python-zsi

From what I can tell, on Ubuntu 10.04 the package python-werkzeug is too old and this will cause the server to not start properly. If you are trying this on a later version of Ubuntu then you might be OK, but just in-case you can also do the following.

I found it necessary to install a more recent version of Werkzeug using Python’s own package management library PIP. The python pip tool can be installed like this:

sudo apt-get install python-pip

Then remove Ubuntu’s packaged version of werkzeug:

sudo apt-get remove python-werkzeug

Then install the up-to-date version of werkzeug:

sudo pip install werkzeug

With that done, all the dependencies for installing OpenERP 6.1 are now satisfied, including for the new integral web interface.

Step 5. Install the OpenERP server

I tend to use wget for this sort of thing and I download the files to my home directory.

Make sure you get the latest version of the application. At the time of writing this it’s 6.1-1; I got the download links from their download page.

wget http://nightly.openerp.com/6.1/releases/openerp-6.1-1.tar.gz

Now install the code where we need it: cd to the /opt/openerp/ directory and extract the tarball there.

cd /opt/openerp
sudo tar xvf ~/openerp-6.1-1.tar.gz

Next we need to change the ownership of all the the files to the OpenERP user and group.

sudo chown -R openerp: *

And finally, the way I have done this is to copy the server directory to something with a simpler name so that the configuration files and boot scripts don’t need constant editing (I called it, rather unimaginatively, server). I started out using a symlink solution, but I found that when it comes to upgrading, it seems to make more sense to me to just keep a copy of the files in place and then overwrite them with the new code. This way you keep any custom or user-installed modules and reports etc. all in the right place.

sudo cp -a openerp-6.1-1 server

As an example, should OpenERP 6.1-2 come out soon, I can extract the tarballs into /opt/openerp/ as above. I can do any testing I need, then repeat the copy command so that the modified files will overwrite as needed and any custom modules, report templates and such will be retained. Once satisfied the upgrade is stable, the older 6.1-1 directories can be removed if wanted.

That’s the OpenERP server software installed. The last steps to a working system is to set up the configuration file and associated boot script so OpenERP starts and stops automatically when the server itself stops and starts.

Step 6. Configuring the OpenERP application

The default configuration file for the server (in /opt/openerp/server/install/) is actually very minimal and will, with only one small change work fine so we’ll simply copy that file to where we need it and change it’s ownership and permissions:

sudo cp /opt/openerp/server/install/openerp-server.conf /etc/
sudo chown openerp: /etc/openerp-server.conf
sudo chmod 640 /etc/openerp-server.conf

The above commands make the file owned and writeable only by the openerp user and group and only readable by openerp and root.

To allow the OpenERP server to run initially, you should only need to change one line in this file. Toward to the top of the file change the line db_password = False to the same password you used back in step 3. Use your favourite text editor here. I tend to use nano, e.g.

sudo nano /etc/openerp-server.conf

One other line we might as well add to the configuration file now, is to tell OpenERP where to write its log file. To complement my suggested location below add the following line to the openerp-server.conf file:

logfile = /var/log/openerp/openerp-server.log

Once the configuration file is edited and saved, you can start the server just to check if it actually runs.

sudo su - openerp -s /bin/bash
/opt/openerp/server/openerp-server

If you end up with a few lines eventually saying OpenERP is running and waiting for connections then you are all set. Just type CTL+C to stop the server then exit to leave the openerp user’s shell.

If there are errors, you’ll need to go back and check where the problem is.

Step 7. Installing the boot script

For the final step we need to install a script which will be used to start-up and shut down the server automatically and also run the application as the correct user. There is a script you can use in /opt/openerp/server/install/openerp-server.init but this will need a few small modifications to work with the system installed the way I have described above. Here’s a link to the one I’ve already modified for 6.1-1.

Similar to the configuration file, you need to either copy it or paste the contents of this script to a file in /etc/init.d/ and call it openerp-server. Once it is in the right place you will need to make it executable and owned by root:

sudo chmod 755 /etc/init.d/openerp-server
sudo chown root: /etc/init.d/openerp-server

In the configuration file there’s an entry for the server’s log file. We need to create that directory first so that the server has somewhere to log to and also we must make it writeable by the openerp user:

sudo mkdir /var/log/openerp
sudo chown openerp:root /var/log/openerp

Step 8. Testing the server

To start the OpenERP server type:

sudo /etc/init.d/openerp-server start

You should now be able to view the logfile and see that the server has started.

less /var/log/openerp/openerp-server.log

If there are any problems starting the server you need to go back and check. There’s really no point ploughing on if the server doesn’t start…

OpenERP 6.1 Home Screen

http://IP_or_domain.com:8069

What you should see is a screen like this one:

What I do recommend you do at this point is to change the super admin password to something nice and strong (Click the “Manage Databases” link below the main Login box). By default this password is just “admin” and knowing that, a user can create, backup, restore and drop databases! This password is stored in plain text in the /etc/openerp-server.conf file; hence why we restricted access to just openerp and root. When you change and save the new password the /etc/openerp-server.conf file will be re-written and will have a lot more options in it.

Now it’s time to make sure the server stops properly too:

sudo /etc/init.d/openerp-server stop

Check the logfile again to make sure it has stopped and/or look at your server’s process list.

Step 9. Automating OpenERP startup and shutdown

If everything above seems to be working OK, the final step is make the script start and stop automatically with the Ubuntu Server. To do this type:

sudo update-rc.d openerp-server defaults

You can now try rebooting you server if you like. OpenERP should be running by the time you log back in.

If you type ps aux | grep openerp you should see a line similar to this:

openerp 1491 0.1 10.6 207132 53596 ? Sl 22:23 0:02 python /opt/openerp/server/openerp-server -c /etc/openerp-server.conf

Which shows that the server is running. And of course you can check the logfile or visit the server from your web browser too.

That’s it!

OpenERP 6.1 really is a major step up in terms of improvements from 6.0 and the new integrated web interface (with a Point of Sale and a Mobile interface built-in) are really very cool. Performance has improved considerably and the way the new web service interfaces to OpenERP is very different. So, if I get the time, the next instalment of these posts will go into a bit of detail about how this works and some alternative ways to provide more secure access, such as reverse proxy.

I was trying to inject some custom code on logout event. My code was never executed though. Finally I got it working thanks to Xavier Morel (see my question on stackoverflow).

Here is the clue: you can “easily” inject an handler for a given event (openerp-web specific ones) by doing like this:

openerp.yourmodule = function(openerp) {
    openerp.webclient.on_logout.add_first(
        function () {
            alert('thatsme!');
        }
    );
}

You must pay attention to 2 things particularly:

1. you MUST use “openerp.webclient” and not “openerp.web.WebClient”
2. you MUST use your module name in order to get the JS loaded

This last point is among the few informations you find in the not-so-official docs contained into the web module (see my previous blogpost on how to get them).

Using “add_first” I’m adding an event handler for the logout event which will be executed before any existing handler.

If you look at the original code of the web module you’ll find other “hooks” like “add_last” which in turns add your handler at the end of the queue.

Even if it’s not yet available on the web (don’t ask why…. :S) you can view the new OpenERP web client documentation on your machine. That’s what you have to do in order to get it:

first of all install sphinx if you don’t have it in your system (assuming you are using a linux system):

$ sudo pip install sphinx

or

$ sudo  easy_install sphinx

then you have to compile the docs. Go to the web package doc folder:

$ cd  web/trunk/doc

(if you have downloaded OpenERP trunk following elbati’s how-to you’ll have the web client in this path)

and run

$ make source html

That’s it! Now you can browse the docs by going to the newly generated folder web/trunk/doc/build/html and opening index.html into your favorite web browser.

As any other OpenERP documentation is quite un-finished but it’s a good starting point for skimming trough the new web client capabilities.

UPDATE: docs are now available here: http://planet.domsense.com/docs/openerp-web/en/index.html

On November 24th I had the pleasure to explain our experience in the creation and development of our company at Tecnocampus de Mataró in the production and operations course, invited by Diego Bartolomé from tauyou.

It was an encouraging experience which I hope I can repeat in the future. We must also thank the collaboration of Alex from Planetronic who answered the questions of some students who made an excellent work studying NaN·tic's case. By the way, you can watch their presentation here.

Bien, antes que nada quiero agradecer a Ezequiel Fernandez en Argentina por compartir con la comunidad Hispana, sobre el uso de Aeroo Reports

http://openerpargentina.com.ar/EzequielFernandez/Report_aeroo

Y Sobre todo a el increíble trabajo de Allistek(http://www.alistek.com), ya que gracias a ellos tenemos una alternativa mas sencilla de configurar nuestros reportes que el motor de reportes RML.

En el foro en ingles se indica como compilar el instalador de OpenERP para Windows con la versión 2.6 de Python, para ser sincero tuve que escarbar unos cuantos días para lograr hacerlo, con algunos tropiezos y frustraciones…, pero bueno voy a tratar de dar una guía de como habilitar aeroo reports para los usuarios de Windows

Básicamente el problema de la instalación en Windows, es que el instalador all-in-one o el del server que encontramos en la pagina de openerp esta compilado con Python 2.5, para poder conectarse con la librería de PyUNO(Necesario por el Aeroo Reports), es necesario que las versión sobre la que corre el Open sea las misma que la de la libreria y ademas debemos agregar en las librerias necesarias para el modulo(https://launchpad.net/aeroolib, Genshi, entre otras)

Primero para poder lograr compilar el instalador de openerp necesitan instalar las siguientes dependencias, que las pueden encontrar en este link

https://code.launchpad.net/~openerp-groupes/openerp/win-installer-trunk

Pueden bajarlo por medio del Bazaar, o descargar cada una de las dependencias en la carpeta 2.6.

Les recomiendo usar windows XP SP3 para este procedimiento.

Instalan Todas las librerías

• Primero se intala python2.6.X.msi
• Despues se instalan todos los demás ejecutables(.exe), el orden en realidad no es demasiado importante
• Los archivos que son de extensión .egg deben copiarlas en C:\Python26\Lib\site-packages
• Los archivos compresos de extensión .gz lo descomprimen completamente, luego desde el interprete de comandos(cmd.exe) ejecutan dentro de la ruta de los archivos descompresos “C:\Python26\python.exe setup.py install”, luego se mostrara la secuencia de instalación e indicara que se instalo correctamente el con sus dependencias, esto debe hacerse por cada archivo que esta compreso
• Hay una librería que no se encuentra dentro de las dependencias de la página que es PyXML, aqui les dejo un link http://somethinkodd.com/PyXML/PyXML-0.8.4.win32-py2.6.exe en donde puede encontrar el instalador
• Otra librería que hace falta es PyParsing, de esta no encontré un instalador, pero podemos instalarla con el siguiente comando “c:\Python26\Scripts\easy_install.exe pyparsing”, esto descargara la última versión
• Librerías que también falta es la de vobject, http://vobject.skyhouseconsulting.com/vobject-0.8.1c.tar.gz, hacemos el mismo procedimiento de los archivos comprimidos
• Por ultimo hay la libreria para el uso de CalDAV, que se llama Pywebdav, que la pueden instalar con el comando “c:\Python26\Scripts\easy_install.exe pywebdav”
• Librerias de Aeroo Reports
• De la página https://launchpad.net/aeroolib descargamos la ultima versión de la librería, que para este caso use la RC4, http://launchpad.net/aeroolib/trunk/rc4/+download/aeroolib.tar.gz
• La descomprimimos y tal como hicimos con las anteriores ejecutamos el comando ”C:\Python26\python.exe setup.py install” dentro de la carpeta instalada y esto procesara las dependencias, que en este caso es la librería Genshi

Ahora, hay que corregir un error en la libreria PyXML que fue escrita antes de la aparición de python26, que usa un nombre de variable que es una palabra reservada en python26, asi que deben corregir dos archivos, que se encuentran en esta ruta

C:\Python26\Lib\site-packages\_xmlplus\xpath\ParsedAbbreviatedAbsoluteLocationPath.py -> en la linea 27 y 28 es necesario reemplazar la palabra “as” por cualquier otro nombre, en mi caso solo coloque un 1 adelante de la palabra

C:\Python26\Lib\site-packages\_xmlplus\xpath\ParsedAbbreviatedRelativeLocationPath.py -> en este archivo esta en la linea 31,32

Algo que también cabe recalcar antes de compilar, es que la libreria nativa de Python26 de xml tiene unas clases en una carpeta que se llama etree, el PyXML no usa esta librería por defecto así que debemos copiarla en la carpeta para poder tener la librería al momento de ejecutar openerp

En esta carpeta C:\Python26\Lib\site-packages\_xmlplus, debemos pegar la carpte “etree” que esta en la ruta C:\Python26\Lib\xml, asi no tendremos problemas con nuestra instalación

Descargamos los Fuentes, desde el sitio de openerp o pueden realizarlo a través del bazaar

http://www.openerp.com/download/stable/source/openerp-server-6.0.3.tar.gz

Descomprimimos los fuentes, preferiblemente en la raiz(C:\).

Luego desde la consola, entramos a la carpeta donde esta descompreso los fuentes del open-erp ejecutamos este comando “c:\Python26\python.exe setup.py py2exe”

Despues dentro de la carpeta win32 ejecutamos el mismo comando

Debido a que el el script de open procesa las dependencias de sus librerías, no incluye a genshi ni a aeroolib, así que tenemos que agregarlas manualmente. Luego de ejecutar los comandos de arriba, en nuestra carpeta se debe haber creado una llamada “dist”, dentro esta lo que son los ejecutables como tal del openerp para windows, existe un archivo library.zip que es donde estan algunas librerias, debemos agregar a este zip las carpetas de nuestras librerías que para mi ejemplo estan en:

•  C:\Python26\Lib\site-packages\aeroolib-1.0.0.RC4-py2.6.egg\aeroolib
• C:\Python26\Lib\site-packages\Genshi-0.6-py2.6\genshi

Luego de esto, ya estamos listos para generar el instalador para el server, esto lo hace el programa NSIS, lo abrimos y damos clic en “Compile Script”, luego de esto el software se encargara de crear el programa instalador para windows

Bueno después de esto tenemos que copiar nuestros módulos dentro de la carpeta addons en windows, o la podemos agregar a nuestro instalador, como sea, ya podemos usar los módulos en https://launchpad.net/aeroo.

En una segunda entrega espero poder hacer una guia de como conectarse con PyUNO para convertir en PDF y otros formatos los reportes de Aeroo Reports

Y para los que no quieren pasar por todo este tramite, les dejo es link donde pueden encontrar el instalador del ejercicio https://rapidshare.com/files/2332288264/openerp-server-setup-6.0.3.exe(Corregido)

Saludos

Christopher Ormaza

Ecuadorenlinea.net