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HotWax Media and OFBiz – 2009 Contributions – Part 4

February 8th, 2010

For the final chapter in our series highlighting the contributions of HotWax Media to Apache’s Open For Business (OFBiz) in 2009, we will focus on the OFBiz integrations related components:

  1. Shipping Integrations
  2. Multi Channel Sales Integrations
  3. Payment Processing Integrations

Shipping

OFBiz Shipping USPS UPS

During 2009, the available shipping integrations in OFBiz got a boost from some much needed power users — clients with real-world business needs driving development efforts is always the best scenario for an open source project!  We focused on enhancing the integrations by implementing new aspects of UPS standard web services, UPS World Ship, USPS standard web services, FedEx and Endicia.

  1. Added UPS integration support for sending Shipment Return Label email to customer. This option will be available on order detail screen and as well on the return screen when order is in the “Completed” status and the return is in the “Accepted” status.
  2. Added functionality for getting online shipping charges from UPS if an order is in the “Approved” status with associated shipment in the “Picked” status and it has been hold due to an overage in the shipping charges from the Weight Package only screen.
  3. UPS integration enhancement for supporting shipping quote based on dimensions.
  4. Built a custom component for integrating OFBiz with existing UPS World Ship terminals.
  5. Added support for USPS international rate estimates and label printing.
  6. Built a custom component for integrating OFBiz with the Endicia services to provide additional features that were not supported in standard USPS web services.
  7. Built a custom component for integrating OFBiz with the new FedEx web services to provide additional features that were not supported by the version of the FedEx SDK that was currently utilized.

Multi Channel Sales

OFBiz Multi Channel

Over the past 10 years, possible sales channels have increased from catalogs and brick and mortar stores to include standard ecommerce, public marketplaces, and shopping comparison sites.  HotWax Media has played an active role in expanding the different multi-channel integrations that are offered to OFBiz users.  Here is a list of integration improvements to eBay, Google Base and Amazon:

  1. Added multiple store support to eBay and provided sample data to document how it works.
  2. As part of adding  multi-store support to the eBay integration, improved the Category Association management by adding  a new ProdCatalogCategoryType “PCCT_EBAY_ROOT” and adding a worker method in the CatalogWorker class to fetch the top level eBay categoryId.
  3. Implemented new services available in eBay – GetOrders and GetMyeBaySelling to allow single transaction (one per import) as well as multi transaction (multiple per import) support.
  4. Added a new screen to optimize the import orders and transactions workflow.
  5. Create support for eBay configuration from the new entity EbayConfig.  Provided the GUI support to update configuration values.
  6. Added a new entity, EbayShippingMethod, to support custom shipping methods from eBay. Also provided GUI support and included demo data for reference and documentation.
  7. Fixed the Google Base product feed – it was broken when we started working on it.
  8. Provide entity support for Google Base configuration.
  9. Updated eBay and Google Base customer error messaging.
  10. Added multiple store support to Google Base and provided sample data to document how it works.
  11. Built a custom component for integrating Amazon web services for: a) Sending product information (feeds for product, price, relationship, image, inventory) to Amazon;  b)Sending order adjustment and fulfillment information to Amazon; c) Retrieving order information from Amazon.

Payment Processing

OFBiz orbital google paypal

OFBiz flexibly integrates with a growing number of different payment processors.  2009 saw a number of new Payment Gateway options become available, and HotWax was able to provide updated or new integrations to many of these services.

  1. Implemented Chase Bank’s “Orbital Payment Gateway” – supported features are credit card authorization, capture, authorize and capture, release, and refund.
  2. Provided entity support for the configuration settings of Orbital Gateway – since this was created after the community switched to maintaining this in entities – property file configuration is not supported at this time.
  3. Analyzed the Google Checkout integration that was started in the OFBiz trunk – found it to be insufficient.  Provided a new implementation utilizing the updated Google Checkout SDK.
  4. Users can now create and order using Google Checkout – including the checking of existing customer information.
  5. Added support in OFBiz for fulfillment of orders created from inside Google Checkout.
  6. Added additional shipment, order state change, and other notifications into the Google Checkout integration.
  7. Provided seed & demo data so that user can test Google Checkout with merchant and seller accounts.
  8. Because this integration was stared when property files were used in OFBiz, we maintained backward compatibility to allow existing users to use property files for configuration settings in Google Checkout.
  9. Provided entity support for the configuration settings of Google Checkout per the current OFBiz standard.
  10. Added support to Google Checkout to support Google shipping methods in OFBiz.
  11. Added GUI support for GoogleCheckout entities to easily handle configuration settings. The name of entities are: GoogleCoConfiguration & GoogleCoShippingMethod.
  12. Provided documentation for the community to show how Google Checkout works.
  13. Made a number of improvements to the standard PayPal IPN integration.
  14. Implemented PayPal Express Checkout (both the Payflow Pro and standard PayPal account versions) allowing for order payments and refunds using a PayPal account.
  15. Provided entity support for the configuration settings of PayPal Express Checkout.
  16. Upgraded PayPal’s PayFlow Pro from version 2 to version 4 – helping the community to stay up to date while the existing implementation was deprecated and taken out of production in September of 2009.

What’s Next?

Spending our 2010 helping take the Apache Open For Business project to the next level of usability, flexibility, testability, and accountability.

Contact us today to learn how HotWax Media can help you achieve your business goals using Apache Open For Business.

- Tim

Tim Ruppert is Chief Operating Officer at HotWax Media as well as an OFBiz project committer and active community member. Tim will join other HotWax Media employees and advisors in periodically posting thoughts here related to OFBiz, eCommerce, ERP, and related topics.

This post is part of a 4 part series. Please find the other posts in this series here:

Read Intro | Part 1 | Part 2 |Part 3 | Part 4

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OFBiz for Small to Mid-Sized E-Commerce: Part 1

February 4th, 2010

How Does OFBiz Meet the More Basic Needs of a Small to Mid-Sized E-Commerce Operation?

In this day and age, almost everyone is familiar with e-commerce storefronts. But relatively few are privy to the back-end: What does it look like for a business to manage a product catalog, fulfill orders, and provide service and support to customers? Is there a single online app that does all of that?

Maybe the business simply receives a system email with the order details, and pick, pack, and ship are paper-driven. For the lowest-volume sales and simplest supply chain, this can work. In fact, it’s how many e-commerce businesses get their start. But when orders pour in, businesses find it hard to survive without automated customer, order, inventory, and fulfillment management capabilities.

Small to mid-sized businesses can turn to OFBiz for a basic, out-of-the box suite of of apps to manage e-commerce. But figuring out exactly which features to implement is a challenge, especially for OFBiz and open-source newcomers.

With 16 mature applications and 8700 database objects and counting, OFBiz may overwhelm stakeholders seeking support for their customer service and warehouse operations. The vast and generic flexibility of the OFBiz framework presents potential end-users with literally thousands of options from which to choose, and all out-of-the-box.

HotWax Media’s business is to help clients cut to core functionality with a concise OFBiz solution, and over the years, we’ve developed a good sense of what most e-commerce customers want. In this series, we’ll clear a path through OFBiz’s complexity to the most straightforward out-of-the-box implementation for small or mid-sized businesses. Each post will map back to the following Must Haves.

OFBiz eCommerce

Eleven E-Commerce Management Must Haves

  1. Control the type, relevance, and amount of product information on the storefront
  2. Know when inventory is low and order goods from suppliers with ease
  3. Receive products into the warehouse by way of the original purchase order
  4. Track product inventory quantities and warehouse locations real-time
  5. Queue up orders for picking and get them all set for packing
  6. Pack orders and ship them out the door
  7. Make returns easy on Customer Service
  8. Edit an in-flight order or put it on hold
  9. Keep track of customers’ purchases, returns, and account information
  10. Offer gift cards, special offers, and discounts
  11. Have an easy way to update website content

- Laurian

Laurian Escalanti is a Senior Business Analyst based in Salt Lake City, Utah. She works directly with clients’ subject matter experts, process owners, and end users to define and document business requirements, from e-commerce, purchasing, order management, manufacturing, fulfillment, and accounting, to UI design, third-party integrations, SEO, and site analytics.

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