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Posts Tagged ‘OFBiz Integrations’

The HotWax Media Way: Infrastructure and Tools to Support OFBiz Open Source eCommerce and ERP Development

Friday, March 5th, 2010

Tools OFBiz Development

In my first set of posts, I had the opportunity to describe a bit about what has been going on at HotWax Media – with a focus on our involvement in the OFBiz development community and the impact it made during 2009. While I’m looking forward to getting back to discussing what HotWax will be championing in OFBiz in 2010, I’d like to take a break from OFBiz and tell you a bit about HotWax Media and what makes us and our process different from the other options out there.

To kick things off, I’d like to discuss something near and dear to my heart – the partnerships that we make and the people we choose to make them with. Over the past few years, we have made decisions that have provided us with the ability to focus on running our business and serving our customers instead of trying to become the masters of all things in all spaces. Focus, in other words.

For many years, along with the help of a choice system administrator or two, I spent a chunk of time, every day, maintaining and upgrading our IT infrastructure. As we merged companies and grew our staff of OFBiz developers, this became increasingly difficult for me to manage – all the while wishing I was spending more time with our customers. At that time, we had migrated all of our customers’ hosted solutions over to Contegix, and one of the companies we merged with was using them to run their organization already – so it seemed like a natural fit. The rest is history! Contegix has simplified our business by making hosting and infrastructure first class and very easy.

While I will spend more time focusing on the intricacies of our partnership with Contegix in subsequent posts, by becoming our source for infrastructure decision making, and by modeling processes that we respect and appreciate, Contegix has helped us to acquire partnerships that have made additional efficiency gains. They brought their other partners to the table in order to help us focus and realize the potential of our business. From working with the Atlassian collaboration to helping us maximize that software by bringing in the experts on integration and collaboration at CustomWare, we have been able to refine our processes to reflect the level of quality all customers deserve.

Stay tuned to the next set of posts to learn more about the our processes, our partners, and how they work together to provide solutions for our customers. Here are the high level points to take away:

1. Contegix – Beyond Managed Hosting and Infrastructure Support.
2. Atlassian - Amazing Efficiency Tools.
3. CustomWare - Integration and Collaboration Solutions.
4. Our Process – Agile Development Processes Honed to Work in a Distributed, Multi-Cultural, Development Environment.

- 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.

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Posted in Apache OFBiz, Apache OFBiz Development, HotWax Media, OFBiz, OFBiz Development, OFBiz eCommerce | No Comments »

HotWax Media and OFBiz – 2009 OFBiz Contributions – Part 3

Friday, January 22nd, 2010

For the third volume in our series highlighting the contributions of HotWax Media to Apache Open For Business (OFBiz) in 2009, we will focus on OFBiz ERP-related components.  Specifically, we will review our OFBiz development contributions to:

  1. Accounting
  2. Manufacturing and Facility Management

Accounting

OFBiz Accounting

The Accounting Manager (along with the A/R and A/P applications) in OFBiz have come a long way recently.  HotWax Media is proud of our recent contributions to OFBiz Accounting, which include the following:

  1. Added the generation of a PDF for the AcctgTrans and related AcctgTransEntry.
  2. Allow the user to void a payment.
  3. Fixed Accounting invoice section the InvoiceSubBar Menu.
  4. Added the ability to receive payments in A/R batches.
  5. Fixed the Commission Invoice to show correct price and quantity.
  6. Added a screen under Accounts Payable -> Invoice, which will search for a purchase invoice within a given date range.
  7. Added JUnit test cases for the Accounts Receivable -> Batch Payments.
  8. Added JUnit test cases for the Accounting -> Void Payment and Cancel Invoice services.
  9. Added JUnit test case for the Accounts Payable services which create payment groups for given invoices.
  10. Created a new screen under the Accounting -> Report tab to show comparative income statements.  Added the functionality for generating CSV and PDF from this same form.
  11. Added the ability to cancel a reconciliation.
  12. Created a new accounting screen to associate GL Accounts to “Cost Centers”.
  13. Added the ability to create sales tax entries on an invoice without an order.
  14. Added a Deposit/Withdraw facility for user to deposit/withdraw payments in the Bank Account.
  15. Added a deposit slip facility to the Bank Account/Fin Account so that user can make a logical group of Payments for bulk deposit/withdraw.
  16. Added the ability for the user to create a new payment and directly associate to the current Bank Account.
  17. Added the ability to add a facility to reconcile a Bank Account by creating a new GlReconciliation record and assign bank transaction to that reconciliation id.
  18. Fixed numerous issues in the reconciliation of Gl Account.
  19. Added a new field to the FinAccountTransaction entity – statusId, Created/Approved/Canceled.
  20. Added a new field to GlReconciliation entity – statusId, Created/Reconciled.
  21. In Accounts Payable -> Invoice -> Purchase Invoice – User can now issue a check payment for incoming invoices with a given bank account id.
  22. In Account Payable -> Invoice -> Commission Run – Added a search for outgoing invoices which require a commission payment and ability to easily create commission invoices from there.
  23. In Accounts Receivable -> Payment -> Batch Payment – Added a new feature by which user can create a group of payments that can be used for reconciliation.
  24. Added/Updated most Accounting reports – Inventory Valuation, Income Statements, Comparative Income Statement, Transaction Total, Gl Account Trail Balance, Monthly Trial Balance, Cost Center, etc.  Added ability to export each to CSV and PDF.
  25. Added consolidated balance of its ROLLUP party for the aforementioned reports.
  26. Prepared JUnit test cases to verify GL Account Balance updated after execution of various accounting business process.
  27. Added support Hindi UiLables for Accounting and Party and Common component.
  28. Improved Commission Invoice services and fixed issues in Commission Invoice screens

Manufacturing and Facility Management

OFBiz Manufacturing

HotWax Media also made some solid contributions to the OFBiz Manufacturing and Facility Management components in 2009.  These OFBiz development contributions include:

  1. Enhanced support for product costing algorithms: cost formula, manufacturing costs, standard and actual costs.
  2. Implemented ability to define and import content for production runs.
  3. Added a new fulfillment process by introducing Verify Pick and Weight Package Only screens.
  4. Pick User can now select options for preparing a group on the basis of shipping method, warehouse area and number of order items – the group of orders is created according to selected options.
  5. Added additional options on the picking screen to show detailed information for each order (shipping method, number of order items per order, etc).

What’s Next?

In the final chapter in our series (Part 4), I will discuss HotWax Media’s OFBiz development contributions in the area of integrations: shipping, multi channel sales and payment processors.

- 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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Posted in Apache OFBiz, Apache OFBiz Development, HotWax Media, OFBiz, OFBiz Development, OFBiz eCommerce | No Comments »

HotWax Media and OFBiz – 2009 OFBiz Contributions – Part 1

Monday, December 7th, 2009
For the first part of our series highlighting the contributions of HotWax Media to Apache’s Open For Business (OFBiz), we will focus on the following topics:
1. Rebranding the Project
2. Framework Enhancements
3. Platform Stability
– Reviewing Code
– Unit Testing
– Bug Fixing

Rebranding the Project

Following ApacheCon 2008, much of the focus was on steering the project towards greater usability and marketability to compete with the commercial eCommerce and ERP packages.  The thoughts were that we may be an open source project, but there are ample amounts of creative people around the project in order to bring another level of professionalism to the product being developed.
Working with project partner Brainfood for art direction and branding collaboration, HotWax Media began the process of updating the presence and branding around all of OFBiz – starting with the design and branding of the OFBiz home page.  Once the home page and brand identity were complete, HotWax Media proceeded to integrate this look and feel into other pieces of existing collateral (like the project Wiki) as well as developing new features to house the nightly releases and log files from the days OFBiz demo activity.
Framework Enhancements
While this does not represent all of the framework enhancements that we participated in over the past 11 months, this does give you some insight into the different areas where HotWax Media has made an impact:
1. Fixed UEL to support variable name modifiers for an object accessed via a key in a Map.
2. Added a utility method to common component, which can be used with any Type entity, to check if a type_1 is a sub type of type_2.
3. Secure URL’s fixes and encouraged the use of _index feature of freemarker templates.
4. Cleanup for component location (change from location=”org/ofbiz/……… to location=”component://party/script/org/ofbiz……)
5. Refactored widget rendering code to be template driven (easily extendable and customizable)
6. Created a new CSV output renderer for widgets.
7. Implemented database rollbacks for the testing framework allowing for repeated test runs without clearing and reseeding the database
8. Added XPath support to JUEL and MiniLang
9. Added support for child menu items to the Menu Widget
10. Added support for confirmation pop-ups in the Menu Widget
11. Improved performance of the EntityListIterator (which is used extensively throughout the system)
12. Added JSONServiceMultiEventHandler to enable AJAX form submission for multi-forms in OFBiz
13. Provide Hindi translations for multiple components
14. … etc …
Platform Stability – Reviewing Code, Unit Testing & Bug Fixing
So far in 2009, HotWax Media has contributed literally tens of thousands of hours to the Apache Open For Business project.  Out of work, over 50% of the time has been spent in reviewing other contributions, cleaning up the unit testing framework, adding additional tests for better code coverage, writing business level review documents to document processes and providing bug fixes for functionality that is not working properly at the time.
This contribution alone has made massive improvements to the stability of the code and we look forward to duplicating, if not increasing, our contribution in this area in 2010.
What’s Next?
In my next installment of this series, I will discuss our contributions in the area of eCommerce: the frontend, backend, inventory and catalog management, and the marketing of your goods.

Hotwax Media OFBiz

For the first part of our series highlighting the contributions of HotWax Media to Apache’s Open For Business (OFBiz) in 2009, we will focus on the following topics:

  1. Rebranding the Project
  2. Framework Enhancements
  3. Platform Stability - Reviewing Code, Unit Testing and Bug Fixing

Rebranding the Project

Following ApacheCon 2008, much of the focus was on steering the project towards greater usability and marketability to compete with the commercial eCommerce and ERP packages.  The thoughts were that we may be an open source project, but there are ample amounts of creative people around the project in order to bring another level of professionalism to the product being developed.

Working with project partner Brainfood for art direction and branding collaboration, HotWax Media began the process of updating the presence and branding around all of OFBiz – starting with the design and branding of the OFBiz home page.  Once the home page and brand identity were complete, HotWax Media proceeded to integrate this look and feel into other pieces of existing collateral (like the project Wiki) as well as developing new features to house the nightly releases and log files from the days OFBiz demo activity.

Framework Enhancements

While this does not represent all of the framework enhancements that we participated in over the past 11 months, this does give you some insight into the different areas where HotWax Media has made an impact:

  1. Fixed UEL to support variable name modifiers for an object accessed via a key in a Map.
  2. Added a utility method to common component (which can be used with any Type entity, to check if a type_1 is a sub type of type_2).
  3. Secure URL’s fixes and encouraged the use of _index feature of freemarker templates.
  4. Cleanup for component location (change from location=”org/ofbiz/……… to location=”component://party/script/org/ofbiz……).
  5. Refactored widget rendering code to be template driven (easily extendable and customizable).
  6. Created a new CSV output renderer for widgets.
  7. Implemented database rollbacks for the testing framework allowing for repeated test runs without clearing and reseeding the database.
  8. Added XPath support to JUEL and MiniLang.
  9. Added support for child menu items to the Menu Widget.
  10. Added support for confirmation pop-ups in the Menu Widget.
  11. Improved performance of the EntityListIterator (which is used extensively throughout the system).
  12. Added JSONServiceMultiEventHandler to enable AJAX form submission for multi-forms.
  13. Provide Hindi translations for multiple components.
  14. … etc …

Platform Stability – Reviewing Code, Unit Testing & Bug Fixing

So far in 2009, HotWax Media has contributed literally tens of thousands of hours to the Apache Open For Business project.  Out of this work, over 50% of the time has been spent in reviewing other contributions, cleaning up the unit testing framework, adding additional tests for better code coverage, writing business level review documents to document processes and providing bug fixes for functionality that is not working properly at the time.

This contribution alone has made massive improvements to the stability of the code and we look forward to duplicating, if not increasing, our contribution in this area in 2010.

What’s Next?

In my next installment of this series (Part 2), I will discuss our contributions in the area of eCommerce: the frontend, backend, inventory and catalog management, and the marketing of your goods.

- 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

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Apache OFBiz, Apache OFBiz Development, HotWax Media, OFBiz, OFBiz Development, OFBiz eCommerce | Comments Off

HotWax Media and OFBiz – Introduction

Monday, November 23rd, 2009

Over the course of the past year, the Apache Open for Business Project (OFBiz) has made amazing progress in a number of areas: from re-branding itself to compete with commercial ERP products to adding new integrations to increase the flexibility of the system, from providing new and improved theme support to the front and back-end applications to stabilizing the framework upon which all of these applications have been built, from welcoming much needed business users to expanding the number of committers in the project – it’s been a busy year. Needless to say, throughout all of it, HotWax Media has been right there contributing to the advancement of the project.

apache-open-business

This is the intro to a four-part series, where I will highlight the contributions and donations that have been made by HotWax Media to OFBiz, during 2009. The series breakdown looks like this:

1. The OFBiz Project – the framework, utilities, infrastructure, general applications and marketing of the project.

2. OFBiz Ecommerce – frontend, backend, order management, inventory and marketing of your goods.

3. OFBiz ERP – accounting, manufacturing, warehouses and facility management

4. OFBiz Integrations – payment processing, shipping, multi-channel sales and more.

Stay tuned!

- 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

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Apache OFBiz, Apache OFBiz Development, HotWax Media, OFBiz, OFBiz Development, OFBiz eCommerce | No Comments »