OFBiz track @ Apachecon EU 2014 in Budapest, Hungary Nov 17th - Nov 19th 2014

The OFBiz track at the Apachecon EU 2014 event in Budapest, Hungary spreads across all aspects of OFBiz: business, development and operations and the speakers are from various countries within the European market space. Summary abstracts of the presentations were as follows:

Abstract Summary: What Business Users See and Want

Every year companies spend large amounts of money looking for and evaluating an ERP to install for their business.The Apache Open For Business (OFBiz) codebase may be robust and the data model impeccable but it is the Business End Users and not necessarily the Technical teams that choose what will be implemented. OFBiz is a free open source ERP which is good value budget-wise - so when the end users come looking - what do they see? Is it what they want or expect?

In this presentation Sharan Foga will take a look at OFBiz through the eyes of the business end users and discuss the key things they see as most important when evaluating an ERP.

Abstract Summary: Brewing with Apache OFBiz - A Case Study

Apache OFBiz is an integrated suite of business applications for Small and Medium Enterprises, enabling uses in domains like CRM, Supply Chain Management, Manufacturing Management, Inventory and Warehouse Management, Project Management and Accounting. As such Apache OFBiz can be deployed in companies active in any area of the manufacturing sector, e.g. assembly, mining, food & beverages,.

Pierre will present a case study of the implementation of Apache OFBiz in a small European brewery and will highlight the challenges, opportunities and business aspects.

Abstract Summary: Introduction to a Groovy Based DSL for Apache OFBiz

Apache OFBiz is a framework and a suite of applications for the automation of enterprise tasks (e.g. ERP, CRM, MRP, E-Commerce). Although usable out of the box, OFBiz often requires the customization of some of its components for managing specific business processes. In order to rapidly and effectively integrate new functionality, developers need a programming environment that allows to focus on the business logic without being distracted by low level coding details.

Up to now, the best practice has been to use Minilang, an xml based Domain Specific Language (DSL) developed by the OFBiz community, together with plain Java and Groovy, when more flexibility is needed. In this presentation, Jacopo Cappellato will outline the limitations of the current approach and will propose a new Groovy based DSL that could become the only language you'll need to know for the customization of OFBiz.

Abstract Summary: GUI Unit Test for Apache OFBiz

Apache OFBiz is an ERP and also a technical and functional framework. It allows you build strong and adaptable solutions for managing a Company. Currently there are a lot of Junit tests for internal business processes but there are no tests for user interfaces, because most of time the standard GUI is modified during the customer project implementation. This presentation will show how to setup a GUI unit test using Selenium and Webdriver to test a the Portal page with portlets, and how to integrate tests into a continuous integration environment - Jenkins (ex Hudson)

With standardized tests like these, it's possible, in a customer project to deploy a complete test coverage to guarantee quality and scalability.

Abstract Summary: Apache OFBiz Infra Task Automation For Deployment And Hosting

The Apache OFBiz community is mainly composed of Service Companies. For each client project, it is necessary to use multiple environments  (e.g: Sand Box - Integration - Pre-production - Production). This presentation gives a summary feedback of our best practices in the OFBiz customization methodology. It goes through each step of our customer project management process: Initialization, Realization, User Test, Production Environment Upgrade.

In this presentation we will discuss the main steps and rules for an OFBiz client project and ways to make sure it is a reliable and smooth deployment ;-)

Abstract Summary: Introduction To A Recommender System For Apache OFBiz

Recommender Systems are engines aimed at predicting users preferences based, e.g., on knowledge about past behaviors of similar users. Recommender Systems have become very popular in the recent years, e.g., to suggest products to buy, articles to read or music to listen. One of the main advantages of Recommendations is that they allow users to discover items that a simple search might not show up. This is one of the reasons why Recommendation engines have become a desirable, if not essential, component of commercial platforms.

In this presentation, Anahita Goljahani will discuss the design of a Recommender System for Apache OFBiz (http://ofbiz.apache.org/), the popular solution for the automation of business applications (ERP, CRM, MRP, E-Commerce, etc.).

The schedule was: