Open ERP Book (Guided Tour)

Guided Tour

Starting to discover Open ERP, using demonstration data supplied with the system, is a good way to familiarize yourself with the user interface. This guided tour provides you with an introduction to many of the available system features.

You’d be forgiven a flicker of apprehension when you first sit at your computer to connect to Open ERP, since ERP systems are renowned for their complexity and for the time it takes to learn how to use them. These are, after all, Enterprise Resource Planning systems, capable of managing most elements of global enterprises, so they should be complicated, shouldn’t they? But even if this is often the case for proprietary software, Open ERP is a bit of an exception in the class of management software.

Despite its comprehensiveness, Open ERP’s interface and workflow management facilities are quite simple and intuitive to use. For this reason Open ERP is one of the few software packages with reference customers in both very small businesses (typically requiring simplicity) and large accounts (typically requiring wide functional coverage).

A two-phase approach provides a good guide for your first steps with Open ERP:

1. Using a database containing demonstration data to get an overview of Open ERP’s functionality (described in this chapter, Guided Tour)

2. Setting up a clean database to configure and populate a limited system for yourself (described in the next chapter, Developing a real case).

To read this chapter effectively, make sure that you have access to an Open ERP server. The description in this chapter assumes that you’re using the Open ERP web client unless it states otherwise. The general functionality differs little from one client to the other.

Database creation

Use the technique outlined in Installation and Initial Setup to create a new database, openerp_ch02 . This database will contain the demonstration data provided with Open ERP and a large proportion of the core Open ERP functionality. You’ll need to know your super administrator password for this – or you’ll have to find somebody who does have it to create this seed database.

Start the database creation process from the Welcome page by clicking Databases and then completing the following fields on the Create new database form:

Super admin password : by default it’s admin , if you or your system administrator haven’t changed it,

New database name : openerp_ch02 ,

Load Demonstration data checkbox: checked ,

Default Language : English ,

Administrator password : admin (because it’s easiest to remember at this stage, but obviously completely insecure),

Confirm password : admin .

To connect to Open ERP

Since this is the first time you’ve connected to it you’ll have to go through the Setup wizard in steps:

1. Select a profile : select Minimal Profile and click Next.

2. At the Define Main Company step you should select your own Company Name and Currency, and address details on the first tab General Information; and add more details on the second tab Report Information including a logo, if you have one, that appears on reports. Click Next.

3. At the Summary page you can go back to change details if you need. Click the Install button.

4. Finally, at the Installation done page, click Start Configuration.

Configuration consists of a set of wizards that help you through options for the installed modules. Hardly anything is installed so this is a very simple process at the moment.

1. At the first screen click Continue to go into the first wizard. Choose View Mode : Simplified Interface and then click Set to save it.

2. Click Skip Step to step over the next wizard, which would enable you to add other users.

3. You’ve now reached the end of the configuration so click Continue to start using the system as the Administrator.

Once you’re displaying the main menu you’re able to see the following screen items, as shown in screenshot The Main Menu of the openerp_ch02 database:

the Preferences toolbar to the top right, showing the user name, links to the Home page, Preferences, About and Logout,

just below you’ll find information about the Request system,

links to the MAIN MENU and the SHORTCUTS,

information about copyright and the database you’re logged into at the bottom of the page,

the main contents of the window with by the menu toolbar to the left: links generally line up on the right but there are none to show at the moment.

(Pic) The Main Menu of the openerp_ch02 database

Two menus are available on the left:

Partners,

Administration.

Preferences toolbar

When you’re connected to Open ERP the Preferences toolbar indicates which user you’re connected as. So it should currently be showing Welcome Administrator (unless you logged in as another user and it’s reflecting the name of that user instead).

You’ll find a link to the Home page to its right. This takes you to either the dashboard or the available menus, depending on the user configuration. In the case of the openerp_ch02database so far the Home page is the Main Menu. But in general each user of the system is presented with a dashboard that’s designed to show performance indicators and urgent documents that are most useful to someone of the user’s position in the company. You’ll see how to assign dashboards to different users in a later chapter, Configuration & Administration.

Tip: Multi-nationals and time zones

If you have users in different countries, they can configure their own timezone. Timestamp displays are then adjusted by reference to the user’s own localization setting.

So if you have a team in India and a team in England, the times will automatically be converted. If an Indian employee sets her working hours from 9 to 6 that will be converted and saved in the server’s timezone. When the English users want to set up a meeting with an Indian user, the Indian user’s available time will be converted to English time.

The next element in the Toolbar is a link to Preferences. By clicking that link you reach a page where the current user can set their password, a timezone, a working language, and a signature:

The Password field gives the user the opportunity to change their own password. You should take steps (perhaps written policies) to prevent users making these too trivial.

The Language field enables the user’s working language to be changed. But first the system must be loaded with other languages for the user to be able to choose an alternative, which is described in the next subsection of this chapter. This is a mandatory field, although might initially be set as blank.

The Timezone setting indicates the user’s location to Open ERP. This can be different from that of the server. All of the dates in the system are converted to the user’s timezone automatically.

The Signature field gives the user a place for the signature attached to messages sent from within Open ERP.

The About link gives information about the development of the Open ERP software and various links to other information.

The Logout link enables you to logout and return to the original login page. You can then login to another database, or to the same database as another user. This page also gives you access to the super-administrator functions for managing databases on this server.

The Requests link sits just below this toolbar. It is only visible if you’re logged into a database. If your database is new it will say No request. You can click on that link to look at requests that have been sent to you at any time.

Installing a new language

Each user of the system can work in his or her own language. More than twenty languages are currently available besides English. Users select their working language using the Preferences link. You can also assign a language to a partner (customer or supplier), in which case all the documents sent to that partner will be automatically translated into that language.

Attention: More information about languages

The base version of Open ERP is translated into the following languages: English, German, Chinese, Spanish, Italian, Hungarian, Dutch, Portuguese, Romanian, Swedish and Czech.

But other languages are also available: Arabic, Afghan, Austrian, Bulgarian, Indonesian, Finnish, Thai, Turkish and Vietnamese..

As administrator you can install a new main working language into the system.

1. Select Administration in the Menu Toolbar and click Translations ‣ Load an Official Translation in the main menu window,

2. Select the language to install, French for example, and click on Start Installation,

When the message Installation done appears in the Language file loaded window, click OK to return to the menu. (Your system will actually need the French locale loaded to be able to do this, so you may not be successful here.)

To see the effects of this installation change the preferences of your user to change the working language (you may first need to ensure that you have explicitly selected English as your language, rather than keep the default, before you’re given the French option). The main menu is immediately translated in the selected language. If you’re using the GTK client you’ll first have to close the menu then open a new main menu to start seeing things in the new language.

Note: Navigating the menu

From this point in the book navigation from the main menu is written as a series of menu entries connected by the ‣ character. Instead of seeing “ Select Administration in the Menu toolbar then click Translations > Load an Official Translation ” you’ll just get “ use menu Administration ‣ Translations ‣ Load an Official Translation ”.

Requests as a mechanism for internal communication

Requests are a powerful communication mechanism between users of the system. They’re also used by Open ERP itself to send system messages to users.

They have distinct advantages over traditional emails:

requests are linked to other Open ERP documents,

an event’s history is attached to the request,

you can monitor events effectively from the messages they’ve sent.

Open ERP uses this mechanism to inform users about certain system events. For example if there’s a problem concerning the procurement of a product a request is sent by Open ERP to the production manager.

Send a request to get an understanding of its functionality:

1. Click on the Requests link that should currently be showing No Requests. This opens a window that lists all of your waiting requests.

2. Click New to create and send a new request.

3. Complete the subject of the request, such as How are things? then give a description of the enquiry in the field.

4. Click the Search button to the right of the To field and select Administrator in the window that opens (that’s the user that you’re already connected as).

5. You can then link this request to other system documents using the References field, which could, for example, be a partner or a quotation or a disputed invoice.

6. Click Send to send the request to the intended recipient – that’s yourself in this case. Then click MAIN MENU to return to the original screen.

(Pic) Creating a new request

To check your requests:

1. Click on the link to the right of the Requests label to open a list of your requests. (It’s possible that you’ll still see the statement No Requests because this information is updated periodically rather than instantly.) The list of requests then opens and you can see the requests you’ve been sent there.

2. Click the Edit icon, represented by a pencil, at the right hand end of the request line. That opens the request in edit mode.

3. You can then click the Reply button and make your response in the Request field that appears in place of the original message.

4. Click Send to save your response and send it to the original sender.

Note: Requests vs. email

The advantage of an Open ERP request compared with a set of emails about one thread of discussion is that a request contains all of the conversation in one place. You can easily monitor a whole discussion with the appropriate documents attached, and quickly review a list of incomplete discussions with the history within each request.

Look at the request and its history, then close it.

1. Click on the History tab in the Request form to see the original request and all of the responses. By clicking on each line you could get more information on each element.

2. Return to the first tab, Request and click End of Request to set it to closed. This then appears greyed out.

The request is no longer active. It’s not visible to searches and won’t appear in your list of waiting requests.

Tip: Trigger dates

You can send a request with a future date. This request won’t appear in the recipient’s waiting list until the indicated date. This mechanism is very useful for setting up alerts before an important event.

Configuring Users

The database you created contains minimal functionality but can be extended to include all of the potential functionality available to Open ERP. About the only functions actually available in this minimal database are Partners and Currencies – and these only because the definition of your main company required this. And because you chose to include demonstration data, both Partners and Currencies were installed with some samples.

Because you logged in as Administrator, you have all the access you need to configure users. Click Administration ‣ Users ‣ Users to display the list of users defined in the system. A second user, Demo User , is also present in the system as part of the demonstration data. Click the Demo User name to open a non-editable form on that user.

Click the Groups tab to see that the demo user is a member of only the Employee group, has no roles and is subject to no specialized rules. The admin user is different, as you can see if you follow the same sequence to review the its definition. It’s a member of the admin group, which gives it more advanced rights to configure new users.

Tip: Roles, Groups and Users

Users and groups provide the structure for specifying access rights to different documents. Their setup answers the question “Who has access to what?”

Roles are used in business processes for permitting or blocking certain steps in the workflow of a given document. For example you can assign the role of approving an invoice. Roles answer the question “Who should do what?”