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70 Figure 7.15: Search the Tasks which are ‘In Progress‘ with Group by Project and State 71 CHAPTER EIGHT HOW DOES IT APPLY TO YOUR BUSINESS? Now that you have discovered some of the many possibilities of Open ERP from a tour of the demon- stration database, you will develop a real case. An empty database provides the starting point for testing a classic workflow from product purchase to sale, completing your guided tour and your fa- miliarization with Open ERP. A database loaded with demonstration data is very useful for understanding Open ERP’s general capabilities. But to explore Open ERP through a lens of your own company’s needs you should start with an empty database. You will work in this chapter on a minimal database containing no demonstration data so that there is no confusion about what you created. And you will keep the database you have created so that you can build on it throughout the rest of this book if you want to. You will develop a real case through the following phases: 1. Specify a real case. 2. Describe the functional needs. 3. Configure the system with the essential modules. 4. Carry out the necessary data loading. 5. Test the system with your database. The case is deliberately extremely simple to provide you with a foundation for the more complex situations you will handle in reality. Throughout this chapter it is assumed that you are accessing Open ERP through its web interface. And it is also assumed as in the rest of this book that you are using the latest download of Open ERP version 6, the stable production version at the time of writing not the trunk version, which is likely to have new and potentially unstable features.

8.1 Business Example

Configure a system that enables you to: • buy products from a supplier, • stock the products in a warehouse, • sell these products to a customer. The system should support all aspects of invoicing, payments to suppliers and receipts from customers.

8.2 Basic Settings

For working out the business case you will have to model: 72 • the suppliers, • the customers, • some products, • inventory for despatch, • a purchase order, • a sale order, • invoices, • payments. To test the system you will need at least one supplier, one customer, one product, a warehouse, a minimal chart of accounts and a bank account.

8.3 Get your Database Up and Running with Demo Data

Use the technique outlined in Database Creation to create a new database, openerp_ch03 . This database will be free of data and contain the least possible amount of functionality as a starting point. You will need to know your super administrator password for this – or you will have to find somebody who does have it to create this seed database. You will not be able to use the openerp_ch1 or openerp_ch2 databases that you might have created so far in this book because they both contain demonstration data. Start the database creation process from the Welcome page by clicking Databases and then completing the follow- ing fields on the Create new database form, as shown in Creating a blank database : • Super admin password : by default it’s admin , if you or your system administrator have not changed it, • New database name : openerp_ch03 , • Load Demonstration data checkbox: not checked this step is very important, but catches out many people, • Default Language : English , • Administrator password : admin because it is easiest to remember at this stage, but obviously completely insecure, • Confirm password : admin . Figure 8.1: Creating a blank database Then click Create to create the database and move to the setup screen Setting up a blank database - first screen . Figure 8.2: Setting up a blank database - first screen 73 After a short delay you are connected to the new openerp_ch03 database as user adminwith the password you gave it. You will have to go through the Setup wizard in steps: When you click on the button Skip Configuration Wizard, you can have the following screen. Then you can start working with this minimal database. Figure 8.3: Starting the minimal database If you click on the Start Configuration button then OpenERP helps you to install various applications with different functionality through the following wizard. Figure 8.4: Configuring a database with other applications and functionality when you select Extended view option

8.4 Fit your Needs

All of the functional needs are provided by core modules from Open ERP. You need to just decide which function- ality you want in your system. Click on the Check Box of corresponding application in the wizard Configuration wizard used to install the required applications when you select the Simplified view option . For the instance, we need following application. • product management the product module, • inventory control the stock module, • accounting and finance the account module, • purchase management the purchase module, • sales management the sale module.