- The document provides guidance on customizing OpenERP (now Odoo) to meet customer needs in a cost-effective way without extensive custom development. - It outlines approaches taken for three example cases, emphasizing simple configurations over complex customizations and focusing initially on core needs before adding extra features. - Key recommendations include using basic modules, view customizations, automation through actions and rules, and integrating Google Docs/Sheets instead of custom reporting where possible. The results were happy customers who took on additional projects.

1. Quickstart
How to customize OpenERP
for out-of-the-box approaches
Fré d é r i c G IL S O N
Funct iona l Co nsulta nt
O p e n Day s – J u l y 5 t h 2 0 1 3

2. 2
Quickstart
It's all about mindset!

3. 3
Quickstart
What do I want to reach?
● Reduce the time spent behind the screen
Gain of productivity: able to do other activities within
the company
● Less clicks to find the info → Faster response
time

4. 4
Case 1: Water machines

5. 5
Case 1: Water machines
A company of +- 5 people, selling water machines for
restaurants. They sell around 100 machines a year.
Initial Customer demand:
 Follow the prospection and gather all the information about customers;
 Selling water machines and maintenance contracts being invoiced monthly;
 Some machine are in stock, some are rent by customers, others are being tested
by customers or under repair at the workplace;
 Manage the stock of machines with full traceability on serial numbers and
maintenance operations (with complex sheet to fill in) on each machine.

6. 6
Case 1: CRM
● How to manage the prospection and the
contacts management?
● OpenERP CRM:
● Leads created at the external call center (log calls)
● Custom Opportunities' stages:
New → Test machined installed → Negotiation → Won or Lost
● Create offers from opportunities
● Agenda (meetings)

7. 7
Case 1: Invoicing
● How to manage the selling/invoicing process?
● Contracts Management:
● Automated recurring invoicing once a month
● Renewal date
● Full invoicing history
● Could be used later to compare costs & revenues
● First step:invoice amounts manually added at the contracts
creation (no services encoded so far)

8. 8
Case 1: Traceability
● How to manage the machines moves &
traceability?
● What about the Task Kanban view?
● Edit the stages (In stock, at customer, at workplace, etc)
● Each machine is a task
● Can be associated to a customer and to a contract
● The serial number is the task name
● Simple process: no value added in using Stock, Serial Numbers,
Repair, etc

9. 9
Case 1: Maintenance
● How to keep track of maintenance operations?
● Complex view customization?
NO!
● Google Docs integration!

10. 10
Case 1: Do Not
Do Not:
●
Do not offer custom developments → It's a max 5 users company, their “initial”
budget is max 10k€. Furthermore, there won't be any value added in that case!
●
Do not deploy a server on premise: 3k€ extra for hardware and maintenance,
complexities for email gateway/servers, updates, migrations, etc.
●
Do not propose complex modules:
e.g. Stock Management with serial numbers, full traceability and Repair
module → Too complex and no value added for 100 machines/year
●
Do not try to answer all their need as it, but find an alternative solution for all
their need (i.e. no automatic accounting synchronization as a first step).
●
Do not try to automate everything, it's not a problem if some operations
remains manual (e.g. produce the monthly invoice with information coming from the
maintenance) → today all these operations are manual.

11. 11
Case 1: Results
● Very happy customer: 10k€ project including OpenERP
Enterprise, training and support
● Customer in production and regurlary buys extra
services (1 or 2 days) for new demands

12. 12
Case 2: Service Company
The customer:
Service company with 20 users
Initial Customer demand:
 Traditional service company: timesheets, contracts, sales,
invoices, projects
 Advanced reporting needs: sales commissions, forecasts of
sales, budgets, etc.
 Lots of interrests in extra modules: holidays management,
 Accounting need to be covered

13. 13
Case 2: Do Not
 Do not propose custom developments for
reporting purposes: risks of exploding the project
budget for just 7 reports
 Do no not answer all needs in one big phase: risks
of having a blocking point in one
application/department
 Do not start analyzing customer need in all area
(hr, management, sales, invoicing, ...)
 Do not cover accounting unless you are sure the
accountant is ready for this.

14. 14
Case 2: What we did
How did we answered customer need:
 All reporting need are covered by Google Spreadsheet integration, no
custom devs. (http://bit.ly/16NxQhs)
 Initially, the customer did not want a Google integration (security issues) but
we convinced him. → what do you prefer? 15k€ of custom devs vs 2k€ of
Google Spreadsheet integration
 Instead of a GAP analysis of all it's need (sales, hr, accounting, ...):
 A good demonstration to convince him
 An offer of 5 days to cover the base operations: sales, timesheet, invoicing, reporting
 All extra features (holidays management, analytic accounting,...) not
included in the offer to limit risk of complex need to handle
 No accounting integration for now on, to limit risk of resistance to
change from the accountant. Will be discussed later.

15. 15
Case 2: Results
● Very happy customer, 8k€ project
including training, support
 Customer already asked 5k€ of extra
features to deploy

16. 16
Case 3: Expertise Company
Let's watch a short video...

17. 17
Case 3: Expertise Company
● The customer:
● 8 employees managing expert reports and about 20 external
experts
● Initial customer demand:
●
Manage the service process:
● Entering a new mission asked from an insurance
company (lots of files attached)
● Find the right expert according to the demand
● Subcontract the job to the expert
● Follow-up
● Invoice the insurance
● With full traceability on all operations and automated
emails

18. 18
Case 3: Do Not
● Do not go for specific developments:
The customer got a quote from an OpenERP partner for 40k€,
mostly in specific developments (limited training & support)
The customer budget was 15k€
● Do not be afraid of high customizations in terms
of views and automated actions
● Do not start doing custom workflows (too
complex and will end up in custom
developments)

19. 19
Case 3: What we did
How did we answered customer need:
● Process managed by the Issues Kanban view in Project with
custom columns: Initial Demand, Find Expert, Case Filed, etc
● About 20 fields added in the Issues form view:
● Broker, insured, etc
● Number of visits, description of the case, etc
● High usage of “base action rules” to:
● Automate emails for each step of the process
● Automate transitions from one column to another
● Why issues? To invoice from timesheets in a second step
● Traceability / Documents: chatter feature of v7

20. 20
Automated actions
Trigger server actions:
●
Assign responsibles / followers
●
Send emails
●
Change field values
●
Etc.

21. 21
Summary
What do I want to reach?
● Reduce the time spent behind the screen
Gain of productivity: able to do other activities within
the company
● Less clicks to find the info → Faster response
time

22. 22
Case 3: Results
● Very happy customer, 15k€ project including
training, support
● Customer already asked 10k€ of extra
features to deploy (+help in import)

23. 23
Summary
● First step:
● OpenOffice Report Designer
● View customization
● Google Docs integration
● YOUR CREATIVITY... → Try to stick to the most simple
modules!
● Second step:
● More complicated modules
● Automated actions
● Google Spreadsheet synchronization
● Webkit for more elabored reports

24. 24
And now...
It's you to play!
Thank you!