Password Validation in Odoo

Password Validation in Odoo

Password Validation in Odoo

Any system having a user login and password must have some method.

odoo to validate the authentication and accordingly grant access. Alternately it is very important to have a strong password in place to make this authentication secure. The use of strong passwords can many times avoid or even prevent an attack on the system and thus ensure the security of sensitive data. The Password Validation Module helps odoo systems to create strong passwords for all their users. The Module doesn’t accept any user with a weak password, Consequently securing your systems from invaders.

Features of the Password Validation Module:

1. It will not allow a weak password.

2. The module imposes certain common validation rules to ensure the strength of the password.Here is a set of rules that the user has to adhere to :

  • The password must be combinations of minimum of 8 characters.

  • Password must have at least one digit, one Uppercase ,and one Lowercase character.

  • Also, password must have one special character. Supported special characters are: !@#$%&*,.^_`~.

  • Users must avoid using any information which is obvious and associated with the user or the account.

  • Avoid using Default passwords.

3. The module will assist the user in setting their passwords by giving recommendations to handle their passwords.

4. The module may also blacklist a few passwords and mark them as weak passwords.

Methods of changing passwords in Odoo?

There are two ways in which a user can change his/her password namely:

  • From the top right menu User Name > Preference menu, or

  • Using the“Reset Password” link in the Login Form.

Process of changing your password in odoo

Here is the demonstration of how the user can change the password along with screenshots attached.

  1. When the user changes the password from the “Reset Password” link:

Any user can change the password by clicking on the “Reset Password” link. This link appears in the Odoo Login form.

Step1:

odoo1Click on the “Reset Password” link

Step2:

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Reset your password

Step3:

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2. When the user changes the password from the “Preference” menu:

There is one more way to change the password. The user will click on the top right USER_NAME > PREFERENCE menu

Step1:

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Change the password from the “Preference” menu

Step2:

Set your new password

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Since Password Validation Module is a generic module and is not specifically targeted to any industry. Any Odoo project can make use of this module and implement it.

Feel free to get in touch with us or email us at sales@bistasolutions.com for more insights on the module. 

This module is now available on Odoo Apps to download the module and begin working with it click on this link on the link below.

https://apps.odoo.com/apps/modules/9.0/bista_password_validation/

Odoo Commission Tracker for Field Employees

Commission Tracker for Field Employees

Odoo Commission Tracker | Odoo Sales People Commission Tracker.

Odoo Commission Tracker is an Excellent Feature developed by Bista Solutions for one of our US Clients to track the Daily Sales Performance of the Employees and also their previous Sales Performances as well.

Traditionally, Field Employees didn’t have any source to Track their Performances on a Daily basis as well as where they stand on LeaderBoard Rankings based on their Performances, and this led to confusion and indirectly less Motivation in their Point of View.

Odoo Commission tracker is a Performance Booster to view their Performances ttoDate within fa ew seconds. Tracking becomes a lot easier to them wconcerningtheir Performances instead of time and again checking their Performances at Reporting Level.

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Given an Example of an Organizational Hierarchy for the Sales Department.

Here’s aaHierarchical Diagram which can pepresent Sales Department in a Telecom Business.

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Below Design represents CT for the Job Position of Retail Sales Associate(RSA) which stands at the bottom of an Organization but does the most Important Job of all.

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This shows the Performance of the RSA on different Parameters based on the Plans offered by the Telecom Giant and how much Commission/Payout he is making out from Month to date.

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Features:-

  • CT provides excellent Advantages over Other Commission Apps when it comes to its Dynamic Nature and automatic adjustment to different Hierarchies within an Organization.

  • CT is tynamic based on the Person who is Logged into Sthe ystem and his Position in the Company accordingly specific design of CT is assigned to him and he can run CCTsof himself and the Employees falling under his Position in the Company.

  • CT Features assembles the Design as well as Calculation Logic as per the Payout structure of an Organization which can suit any Organization from Retail to Telecom Business.

  • The only Configuration from a System Admin point of view one has to do is to set up the Commission Structure for all of its Employees based on either htheirJob Position or his Department or his Role in an Organization and rest leave it up to CT to handle.

  • Commission Structure can be set up Monthly or Quarterly depending upon how an Organization plans its P & L calculation.

  • CT can be run Monthly or Quarterly to check the Performance of an Employee, Store,Market, or Region.

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Different Parameters can be considered in a CT based on the types of Business and its Products or Services which can IIncorporateeasily in a single Form.

The screenshot below shows you an example of Commission Parameters for a Telecom Business and their Payout Structure for a Retail Store Manager(RSM) and how simple it is to set the commission structure for one of the parameters(Revenue Goal Attainment) of RSM Payouts.

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With a Simple Configuration as designed above  Sales/Commissions Department Head can easily set up targets for different Job Positions within his Department in ma atter of Minutes and ends up setting up the Entire Payout Structure for the Field Employees within half an hour either on Monthly Basis or Quarterly Basis.Setting u p this formula not only sets up the structure but also sets up the Design for this parameter in the Commission Tracker see the screenshots below.

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The result is as see you below for an Insurance Parameter for Phones in commercial terms “JUMP”.

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JUMP Attachment specifies Sales Reps Percentage on Selling insurance on the purchase of Phones. The yellow arrow suggests the performance of a Store as well as The tore Manager on selling insurance Phones and their Payouts.

With a single click of the ba button, whether it’s a Sales Rep or Store Manager or Market Manager or Region Director can see their Payouts for the current Month or months Months with the Live Operational Data as the entries are going on in the store and this is just with a single Button button per the image showcased in the next page.

See the screen below, this is what an employee has to do to view his Commission for the specified month and his total performance appears before him within a matter of seconds as shown in the above screenshots.

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Conclusion:-

Normally we search for apps that look far fancier but end up slowing down the system to a considerable extent with a single process, in current Business world TIME is what matters especially for Sales Department since these guys are mostly on the field and need more time to interact with Possible Opportunities rather than spending time on Software applications.

Hence, Bista’s CT provides an easy and better platform to check Sales Performances at any given point ointime without waiting for Hefty Reports to load and show their Performances.

Pitfalls of using custom code for cloud based system and their solutions

Pitfalls of using custom code for cloud based system and their solutions

Cloud-based software is particularly built to gain interest of a wide range of market. For individuals and small scale companies, utilizing generic cloud-based software is often acceptable, but a larger business will need custom software development to alter the functionality according to their own unique needs and requirements.

pitfull-of-using-custom-code-bista-solutions

While integrating cloud-based software on SaaS platform, everything is provided other than the users and the corresponding data. The vendor provides the application code and the developer has restricted access to modify and write consistent code. This is specifically not an appropriate choice for deploying custom software development, as the vendor provides the complete cloud-based software.

For cloud-based software:

  1. Advantage: The complete cloud-based software is provided by the vendor except the users and the corresponding data.

  2. Disadvantage: You have restricted control over the cloud-based application and it is frequently arduous to incorporate external workflows into the cloud-based system.

In true cloud SaaS software, the vendor does not create custom cloud code for customer requirements. With every customization, they are integrating something known and keeping consistent code on their side to whatever the customer possesses.

If the vendor has custom cloud code, then they are integrating cloud-based software and that is a custom integration which then leads to all sorts of problems and risks.

There are a few guidelines explained below that will help you in optimizing your custom cloud code so that you can avoid the risks:

  1. Prevent excessive Server API calls

  2. Utilizing Static Variable does not make any difference

  3. Closely observe Metering Data

  4. Create consistent code

  5. Create more generic custom cloud functions

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The classifying line is the cloud code. True cloud-based software is often written on a single line code. Customers can configure the cloud-based software as per their needs, but they can’t customize the cloud code for their enterprises or to install it on their local servers. Consistent code makes monitoring and maintenance trouble-free and lets the enterprise concentrate on innovation. Vendor should design for a highly efficient, secure and scalable cloud functions and cloud code.

If you cannot keep your cloud code consistent and generic, you lose all the productivity, scalability and cost benefit of the single line code. Also, the integration turns out to be considerably more time consuming, arduous and costly.

A scalable custom software development:

The cloud-based software with SaaS model only works when you can sell out the same consistent code to a large number of customers. Cloud-based software service companies are not charging higher amount of fees. They are investing a lot of time and money in research and development. But for the business to be serviceable, they have to sell out the cloud code repeatedly. If you start building code that is only used by a single customer, you will ruin your business and economic model.

This is what makes integrating cloud-based software more time taking, expensive, arduous and prone to risks. But, if you are working with a true cloud solution; integrating cloud-based software should not be a big trouble. So if you are buying cloud based software, you should ascertain if it is true cloud-based software. 

Feel free to get in touch with us through sales@bistasolutions.com for more insights. And Write to tell us what you think about this blog at feedback@bistasolutions.com

 

Getting The Most From Workflow Management System

Workflow Management System

W – workflows can be a simple sequence of tasks or activities or a complicated collection of one or more processes.

M – Management can be the process of dealing with or controlling things, work, or people.

S – System can be a framework or tool which can help manage workflow.

Together Workflow Management System (WMS) provides infrastructure monitoring and automates a defined sequence of tasks, arranged as a workflow. Workflow Management System helps to reduce repetitive tasks and automates manual work, which improves both performance and efficiency. So it is very important to use best practices to get the most out of the workflow management system.

Following are a few practices that should be followed in the workflow management system:

1. Create a sweet and simple workflow

A great Workflow Management System lets you think in simple linear loops and does all the complex stuff in the background. Your workflow diagram should be neat and simple enough to understand, which will help simplify the work. One can achieve this by understanding and placing tasks one after the other splitting them according to the team who will be working on them. Give proper task name, process or workflow name, labeling whenever and wherever needed.

2. User-friendly form design

When you design a form, you want to make sure all of your hard work pays so that someone instantly knows how to fill it out the moment they see it. WMS provides Custom Form Designers which allows you to customize forms. As we can customize forms according to the business need, but the form should be designed considering the user’s perspective, it should be user-friendly. Put placeholders, give hints, form elements should be well spaced, the form should be compact, avoid more clicks, etc.

3. Pre-filled form fields

Pre-filled forms may not sound like a big deal, but it is one of the most important features workflow management systems offers. Once a form is filled, it shouldn’t go back to doing it again. Once data is entered, it can populate in multiple forms, reducing duplication of effort and helping keep error rates down. Your workflow system should be a Business Intelligence System, consider the HR process of resource allocation, resources are employees of the company, and their details are stored in some application. So while working on resource allocation HR might require employee details, but if the employee’s details are available they should be pre-filled in the form rather than asking HR to fill it.

4. Managing groups, users, departments, and roles

In a workflow or process, users are the key players who will drive the process and will be working on the tasks. WMS gives freedom to create users, groups, departments, and roles, but just creating them does not end the work there. It is very important to manage users, groups, departments, and roles and assign them properly according to tasks.

5. Document management

Most businesses have piles of paperwork involved with day-to-day operations. Many documents move from one department to another or from one user to another. There are many chances of loss of documents in between. WMS facilitates editing, producing, tracking, storing, and managing documents in digital format.

6. Choose the proper routing

Not all steps can be sequential, there can be many other scenarios evaluating conditions to move to the next step or move to multiple steps parallelly. Take Customer Relationship Management (CRM) as an example. It usually needs to follow up with multiple customers, but instead of coming up with different workflows for each customer, you can create one workflow and choose the customer to whom you want to contact or follow up with. Choosing a proper routing helps reduces time and avoid redundant work, and does decision-making on its own once the condition is defined.

7. Send emails and notifications

It’s a human tendency to forget things, people might forget to come to the workflow management systems. So it becomes important to remind them to come back. An effective Workflow Management System provides features for sending emails and notifications. If emails and notifications are sent on time, users will not have to wait for tasks to come to him/her, and the WMS also confirms the completion of tasks or work that has been performed.

8. Role-Based Access

Not everyone should be able to see everything. There are a few workflows that may comprise sensitive information that is not intended to be shared with everyone in the process. Based on the roles each one is assigned to, the Workflow Management System allows you to customize what each user can see and edit.

9. Reporting

In a company that is growing day by day, it is very necessary to know the amount of work completed in a period, user efficiency, and performance. WMS can generate reports on who is doing what, how much time it took to complete the particular task, what workflow participants are still waiting on, and many other reports. Reporting helps to understand and analyze where the bottlenecks are and where to focus your attention.

10. Task Automation

Last but not least one of the greatest benefits of workflow management software is being able to automate repetitive processes. It is also known as a workflow automation system. While developing workflow one should recognize which tasks can be manual and which tasks can be automated. Automation in the workflow can be: most of the decisions are taken by the WMS system without human intervention, sending an email automatically, starting a task, or moving a task from one step to another. This helps reduce labor costs and increase productivity.

We hope the above Best Practices of Workflow Management Systems help to increase the productivity of your business. Feel free to get in touch with us or email us at sales@bistasolutions.comto get an in-person demo.

What’s new with Process Maker 3.0.1.8 Community Edition

ProcessMaker 3.0.1.8 New Features

Processmaker is an open-source web-based Business Process Management (BPMN-3) Application. This is cost-effective, easy to use(it has evolved assisting ample of ), and can assist many organizations(irrespective of their sizes), any size of designing, automating, and deploying business processes or workflows of various kinds for decision making. It is simple, handy, manageable, and coordinates workflow throughout the organization – including user groups & departments. Processmaker is workflow software that can also interact with other applications and systems such as ERP, business intelligence, CRM like Suite CRM, and Document Management.

Now let’s understand what’s new with ProcessMaker version 3.0.1.8 :

The latest version i.e. 3.0.1.8 is available in 18 languages and supports BPMN 2.0.BPMN ( Business Process Modeling Notation) is very similar to the concept of flowcharting that has been around since the 1980s. Like flowcharting, BPMN modeling has the aim of allowing a person to map the workflow in such a way that it could be understood easily by users. BPMN is designed to facilitate communication along with an understanding of business processes. The graphical notation(‘N’) consists of designated symbols that represent action, flow, or process behaviors. Visual symbols are standard after OMG(Stands for Object Management Group) released the first version of the BPMN 2.0 specification in May 2004. BPMN is not software, but its language used to facilitate communication developed by the OMG as a notation standard that can be understood easily by the Business analysts, Technical developers, and project managers. ( Working System Flow )

process

Coming to processmaker, many business professionals are comfortable with using BPMN 2.0 to visualize business workflows, but added advantage of BPMN 2.0 is that the people who write code to automate processes understand BPMN 2.0 too. Developing workflows is a process of capturing all relevant information that goes into the process, who is involved, what they are responsible for, and how the tasks are handed off, which tasks are manual and which are automated. Ideally, the first stage in business process modeling of workflow is the gathering of relevant information. And next, the process and workflow are modeled. At last, the new workflow is tested, implemented, monitored, and modified as necessary. ( Below is a simple Workflow Design )

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In reference to the diagram above, all elements that are used for design purposes fall under, the Descriptive Modeling Subclass to name a few – Swimlanes, pools, and the black box pool. Where the pool is the graphical representation of a participant in a collaboration. A pool can also act as a “swimlane” and graphical container which partitions a set of activities from other pools usually in the context of B2B situations. A pool may or may not have internal details, if it does have then it will be in the form of the Process that will be executed. A lane is a sub-partition within a process or a pool and it extends the length of the process, either vertically or horizontally. Lanes are used to organize and categorize activities.

The diagrams rendered under BPMN 2.0 are similar to those created under older versions, but BPMN 2.0 offers a number of new elements as well, including:

  • Multiple parallel events

  • Escalation events

  • Different task types (service, send, receive, etc.)

  • Global activities

  • Sequential multiple instances of tasks and associated subtasks

  • Event-based instantiating gateways

  • Event-based sub-processes

  • New types of data objects (data input, output, message, collection, etc.)

Shapes and symbols that were used under earlier versions of BPMN are still used under BPMN 2.0. One major change is that BPMN 2.0 adopts the XML interchange format, which makes it easier to turn a model and its notation into an automated, executable process. That means that workflow software vendors using BPMN can more easily take BPMN 2.0 input and automate it.

Some of the Key features of Processmaker 3.0.1.8 from our perspective are as follows:

  • Improved HTML5 and Multi-column design that supports on-the-fly responsive design and added external libraries to check compatibility with mobile, desktop, and tablet views.

  • Key improvements are made in the following things

  • New and modified PMFuntions to reduce the code complexity.

  • Improvisation of executeQuery which restricts access to the core tables of Processmaker and preserves Data Integrity.

  • It also addresses security issues, say for example it prohibits the use of multiple instances of browsers by the same user in Processmaker.

  • Selective Exporting/Importing of process objects like Triggers, Input/Output Documents, Variables, Dynaforms, DB connections, and so on.

  • It permits strictly defining Process level variables that help to reduce confusion about the same variable not being created in the same process.

  • It allows you to seamlessly connect to third-party applications with the help of RESTful API over multiple languages e.g. Ruby, iOS, Android, JAVA, and python.

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Front End Changes :

  • The drag-and-drop layout of gateways, activities, and events.

  • Easy to move, resize and label all process elements.

  • Powerful OAuth2.0 and REST API for integration with Other Applications.

  • Pools for multiple processes in a project.

  • User Portal and Management with creating Different types of roles.

  • Message types for Inter-Process communications.

  • Import/export of processes in the BPMN 2.0 format. ( JSON ).

  • Auto Responsive forms that adjust for the desktop, tablet & smartphone.

  • Output Document Builder is used to create invoices contracts, letters, electronic receipts, confirmations, or any other type of printable Document.

  • Compatibility with desktops, tablets, and mobile devices

  • Dynaforms Multilanguage support

  • Extensive Dynaforms with panels.

Feel free to get in touch with us or email us at sales@bistasolutions.com for more insights.

5 Ways to Secure Your Small Business and Prevent Data Breach

5 Ways to Secure Your Small Business and Prevent Data Breach

Electronic world Data breaches

When a person’s confidential information like name and address details, Mail IDs, Social Security number, driving license number, or any credit or debit card details — is put at risk either electronically or on paper. In today’s Electronic world Data breaches can take place in many ways which include activities like hacking, an introduction of malware or spyware, skimming, an insider breaching the data, or even physically losing a payment card or a device like a computer, laptop, or CD.

Often Targets for Hackers:

Small businesses especially those that use open-source tools and platforms for their functioning are often the target of hackers; this could mean a loss of private company plans, designs, and forecasts for your future. Small businesses usually store their private data on their servers which makes them popular targets for hackers. Breaches to the server data can lead to identity theft. Among the most common techniques that hackers use to collect data are phishing attacks. Such fraudulent practices induce people to reveal their details like credit card details via email messages and quote their identity to belong to a reputed company but in reality, they are a hoax. The emails can even appear to come from someone within your organization sometimes. These emails contain links to malicious websites or they are spyware that unknowingly sneaks into your data. Users must recognize these phishing scams to keep the network safe. Keep private company and employee information under lock and key, and educate your employees on the dangers of phishing emails. Here are 10 ways you can avoid the breach of sensitive Data to a great extent:

1. Secure Beyond Passwords:

You must secure all the sensitive data of your Organization by using strong passwords and keep changing these passwords regularly. To increase the level of security of your business data always prefer to have a multi-level authentication procedure such as OTP(One Time Password), Finger Print Recognition, and so on for every online account of your organization. These authentication passwords should be unique only to you. In addition, you can also have the system return to the login screen after five minutes of inactivity.

2. Use Best Business Security software:

Most small business organization secure their sensitive data by using anti-virus/anti-spyware software, but they usually forget or neglect to do is updating this software and using the latest versions of software. The organization must also take care of disaster recovery software, and anti-malware software and also make it a point to utilize the firewalls for the various web application. Some example small business protection suites include: Symantec’s small business protection, McAfee Complete Endpoint Protection, Keeper enterprise security service, Endpoint Protector, Avast for Business Software, AVG Internet Security Business Edition Software, and so on. Employees must also ensure they download any software from authenticated sites only as this may lead to an introduction of malware in disguise.

3. Encrypt Data:

You must ensure all your transaction over the web is encrypted via SSL. The real meaning of encryption is achieved only when the entire data of an organization is encrypted this includes encryption of Email(when sensitive data is being transmitted), Encryption of data in circulation, or encryption of data that is already stored(at rest), encryption of the whole eCommerce platforms that you make use of. Encryption of the that will keep the data safe even in the case of a data breach.

4. Do Some Security Checks Before Employing :

Before you employ a new employee into your organization do have a check with his previous employer and his co-employees to check his integrity and credibility and take efforts to verify that the employee has no criminal records in the history and is reliable enough.

5. Isolate/Segregate Your Data :

Keep your sensitive data separated from the rest of the organizational data and if possible on a different network altogether. Keep this data in a minimum number of computers as the lesser the number of copies of data the safer it is. If at all you file your data in rooms then lock these rooms or password protect these rooms and enable access to these rooms only to trusted employees of the company.

Conclusion:

  • Educate your employees to be careful about phishing emails and not to fall prey to fraud activities that demand revealing the sensitive data of the organization.

  • Ensure multi-layer Authentication of passwords of all online transactions.

  • Stop the circulation of any Unencrypted data in your organization.

  • You can also partner with your bank to prevent any unauthorized transactions.

  • Keep your financial activities and other social media and emailing activities on two different dedicated machines.

  • Keep changing your passwords and security questions related to them after every 40 to 60 days.

  • It’s important to remember that no business is “too small” for a hacker–all businesses are vulnerable.

We hope these tips help your secure your data from Hackers. Feel free to get in touch with us at sales@bistasolutions.com.

Important Things to Consider When Opening an eCommerce Store

Introduction

We know that online shopping is picking up the pace in a big way globally, it is changing the retail scenario totally. Even now there are so many new e-commerce ventures, who already have the huge customer base and they are not even 5 years old.

Things to consider before starting an ecommerce business

  • Identify a perfect name for your business

The first thing that will populate the customers attention in any e commerce venture is its fascinating domain name. Now the norms say that the name should be short, recallable and easily spell-able without any mistake.

  • Building your online ecommerce store

After finalizing a good name for your ecommerce business next thing is to find a developer for your ecommerce store. For better features and single point solution for everything you can use any good e-commerce platforms like Magento, Woocommerce, etc or you can hire a web design agency .

  • Registering for an ecommerce company

Registering a e-commerce company is not very different from registering a regular companies. It does not require any unique registrations or licence. It is just like any trading or retailing firm, you just have to get your firm registered.For getting a payment gateway and invoicing, business registration is required. It’s not compulsory to have a firm registered for online business. There are other alternatives for payment gateways like pay u money, which does not require any firm’s registration for using its services.

  • How to get Payment gateway

Payment gateway is the one of the major link for accepting payments online in your website. There are two types of payment gateways:

  1. Payment gateways with no setup fees are very popular but they have higher Transaction rates per transaction(TDR’s) few examples are PayPal, Payumoney, Airpay etc.

  2. Payment gateways with setup fees have lesser TDR’s per transaction and faster processing, few examples are Payu, ccavenue, etc.For applying for a payment gateway you will be required to submit few documents(ID proofs, phone bills etc)Address is also verified in process.

  • E-commerce logistics

Next thing you will be needing is Courier service partner for logistics. For this either you can approach your local Courier service provider, who also have big network of logistic services throughout your country (and even abroad) like bluedart, aramex, fedex, UPS or you can talk to automatic logistics solution providers in country for e-commerce. You can compare their Currier rates, taxes and delivery time.They may request you for an agreement signing, in which you can request them for monthly billing.

  • How to market your ecommerce

Marketing your online ecommerce store can be done by paid marketing like Facebook Ads, Google display ads and web based advertisements. You can also go for SEO and Social Media Marketing, this can also be outsourced to any professional companies.

  • Inventory Management

Inventory management is the series of activities involved to ensure that items needed for the business to run are always available in optimal quantity. This means that there should neither be too much stock nor too little, but just the amount required with enough backup

Tips for managing inventory:

The Core and Non-Core Products should be kept separate:

Simply put, core products are those products that a business absolutely relies on and does not want to find a shortage of. Everything else are the non-core products.

Leverage JIT Inventory Management:

JIT or Just-In-Time inventory management strategy is used to increase efficiency and decrease waste. It is achieved by receiving the required goods only when they are needed in the production or the sale process.

Improve prediction:

As mentioned above, the key to successful inventory management is accurate prediction is When a retailer knows that the customer needs, where and what quantity, it is needed they will be in a better position to meet the customer’s expectation without generating stockpile beyond a certain point. To achieve better prediction, the business needs to be able to conduct market research, analyze demand patterns and understand required stock levels.

E Commerce accounting

You have to be informed and updated with all the laws and regulations surrounding business accounting under your control.This will require research online and perhaps speaking to a tax advisor.Keep records of all your financial transactions.If you do not do this!!!, you’ll end up wasting lots of your precious time trying to find out the missing documents later, which will cause stress.Preserve all your invoices, receipts and anything else that shows your income and outgoings.Ideally, it is better to have all these documents copied to digital device.

Choosing a Accounting solutions

To manage the accounting of your ecommerce venture use an online accounting solution.They enable you to take control of your accounting.They are easy to setup and use

Logistics

Logistics acts as a important coordinating mechanism among multiple partners of supply chain.As we have competition between supply chains, competitive success will depend on the ability to coordinate and integrate the production activities at the geographically dispersed and organizationally distinct locations.Here elogistics will play important role in future of businesses.Logistic software provides the necessary tools to support in the execution and management of product delivery business. There are two sides to this kind of software:

Supply chain management.

The features that manages the execution of the freight pick-ups, tracking and deliveries. SCM leads to managing all the inventory and shipping details to get the product to the customer.

Brokerage and bidding.

Freight brokerage software needs to manage the business aspect, too, Since most logistics operators serve third parties on a contract basis.These softwares can include bid, contract management, CRM, accounting and other business functions. Because some businesses focus only on this consignment fee aspect, there are also specific software solutions, often labeled freight forwarder software, which cater directly to these types of operations.

Competitive research

Why complete a website competitive research ?

We should perform competitive research to make and update our own marketing strategy and plans.Following are the key points of competitive research ie analyzing the competition for…

Traffic and ranking estimations

  1. What keywords are they ranking for?

  2. How much is their estimated traffic?

Search engine friendliness

  1. What is their website speed of loading?

  2. Is their site have a responsive design?

Site marketing performance

  1. Do they have a blog also do they use videos?

  2. What points of conversion do they have (contact, live chat, email, phone etc)?

Social media performance

  1. They are on which social networks?

  2. Their most shared pages?

The above mentioned are just some of the few things which have to be considered when opening an ecommerce store.If you have any feedback please provide them via feedback@bistasolutions.com

How to use Power BI in Education Industry – A Case Study

Power BI in Education Industry

power-bi

Being into a BI Industry and offering various solutions to our Client for a long time, we had come across many tools and trends in Business Intelligence which helps Client in making correct business decisions based on our solutions. One of the trends which are booming currently is the Self Service BI’s, where the Client itself gets the flexibility to view their reports from their perspective and can churn their data to get it more user-friendly and dynamically. We came across one of our existing esteemed Client who wanted to implement BI solutions based on their existing ERP system for getting more business insight and better control over the business decisions. Looking at the trend and flexibility, they opted for a Self-service BI from Microsoft which is called as Microsoft Power BI.

Power BI as best BI tool

Power BI has evolved over the time and has proved to be one of the best BI tool available in the market today. Over the complete implementation phase, we were able to provide one of the best types of flexibility and visualization to our client. Since it’s a Microsoft Product, so it goes well with all its supporting Microsoft products and one of the greatest advantage for the Education, Government and NGO’s Industries is, Microsoft provides Power BI at a special price which usually goes easy on Client’s pocket.

Let us share some of our experiences with you all so that it will portray, how effectively we can use Power BI in Education Industry and bring changes to your businesses as well.

So to begin with, we delivered “Ask a Question” functionality through one of the existing features of Power BI. Under this functionality, Client has the flexibility to ask questions directly to his visuals and as per the question, the visuals would display the result. This is something which makes PowerBI stand out of the other BI tools available in the market. For e.g. Client wanted to know about the invoice details for a student whose name is “Aziz”. So he can simply ask a question in the dashboard stating “What is the Invoice for Aziz”. And the result would come up with all the Invoice details of Aziz present in the system, it’s that simple.

drill-down

The next feature provided was the “Drill Down” functionality which helped our Clients in getting the drill down values of the Visuals which were displayed on the report. For e.g. if Visual A which will show fees paid by each student during the year, so it’s Drill Down will represent all the frequencies or the fees type which was paid, by student wise over the year. So basically it’s about getting more details about your visuals with just a click of a button.

Another feature provided was the “Interaction” feature which helped in interconnecting multiple visuals together. For e.g. Client wanted to know a student detail from multiple visuals like Invoices, Transportation Consumed, and Medical history. So under this scenario with the help of Interaction feature Client has to select Student in any one of the Visuals and the remaining two would automatically bring up the corresponding value of the same. The same way we had also provided a feature called as Slicer and Filters which gave our Client flexibility to slice and filter out the data and clearly visualize it for better understanding.

Looking at the business perspective of our Client, we were mostly focussed on the Accounting part of the business and we started with Fee summary report where the fees collected from the student were projected. It was further classified into Fees Invoiced, Fees paid and the Outstanding Fees for the Student. Also as per the requirement discounts provided to the students were separately tracked on each fee type and when the invoice was generated it made sure that all the appropriate discounts are applied to the fee type. Partial payment scenarios where the student has paid their fees partially and still has some more payment outstanding were also considered. All the three sub reports worked in a combination so that for a single student we can easily visualize how much he had been invoiced, how much he had paid and how much is the outstanding fees left from his side.

drill-down2

The other report is talking about the Fees which paid in Advances or the balance which was left for the Student. This report helped our Client in deciding and keeping a track on the Advances and Balance amount recorded in their system and based on that they can make further business decisions.

The same way we have deliver reports where the Clients can track their various Accounts, Journal Vouchers, New student registration, online payments etc. separately and last but not the least as most of our Clients request commonly we have implemented Money Inflow and Outflow report, which helps in projecting all the sources and the destinations from where the flow of the money is receiving and releasing, so the complete inflow and outflow of money in the organization can be easily visualized.

After the successful implementation of Microsoft Power BI in Education Industry for one of our Client, today we are confident in bringing a positive change in your business which will add value through one of the leading BI tools in market i.e. Microsoft Power BI. If you are looking forward to similar type of Implementation or interested in any of the features, you can simply mail us on sales@bistasolutions.com

Odoo v9 Community vs Odoo v9 Enterprise

Odoo 9 New Features
  • by bista-admin
  • Jun 20, 2016
  • 0
  • Category:

Odoo is a fully-functional, modular structure system for Enterprise Resource Planning. Technically, Odoo Enterprise is Odoo Community with some additional functional modules. The Odoo community is the Core system which consists of all the databases and core applications and some basic functionality.Odoo Enterprise edition is enabled with the support of migrating to next versions by the Odoo engineers ,in addition to which Odoo Enterprise edition also allows you to install Apps from the Odoo Store .However it is very important to note that the Odoo Enterprise version is not open source , which means the code is made available only to Official Odoo partner and Odoo itself, no other partner is allowed to sell the Enterprise Edition.

In the previous versions of Odoo(6,7,8), there was no evident difference in technical or functional aspects in both the editions (community and enterprise) of Odoo. However the new Odoo V9 has brought about many changes.Here are the major differences between community and enterprise editions put in a graphical representation, this let’s you understand which version has to be chosen based on the requirements.

enterprise-funtionality

Specialisation

Now let us consider various characteristics on the basis of which we provide a tabular differentiation between Odoo Enterprise Edition and Odoo Community Edition in Odoo V9.

table-odoo1

Features

In this section, we will understand the major feature difference between the community and enterprise editions of Odoo v9. Let’s see one by one section wise.

Planner Facility:

The planner is the new facility for all odoo users which is available in enterprise edition only.The planner is a status of your apps, a planner is located at top of the menu bar and can be opened by just clicking on the status bar.Given below is a planner snapshot which is set as mark done 15%.

your-customers

Finance/Accounting Management :

Features In Enterprise,

Accounting changes is a pretty big game changer in Odoo 9, and includes the following:

  • Basic Accounting

  • No need to create fiscal year : just need to define dates from account configuration

  • Lock Entries : Lock on the invoice if lock date is set

  • Dynamic Reports & Executive Summary

  • Legal Statements

  • Bank Interfaces (US,NZ & Canada)

  • Reconcile payment against pending invoice from dashboard

  • Statement Import : Coda,OFX,QIF

  • Internal transfer : eg. bank to cash in easy way

  • Check Printing & Deposit

  • Customer Follow-ups

Features In Community,

It has the basic accounting features available which is enough for ordinary accounts managements with features like:

  • Accounting Dashboards

  • Check Printing and Deposits

  • Bank Reconciliations

  • General Ledger Maintenance

Accounting Reports

Here is a snapshot of how an accounts report looks like:

accounting

Project Management :

The project management module in Odoo deals with organise,scheduling,planning,developing and analysing the enter project. It also enables the checking of availability of the resources and their allocation to the project.Let us now understand the variations in Enterprise and Community versions of project management module of Odoo v9:

Features In Enterprise,

  • Tasks

  • Issues

  • Timesheets

  • Timesheets Chrome & Mobile App

  • Forecasts

  • Gantt Charts

Features In Community,

  • Tasks

  • Issues

  • Timesheets

Odoo v9 Timesheets

Here is how the timesheet activities look like in Odoo v9 :

time-sheet

Sales and CRM Management :

The Odoo Sales module deals with management of all the Quotations,Opportunities,Product Lines and so . The odoo Sales module is also integrated with well known shipping services such as FedEx,Usp,DHL and more. The Sales operations are made very easy in Odoo and include the following:

Features In Enterprise,

  • Sales

  • CRM

  • VoIP Integration

  • Customer Portal

  • Signature

  • Subscriptions

Features In Community,

  • Sales

  • CRM

Smart Sales Dashboard

  • Great sales journeys start with Sales Dashboard,

  • Faster user interface designed for sales.

  • All the information you need where you need it.

  • Send quotes in just a few clicks, manage your pipeline with drag & drop, etc.

  • Full overview of your personal activities, next actions, and performances

dashboard1

Inventory Management:

The Inventory Management helps in organizing the stocks in the warehouse, managing deliveries on time , managing back orders, managing transfers and so on. Odoo automatically calculates the shipping price, validates the customer addresses, prints shipping labels and cancellation of orders.This module is integrated with Manufacturing, Sales, nd Purchase which keeps everyone together.

Features In Enterprise,

  • Inventory Management

  • MRP Management

  • Purchase Management

  • Barcode Support ( Barcode Scanner connected to the system)

  • Integrated Shipping service with : UPS, FedEx,DHL,USPS,Temando

  • Multi-Company Flows

Features In Community,

  • Inventory Management

  • MRP

  • Purchase Management

Website Builder :

The Odoo Website Builder Module helps you build attractive websites with better ranking on the search engines.It has great marketing tools which inturn attract users to the website.The website builder helps build websites which can be viewed easily by all users irrespective of the device they are using.The Website Builder also manages all the SEO related activities of the website.Odoo eComerce websites are integrated with shipping services like FedEx,UPS,DHL and so on and in addition to this the products from Odoo eCommerce websites can be sold on Amazon and Ebay too.

Features In Enterprise,

  • Website Builder

  • Blogs

  • Presentations

  • Themes ( Free )

  • Form Builder

  • Call-to-Actions Blocks

  • Versioning

  • A/B Testing

Features In Community,

  • Website Builder

  • Blogs

  • Presentations

  • Themes ( Free )

Marketing Management:

The Odoo Marketing Module helps the user in managing all the Marketing aspects of a Company, which includes building great campaigns, sending mass mails to the customers, calculate the ROI per customer, Tracking your links, develop various content management plans and so on.

Features In Enterprise,

  • Events
  • Expenses
  • Email Marketing
  • Live Chat
  • Lead Scoring
  • Email Marketing Templates

Features In Community,

  • Events
  • Expenses
  • Email Marketing
  • Live Chat

Digital Signatures Documents :

The Odoo eSignature features helps in sharing various documents online on a single click.This is a easiest way to upload documents, verify and Sign and avoids the manual pain of printing and scanning various documents.This is fast and uses no papers.It provides user friendly drag and drop functionality for adding fields in the document like adding Initials(Name), Signature, Date,Email and also allows you to specify who is supposed to fill up each field in the document and this can be sent out to multiple people at the same time. You can also manage and track document in a easy way.Odoo eSignature is also cent percent secure.

Here is a snapshot of adding fields to a document:

digital-dashboard

Reference Link : https://www.odoo.com/editions

These were the main highlights of the Odoo v9 Community vs Odoo v9 Enterprise. If your looking out for more insights on the various Odoo functionalities and modules you can get in touch with us on sales@bistasolutions.com

Also do let us know what you think about this blog at feedback@bistasolutions.com

When testing gets better, business runs smoother

Good Testing Makes Business run Smoother

Agile Testing

 When it comes to testing, the question that arises is why do executives see testing as an Epic Fail? According to software testing expert Scott Barber, it all comes down to accounting. “When you look at the accounting spreadsheet,” Scott says, “testing is a cost center, not a profit center “. This is how executives look at testing; they don’t care about testing; they are only concerned about what kind of value you bring to the product. Indeed, a good quality product sells better — but this is only till you reach a point of minimizing returns. The Value of any product lies in, shorter time in market, error-free software, conform to customer requirements and compliant to standards.

But, what brings you this value and better quality software? Testing does! And to achieve it on a large scale, Agile Testing comes in the picture. Agile Testing ensures that your product doesn’t affect interacting systems in a negative manner.Instead, agile software development and Agile testing help in encouraging repeated sales and gain customer’s trust.

Business Driven Test Management (BDTM)

In today’s rapidly growing business world, companies are now focused more and more on achieving maximum business value from their product, service or software. As a result, high-speed software delivery and high quality are even more important. Hence the likelihood of deficient software quality even greater. Here is where Business Driven Test Management (BDTM) comes into the picture. BDTM acts a guide and demonstrates how to organize, manage and execute a test process.

It converts an organization’s business goals into test goals, allowing a client to more effectively control the test process and consequently, the results of testing. Depending on rational and economic business considerations and identified risks, the right components are tested. And during the process, there is a strong focus on clear and effective client communication.

BTDM Process

The BTDM process includes a certain set of repetitive steps to be followed, We describe them here with an iterative process diagram below,

1. Prepare assignments and Identify the test goals.

2.Understand the risk class for each combination of characteristic and object part.

3. Decide if a combination of characteristic and object part have to be tested thoroughly or ‘lightly’.

4. The fourth step is to Estimate and plan test execution.

5. Assign most appropriate test design techniques.

6.Give the client and other stakeholders of the project/product appropriate insights into the test processes and test objects throughout the test execution process and keep track of all the change requests through proper documentations

Also in the evolution of the business and technology today, organizations are under immense pressure to remain competitive in the market. They need to have reliable and

pic1

efficient systems that are capable enough to support the complex business processes.In addition to this organizations need to grow their competencies at a faster pace.To achieve all these points business leaders today are aiming at developing Testing center of excellence(TCoE).The TCoE is command center which provides the standardized methodology, best practices of testing, metrics and automation tools and ensures high quality of the product during the developmental cycle as well as during the deployment process.Some of the listed Advantages of TCoE would be: Greater Agility, Cost efficient, Better Quality, and Faster Releases.The TCoE also can be phased like the BTDM process, the following would be some of the important phases in your path:

1.Establishment of standards and policies and basic governance measure and policies of the Testing methodologies.

2.Determine the product and test infrastructure and standardize your testing tools, which will consequently consolidate the cost of procuring the testing tools.

3.Determine the Service Utility, which means TCoE will act as a source of expertise to the whole organization.

4.Last but not the least the Quality innovation in-charges will provide everything for a centralized testing environment, which includes resources, tools, management and governance of all applications and various business processes.

pic2

Conclusions:

These unique business-driven testing services approach will enable your clients to achieve the highest quality application deployments, with less cost, less risk and faster time to market. And so goes the phrase, “When testing gets better, business runs smoother.”

Tell us what you think about this blog on feedback@bistasolutions.com. Feel free to get in touch with us through sales@bistasolutions.com for more insights.