Apache OFBiz is an

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

enterprise resource planning Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is the integrated management of main business processes, often in real time and mediated by software and technology. ERP is usually referred to as a category of Business management tools, business management ...

(ERP) system. It provides a suite of enterprise applications that integrate and automate many of the

business process A business process, business method or business function is a collection of related, structured activities or tasks by people or equipment in which a specific sequence produces a service or product (serves a particular business goal) for a parti ...

es of an enterprise. OFBiz is an

Apache Software Foundation The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) is an American nonprofit corporation (classified as a 501(c)(3) organization in the United States) to support a number of open source software projects. The ASF was formed from a group of developers of the A ...

top level project.

Overview

Apache OFBiz is a framework that provides a

common data model A common data model (CDM) can refer to any standardised data model which allows for data and information exchange between different applications and data sources. Common data models aim to standardise logical infrastructure so that related applicat ...

and a set of

es. All applications are built around a common architecture using common data, logic and process components. Beyond the framework itself, Apache OFBiz offers functionality including: *

Accounting Accounting, also known as accountancy, is the measurement, processing, and communication of financial and non financial information about economic entities such as businesses and corporations. Accounting, which has been called the "languag ...

(agreements, invoicing, vendor management, general ledger) * Asset maintenance * Catalogue and product management * Facility and warehouse management system (WMS) * Manufacturing execution /

manufacturing operations management Manufacturing operations management (MOM) is a collection of systems for managing end-to-end manufacturing processes with a view to optimizing efficiency. There are many types of MOM software, including for production management, performance analy ...

(MES/MOM) * Order processing * Inventory management, automated stock replenishment etc. *

Content management system A content management system (CMS) is computer software used to manage the creation and modification of digital content (content management).''Managing Enterprise Content: A Unified Content Strategy''. Ann Rockley, Pamela Kostur, Steve Manning. New ...

(CMS) *

Human resources Human resources (HR) is the set of people who make up the workforce of an organization, business sector, industry, or economy. A narrower concept is human capital, the knowledge and skills which the individuals command. Similar terms include m ...

(HR) * People and group management *

Project management Project management is the process of leading the work of a team to achieve all project goals within the given constraints. This information is usually described in project documentation, created at the beginning of the development process. Th ...

Sales force automation Salesforce management systems (also ''sales force automation systems'' (SFA)) are information systems used in customer relationship management (CRM) marketing and management that help automate some sales and sales force management functions. The ...

* Work effort management * Electronic

point of sale The point of sale (POS) or point of purchase (POP) is the time and place at which a retail transaction is completed. At the point of sale, the merchant calculates the amount owed by the customer, indicates that amount, may prepare an invoice f ...

(ePOS) *

Electronic commerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the activity of electronically buying or selling of products on online services or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain manageme ...

(eCommerce) *

Scrum (development) Scrum is a framework for project management with an initial emphasis on software development, although it has been used in other fields including research, sales, marketing and advanced technologies. It is designed for teams of ten or fewer me ...

(Scrum software development support)

Technology

All Apache OFBiz functionality is built on a common framework. The functionality can be divided into the following distinct layers:

Presentation layer

Apache OFBiz uses the concept of "screens" to represent the Apache OFBiz pages. Each page is, normally, represented as a screen. A page in Apache OFBiz consists of components. A component can be a header, footer, etc. When the page is rendered all the components are combined as specified in the screen definition. Components can be Java Server Pages ( SP) , FTL pages built around

FreeMarker Apache FreeMarker is a free Java-based template engine, originally focusing on dynamic web page generation with MVC software architecture. However, it is a general purpose template engine, with no dependency on servlets or HTTP or HTML, and i ...

template engine, forms or menus widgets. Widgets are an OFBiz specific technology.

Business layer

The business, or application layer defines services provided to the user. The services can be of several types: Java methods, SOAP, simple services, workflow, etc. A service engine is responsible for invocation, transactions and security. Apache OFBiz uses a set of open source technologies and standards such as

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...

Java EE Jakarta EE, formerly Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) and Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE), is a set of specifications, extending Java SE with specifications for enterprise features such as distributed computing and web serv ...

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. T ...

and

SOAP Soap is a salt of a fatty acid used in a variety of cleansing and lubricating products. In a domestic setting, soaps are surfactants usually used for washing, bathing, and other types of housekeeping. In industrial settings, soaps are use ...

. Although Apache OFBiz is built around the concepts used by Java EE, many of its concepts are implemented in different ways; either because Apache OFBiz was designed prior to many recent improvements in Java EE or because Apache OFBiz authors didn't agree with those implementations.

Data layer

The data layer is responsible for database access, storage and providing a common data interface to the business layer. Data is accessed not in

object oriented Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm based on the concept of "objects", which can contain data and code. The data is in the form of fields (often known as attributes or ''properties''), and the code is in the form of pro ...

fashion but in a relational way. Each

entity An entity is something that exists as itself, as a subject or as an object, actually or potentially, concretely or abstractly, physically or not. It need not be of material existence. In particular, abstractions and legal fictions are usually ...

(represented as a row in the database) is provided to the business layer as a set of generic values. A generic value is not typed, so fields of an entity are accessed by the

column A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. In other words, a column is a compression member. ...

name.

History

The OFBiz project was created by David E. Jones and Andrew Zeneski on April 13, 2001. The project was initially hosted as The Apache Open For Business Project on SourceForge and Open For Business Project (Apache OFBiz) at Open HUB. Between September 2003 and May 2006, it was hosted as a java.net project, but the project has been removed from there. It has begun to be widely used around 2003. After incubating since January 31, 2006, it became a Top Level Apache project on December 20, 2006: Apache OFBiz Incubation Status.

References

External links

* /ofbiz.apache.org Official Apache OFBiz website {{Apache Software Foundation OFBiz Free accounting software Free e-commerce software Free industrial software Free ERP software Free software programmed in Java (programming language) Web applications