flosbus.com » Integration

Alfresco Release Final Version of Labs 3.0

philoakley — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 10:38:42 +0000

Alfresco, open source enterprise content management, have recently announced the release of the final version of Labs 3.0. This is a land mark release for Alfresco and includes many enhancements. Probably two of the key areas of functionality of Alfresco Labs 3.0 is its integration to other open source software and its implementation of the CMIS Specification. CMIS is the The Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS) specification and has the possibility o doing what SQL did for databases. Overall a standard created and accepted by all of the major players (Alfresco, EMC, IBM, Microsoft, Open Text, SAP, Day Software and Oracle) should only be good for the user community. The CMIS has not been finalised so Alfresco’s implementation is based on the proposed specification.

From the Alfresco blog:

CMIS is the proposed standard for content management interoperability. You can learn more about it on the Alfreso wiki. In short, this standard would allow developers to write applications that run against any CMIS-compliant content management system. It has been likened to SQL but for content management.

The other area of interest is the continued integration to other well known open source products such Joomla (Content Management) OpenOffice.org (Office Suite) and MediaWiki (Wiki software used by many companies including Wikipedia and Alfresco)

Joomla the very popular Content Management system for building websites will be able to access the back end repository of Alfresco for enterprise document management allowing Joomla users to control large amounts of content efficiently while still be able to collaborate on their Joomla website. Details of the Joomla Module for Alfresco can be found here.

From version 2.1 Alfresco has concentrated on Integration to the Microsoft Office suite which is understandable given its current market dominance and Alfresco’s implementation of the Microsoft Sharepoint Protocol meant even tighter integration. This had unfortunately left OpenOffice.org behind for a while. But with the release of the Openoffice.org plugin for Alfresco similar functionality is now available. Functionality as follows:

Easy Installation
Browse the Alfresco repositary
Extensive search
Access document properties and metadata
Access to Alfresco workflow
Access to ‘MyAlfesco’

See example screenshot:

As with a lot of open source software Alfresco has also not been slow to use social media for marketing and communication. As well as the required blog(s) Alfresco has a podcast, a Facebook Group and are on Twitter (OK they were a little slow on Twitter as they are @alfresco1 as someone else bagged @alfresco).

There is now even integration between Alfresco and Facebook. Jeff Potts has put a video showing this integration on youtube:

Jitterbit goes 2.0

philoakley — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 15:28:53 +0000

Jitterbit the open source integration software that FLOSBUS covered here has just released its latest version 2.0. Jitterbit iallows you to, for example ,integrate you CRM (Customer Relationship Management) with your ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning).

Jitterbit say this new version includes:

A completely revamped fully graphical Integration Process Designer
“Rapid Fire” Web Services Enhancements
Reusable Customizable Scripts that allow you to extend Jitterbit to meet your specific integration needs
Limitless Integration: New levels of scalablity with Data Chunking & Parallel Processing

As well as integration for open source solutions like Openbravo ERP and SugarCRM Jitterbit also offers Integration for many proprietary products such as SAP, Oracle and Microsoft Dynamics. Full details can be found on the Jitterbit website here.

OpenBravo POS – Open Source Electronic Point of Sale

philoakley — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 23:21:19 +0000

Openbravo the open source ERP software has just released the latest version of their POS (Point Of Sale) software. Openbravo POS was a recent acquisition of the open source EPOS system formerly known as Tina POS and Libre POS.

Openbravo POS can be integrated with Openbravo POS for complete solutions for retail including restaurants, grocery stores, specialised retailers and department stores.

Openbravo POS is designed for touch screen tills and supports a wide list of standard POS hardware

Screens are designed for different environments for example restaurant booking:

and restaurant seating plans:

Summary

Current Version
2.2 (released August 2008)

Platform
Installation – Windows, Linux, MAC OSX
Database Database independent, using the standard JDBC interface. Openbravo POS currently supports Oracle, PostgreSQL, MySQL and HSQLDB. Adding a new database engine is very easy, with little modifications required in the code base

License
GNU General Public License,

Proprietary ERP Competitors
SAP, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics

Useful Links
Site http://www.openbravo.com/product/pos/
Wiki http://wiki.openbravo.com/wiki/
Blog http://adrianrcblog.blogspot.com/

SugarCRM launches SugarExchange – The SugarCRM Marketplace

philoakley — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 14:16:39 +0000

SugarCRM has just launched SugarExchange beta. Sugar Exchange is a market place for SugarCRM Extensions. This would appear a response to Salesforce.com’s Appexchange a marketplace of applications that integrate to Salesforce’s CRM.

Extensions range from themes to integration to other software (Jasper Reports, Alfresco) and functionality not included un the standard product. Extensions can be sorted by which SugarCRM version they are for both commercial and open source. Although the site can promote commercial extensions that you would need to pay for. the majority of the downloads appear free and open source.

Currently the offering is very similar to Sugarforge the open source community pages for SugarCRM. SugarCRM has so many different websites that they have another website describing each one, this can be found out SugarNET.

One of the most popular extensions is the integration with Jaspersoft’s Jasper Reports. Jasper Reports comes with a suite of reports that can be run against your SugarCRM data and allows users to write their own reports. Also according to the press release there will be a joint webcast :

JasperSoft and SugarCRM will be hosting a joint webcast, “Turning Data into Decisions,” at 10:00 a.m. PDT on June 29, 2006. Barry Klawans, JasperSoft CTO and Lars Nordwall, SugarCRM VP of Worldwide Sales, will present and demonstrate the JasperSoft for SugarCRM solution. Register for the event at https://jaspersoft.webex.com/ec0502l/eventcenter/frame/g.do?siteurl=jaspersoft &t=a&d=333195357.

Jitterbit – Open Source Integration Software

philoakley — Sun, 18 Jun 2006 22:15:21 +0000

Jitterbit have just recently come out of beta testing and have launched version 1.0. Jitterbit is open source integration software allowing you to, for example ,integrate you CRM (Customer Relationship Management) with your ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning).
Integration is one of the biggest benefits of modern systems but it is still one of the biggest problems in proprietary software. Integration should be easier with Open Source software due to the use of open standards and all information about the software being available but this still requires someone with a good technical knowledge.

Jitterbit is attempting to make integration easier by having predefined integration solutions for existing software called Jitterpacks. So far there are Jitterpaks for Amazon Web Services, Salesforce.com and SugarCRM. This saves everyone re-inventing the wheel. If they have not got a Jitterpak that you require you could write one yourself and submit it to the Jitterbit community.

Jitterbit has also announced a partnership with OpenMFG so we should be seeing a Jitterpak for their open source ERP software soon.