[Erp5-users] Tripping on first steps in ERP5

[jp at nexedi.com]

Hi,

> I am an absolute ERP5 beginner.  After comparing some open source ERP
> systems, I decided to go with ERP5.

Great news.
 
> I have followed http://www.raskon.org/trac/erp5/wiki/Erp5Ubuntu to

The buildout you tried is an interesting independent effort which is not officially supported. Some software components required for ERP5 could be missing from it for example.

To install ERP5, you have 2 options. One is to use RPMs/Deb as provided here:

http://www.erp5.com/download/linux

This will give you a 5.4.6 installation, which is good enough to start learning. 

Another is to use the official buildout:

http://www.erp5.com/download/linux/Howto-Install.erp5.From.Buildout

This takes a bit time because MySQL or MariaDB need to be patched to support full text search for example. But it is the best way to be sure to get all necessary components in their appropriate version, whatever the distribution you use. Also this buildout is tested multiple times a day (you can see test results here: http://mail.tiolive.com/pipermail/erp5-report/20110301/thread.html (ERP5Appliance212).

The last approach, which is actually the best to begin, is to get an instance from TioLive (www.tiolive.com) and request developer mode. This will save you some time initially. Then you can learn how to install it on your machine. This is how we do for example for every new engineer in Nexedi, so that they focus first on business and configuration aspects.

> Taking small simple steps, I decided to check out
> http://www.erp5.org/HowToUseMeasures to set up some categories.  I

This How to is mostly for developers. Before trying it, it is better to learn the basics of using ERP5 and then the basics of developing with ERP5.

> have to say that I don't really understand how ERP5 works, but I
> thought that setting up some "categories" would be a nice way to get
> started.

You are right. Setting up categories is the first step to learn ERP5. It looks simple but it is not. Before setting up categories, ask yourself first what you expect to get by using an ERP in your company.

You will find here a complete step by step lesson, which has been taught to hundreds of students already:
http://www.osoe-project.org/lesson/osoe-Lecture.ERP.Data.Mining.Introduction/view

It starts with using ERP5 and ends up with some examples of setting up categories. By using a spreadsheet, it is easy to define all categories at once and then import them in ERP5. 

The spreadsheet is here:
http://www.osoe-project.org/lesson/P-OSOE-Configuration.Sample?format=ods

If you want to go further, please read:
http://www.erp5.com/documentation/developer
http://www.erp5.org/ŁukaszNowak

and especially
http://www.erp5.com/developer-Learning.Track.Forum/view

Both will teach you how to develop with ERP5. Please feel free to ask questions about development to erp5-dev. For questions about how to use ERP5 and especially how to run the user tutorials on your machine, please feel free to use this list.

Regards,

JP Smets.
Nexedi CEO