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 and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

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 software—typically a suit ...

(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 performed by people or equipment in which a specific sequence produces a service or product (that serves a particular business g ...

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 ...

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 applica ...

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 process of recording and processing information about economic entity, economic entities, such as businesses and corporations. Accounting measures the results of an organization's economic activit ...

(agreements, invoicing, vendor management,

general ledger In bookkeeping, a general ledger is a bookkeeping ledger in which accounting data are posted from General journal, journals and aggregated from subledgers, such as accounts payable, accounts receivable, cash management, fixed assets, purchasing ...

) * 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 *

Order management system An order management system, or OMS, is a computer software system used in a number of industries for order entry and processing. Electronic commerce and catalogers Orders can be received from businesses, consumers, or a mix of both, depending on th ...

(OMS) Including multi-channel order processing, drop-shipping support, and enhanced inventory management. * 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 ' ...

(HR) * People and group management *

Project management Project management is the process of supervising the work of a Project team, team to achieve all project goals within the given constraints. This information is usually described in project initiation documentation, project documentation, crea ...

* Sales force automation * 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) refers to Commerce, commercial activities including the electronic buying or selling Goods and services, products and services which are conducted on online platforms or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on tec ...

(eCommerce) *

Scrum (development) Scrum is an agile team collaboration framework commonly used in software development and other industries. Scrum prescribes for teams to break work into goals to be completed within time-boxed iterations, called ''sprints''. Each sprint ...

(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 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 is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...

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 data. It defines a set of rules for encoding electronic document, documents in a format that is both human-readable and Machine-r ...

and

SOAP Soap is a salt (chemistry), salt of a fatty acid (sometimes other carboxylic acids) used for cleaning and lubricating products as well as other applications. In a domestic setting, soaps, specifically "toilet soaps", are surfactants usually u ...

. 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''. Objects can contain data (called fields, attributes or properties) and have actions they can perform (called procedures or methods and impleme ...

fashion but in a relational way. Each

entity An entity is something that Existence, exists as itself. It does not need to be of material existence. In particular, abstractions and legal fictions are usually regarded as entities. In general, there is also no presumption that an entity is Lif ...

(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.

Key integrations

Apache Solr is an enterprise search server with a REST-like API. It's highly scalable, adaptable, comprehensive, and capable of processing and handling large amounts of data. The Apache Solr / OFBiz integration not only speeds up searches, but also greatly enhances the search capabilities of OFBiz. Solr also added faceted and hierarchical search capabilities to OFBiz. REST offers several advantages that make it a preferred choice for building and consuming web services particularly utilizing micro services architecture. The greatest benefit is the support for headless architecture. Gradle, though it's a separate tool outside of OFBiz, this development is nonetheless significant because it simplifies the maintenance and upgrade of OFBiz dependencies on external libraries, which makes it easier to keep the system up to date and secure.

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