We're very pleased to announce the Release Candidate for xTuple ERP version 3.1.0. This is the first version that we can recommend for use in a production setting. The final release will likely come in another two weeks or so.
If you haven't been tracking the early testing cycles, here are a few of the major new features in version 3.1.0:
Please note that to apply the update scripts to your database, you will need to use the new version of the Updater tool, version 2.0.0RC. You can find it here.
Of course, XTN subscribers can have their database upgraded automatically, along with any necessary "data cleanup" issues that the updater tool might discover. I realize this might sound a bit odd, so let me explain a bit: As we have continued to develop the product, and seen more customers use the system, we have tried to make the updater tool more stringent about what it "allows" to be in the database - trying to head off any potential problems. So if you've used the tool recently, you might see it give a warning that says that "such and such a field doesn't have a value" or similar messages. We've started to bundle a fixed number of hours peryear to help with cleaning up those user-created data problems as part of the XTN service; you can see the breakdown of the three tiers of the service at http://www.xtuple.com/pricing#XTN.
Thank you for your interest in xTuple.org. xTuple is the new name for the company formerly known as OpenMFG. For more about the company, the name change, and our commitment to open source erp, please visit xTuple.com.
This is the main community website for the PostBooks open source accounting, ERP, and CRM software - which we've started to call the PostBooks Edition of xTuple ERP. As you might have guessed, there are other Editions - commercially licensed, but under a "community source" model whereby all customers and partners get full source code, and user enhancements flow back into the main project.
The commercial products are the xTuple ERP Standard Edition and OpenMFG Edition, which add successively more functionality to the PostBooks core. All three products also contain an embedded version of the open source OpenRPT report writer, also built by xTuple. The PostBooks source code, binaries, and database files can all be downloaded from the PostBooks SourceForge project page, but we will try to manage as much of the community as possible from here.
At this site, you'll find user-to-user forums, a fully visible bug and feature request tracker, documentation, and lots of other resources. It's based on the Joomla content management system, the phpBB forum boards, and the Mantis bugtracker - now with a full Wiki-based documentation module, and other goodies coming soon. Here's some additional info on the site, from our web guru Perry Clark.
We invite you to take a look around. If you've already registered with xTuple in the past, your existing username and password should work here. If you haven't, you can just pick a user name and password using the register link on the left.
We're very pleased to announce that the final release of xTuple ERP, version 3.0, is now available for download. We hope you'll find it as exciting as we do; there are numerous new features which you've been hearing about over the past several weeks, as well as tools to help power users do even more with the software.
If you're an XTN subscriber , please contact us to have either your test "sandbox" upgraded, or your production system.
Thank you, as always for all your contributions to the ongoing development of our community and product, and for your support of xTuple. Full release notes for xTuple ERP 3.0 follow on the jump page.
By popular demand, we're very happy to announce the new xTuple Wiki site. It uses the MoinMoin wiki software, which is almost unique in the category for its support for DocBook XML. If you've been around open source documentation at all, you know how widely used DocBook is.
Our goal with the Wiki is to have almost all of our documentation live there - where it can be managed online, and incorporate edits, enhancements, and contributions such as howto's and developer tips from the community. It's a great place, for example, to collaboratively work on development specs.
As you may have noticed if you clicked on the above link, however, we're still working with an annoying limitation - the need to put the wiki in an IFRAME so it can live within Joomla. We have the same issue with our Mantis bug tracker integration. The phpBB integration (see our forum section) has solved this problem very nicely - if anyone is interested in working on a solution to this that we could contribute back to the Joomla community, please
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
.
At left is our most recent class at our Norfolk, Virgina headquarters, or rather, our mobile marine headquarters, the American Rover schooner. At right is our first class in India, hosted in May by our partner Aptsource Software in Kolkata. The smiling fellow in both pictures is Mike Atherton, xTuple Director of Product Training.
Click on either picture to see a larger image. And please
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
if you'd like to host a training session near you!
Since the launch of PostBooks we've had a number of inquiries about the ability for PostBooks to handle service and rental contracts. While it could currently handle these situations, the manufacturing heritage of PostBooks would likely get in the way of making PostBooks work smoothly in this environment, even if we added certain features to enable this.
We are considering the idea of building a bolt-on module for PostBooks that we will call "Contract Management" for now. The main thrust of this module would be able to better handle contracts for recurring services or property rentals. While an "item" in PostBooks is typically geared towards managing physical shippable goods, contract management would be suited to handle companies who sell, well, time and space.
For example:
* An Internet service provider who sells monthly billed service subscriptions for connection service. * A rental property owner who rents equipment or space on annual leases, but bills monthly. * A law office that works on a monthly retainer, but also does hourly billing. * An advertising company that bills for placement of ads on the internet. * An architectural firm that bills hourly, or does milestone billing against large projects.
To be able to best handle these environments we think the following features would be in order:
* The ability to create and track records for services offered * The ability to create and track records for properties or space that can be rented, leased, or sold. * Locations of service and property resources with support for hierarchical relationships * Rent/Lease Contracts with support for recurring billing * Project Billing with support for hourly or milestone billing * Recurring Invoice Generator * Reporting on Property or Service resource Availability/Occupancy * APIs to tie to web interfaces
This is the sort of undertaking that is typically too broad and therefore expensive for one sponsor to underwrite for development. We would likely be looking to build a consortium of sponsors who have common interests in this type of functionality. If you think you might be interested, please let us hear your thoughts!
We're very pleased to announce that the final release of xTuple ERP, version 3.0, is now available for download. We hope you'll find it as exciting as we do; there are numerous new features which you've been hearing about over the past several weeks, as well as tools to help power users do even more with the software.
