FrePPLe provides an integration with the Odoo (formerly known as OpenERP),
a leading open source ERP.
The connector provides the following functionality:
Two-way integration:
Live data integration.
The connector reads the data directly from odoo and writes the results
back. Compared to replicating data to its own database, this provides
a more native and tighter integration. It is still possible to save a
copy of the odoo in the frePPLe database to use the frePPLe user
interface.
You can still maintain additional data in the frePPLe user interface.
I.e. Odoo doesn’t need to be the only source of data for your model.
Easy to customize.
Implemented as an odoo addon module, it is easy to customize the connector
to your needs.
All mapping logic between the Odoo and frePPLe data models is in this
module. The results are accessible on the URL http://odoo_host/frepple/xml
from which the planning engine will read data in its native XML data format
and to which it will post the results.
A frePPLe addon:
This module gives frePPLe the capability to connect to Odoo, read the data
from it, and publish back the results.
A different version is required for v7 and for v8.
The module has the following dependencies: ‘procurement’, ‘product’, ‘purchase’,
‘sale’, ‘resource’, ‘mrp’, ‘sales_order_date’, and (optional) ‘hr’.
After installation, you’ll find the following additional features in odoo:
A web interface called by the frePPLe planning engine. It is accessible at the
URL http://<host>:<port>/frepple/xml?database=<db>&language=<language>&company=<yourcompany>
A menu item in the warehouse menu to manually recreate the plan.
A scheduler task to recreate the plan as a cron job.
Extra configuration options in company editing form, as described below.
Configure the Odoo addon
The module adds some configuration fields on the company model.
Edit these parameters:
Calendar:
References a resource.calendar model that is used to define the working
hours.
If left unspecified, we assume 24*7 availability.
Manufacturing location:
The connector assumes each company has only a single manufacturing
location.
All bills of materials are modelled there.
Cmdline:
Command line launched when the plan generation for a company is launched
interactively from the user interface.
Note that when launched from a scheduler cron job, the command line is
configured on the job directly.
Edit the frePPLe configuration file djangosettings.py
The file is found under /etc/frepple (linux) or <install folder>bincustom
(Windows).
The following settings need updating:
INSTALLED_APPS: Assure the freppledb.odoo is in the list of applications.
By default it is enabled.
NAMESIZE: Increase the value from the default value to at least 130. The
long names are required because the connector often concatenates the name
of 2 Odoo entities to generate a unique name of an object in frePPLe.
Names in Odoo can be up to 60 characters.
Regenerate the frePPLe database schema
The edits in the previous step impact the size of a lot of database fields.
You need to recreate the frePPLe database schema with the following
command. Erase any frePPLe tables that might already exist in your database
before running the command.
frepplectl syncdb
Configure the frePPLe parameters:
odoo.url: URL of the Odoo server
odoo.db: Odoo database to connect to
odoo.user: Odoo user for the connection
odoo.password: Password for the connection
odoo.language: Language for the connection.
If translated names of products, items, locations, etc they will be used.
odoo.company: Company name for which to create purchase quotation and
manufacturing orders
Running the connector
You can run the connector in different ways:
Interactively from the frePPLe user interface
The execute screen has a specific section where you can launch the import
connector.
From the command line
The script is especially handy when you want to regenerate the plan
automatically.
Issue the command below.
frepplectl frepple_run --env=odoo_read,odoo_write
Interactively from the Odoo menu
Make sure the command line on the company you run for is configured
correctly.
Automatically with the Odoo cron scheduler
Make sure the command line on the task is configured correctly.
Mapping details
The connector doesn’t cover all possible configurations of Odoo and frePPLe.
The connector is very likely to require some customization to fit the particular
setup of the ERP and the planning requirements in frePPLe.