ERPNext in off-line mode

ERPNext Feature Requests
1

We are planning to use ERPNext in our organization and would like to know in case of loss of internet connection for any reason, is there an option to use the system in a limited way such as enter data off-line in batch and upload and process as the system goes on-line?

  

4 Likes
2

Hi..we too shall be very intrested to hear the answer to this question.

Thanks
Firoze

3

We too

Best Regards

Pastor Dimeji Matesun

4

Hi guys,

Being partners with ERPNext, we get to introduce the application to quite a number of clients and this must be the most-asked question!

We are VERY interested in some sort of solution that’ll make this possible

Thanks

Kind regards,

Olawale

5

An offline is indeed very interesting. But I can’t imagine how this can be implemented if, say, stocks become negative due to multiple users transacting to release the same inventory while in offline mode; only to find out it goes negative upon going back online.

6
Very true about stock tracking but then again, most of the people concerned about this functionality are into retail; this generally means they will only be posting a transaction (Sales) when the item is physically present i.e. A customer is standing in front of the counter with the items in his/her basket. This kind of transaction won't lead to negative stock unless the item was unaccounted for in the first place. 

The major point of consideration might however be that some form of local client will be required - no matter how basic.

We definitely do agree that offline mode has its challenges but I have no doubts that the ERPNext team can work out some sort of solution if it gets on their radar : )


Kind regards,
Olawale 
3 Likes
7
Dear all,

Good to see so much clamour for a feature :)

Offline application is possible (its not trivial though). We could force users to allow negative transactions if they want to use in offline mode. Or we can save only drafts in offline mode and submissions can be done when internet is back. For that we will also have to download all the masters so item selection is easy. But its big project - looking at our current issue list - I am not sure when this will see light of day, but we will keep this in mind!

best,
Rushabh



On Monday, September 30, 2013 1:03:37 PM UTC+5:30, Olawale wrote:
Very true about stock tracking but then again, most of the people concerned about this functionality are into retail; this generally means they will only be posting a transaction (Sales) when the item is physically present i.e. A customer is standing in front of the counter with the items in his/her basket. This kind of transaction won't lead to negative stock unless the item was unaccounted for in the first place. 

The major point of consideration might however be that some form of local client will be required - no matter how basic.

We definitely do agree that offline mode has its challenges but I have no doubts that the ERPNext team can work out some sort of solution if it gets on their radar : )


Kind regards,
Olawale 
From: lxnow
Sent: Monday, September 30, 2013 12:52 AM
Subject: Re: [erpnext-user-forum] ERPNext in off-line mode

An offline is indeed very interesting. But I can't imagine how this can be implemented if, say, stocks become negative due to multiple users transacting to release the same inventory while in offline mode; only to find out it goes negative upon going back online.

On Sunday, September 29, 2013 3:05:28 PM UTC+8, Olawale wrote:
Hi guys, 

Being partners with ERPNext, we get to introduce the application to quite a number of clients and this must be the most-asked question!

We are VERY interested in some sort of solution that'll make this possible. 

Thanks 


Kind regards, 
Olawale 
From: Pastor Dimeji Matesun
Sent: Sunday, September 29, 2013 7:40 AM
Subject: Re: [erpnext-user-forum] ERPNext in off-line mode

We too 

Best Regards

Pastor Dimeji Matesun

On Sep 29, 2013, at 7:18, "furniture.elegance" <fu...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi..we too shall be very intrested to hear the answer to this question.

Thanks
Firoze

On Sep 29, 2013 9:00 AM, "Senthil" <s....@aflaj.co> wrote:
We are planning to use ERPNext in our organization and would like to know in case of loss of internet connection for any reason, is there an option to use the system in a limited way such as enter data off-line in batch and upload and process as the system goes on-line?
  

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1 Like
8

Agreed with Rushabh. The current issue list needs to be settled first. We have lots of requests for ERPnext from our clients. System running offline and online is a huge project. The system needs to be stabilized before getting into offline/online mode.

9
Or we can save only drafts in offline mode and submissions can be done when internet is back

I vote for this. Less work to reconcile negative balances later on.
1 Like
10

Hi, i agree with rajanusaputra.
Offline mode or fault tolerant is really a huge task. The architecture should be completly different. (i am doing QA for one system with fault tolerant capabilities) I think this topic is completly out of scope. Lets focus to what we have and how to do it better …

11

I wonder why not running erpnext on raspberry or bananapi and then cc-ing the db to the internet-clone…like a fallback…this will for sure be much easier as creating an offline/online product.

Actually we are running VMs on Customer Sides…you are talking about hosted solutions? If yes, then take a centralized SQL DB and let it clone itself to the Fallback System (e.g. small Linux Distri) and if Internet becomes faulty then the cloning is not possible and the fallback system takes care.

You could set this on routers:
DNS 1: Points to an internet DNS (if faulty → use DNS 2)
DNS 2: Points to a local DNS (the linux distri)

Best,
Dan

PS: This was done not with erpnext but with a booking system by us…it works really like having an online-offline mode of a web-app…think about it…

3 Likes
12

@daniel
: ) thx for the tips
This theoretically can work in simple cases with 1 geographical central. Will try.

Anyway i was automatically thinking about cases with more geographical branch offices. (two warehouses in different cities).
I just start diving to this, at the moment still not enough familiar with db structure and internal flow.

Maybe a bit off topic, but how about the stress tests on banana? How many active users it handle in your case?

btw thx for the best hint think about it ; ) there are opening lot of possibilities …

13

Hi Guys,

It’s been a couple of years since we left off on this but it’s still a much-needed and much-requested feature especially for retail businesses with multiple locations

Any update in this area? If not, how do you suggest we go about implementing such a feature? I’m guessing it starts by installing ERPNext locally in the various locations and then getting the local installations to sync with an online account?

Look forward to feedback on this

Cheers!

Kind regards,
Olawale

14

This has to be case-to-case (like POS) etc. I am not sure it is an easy hack.

15

My 5 cents here!

I agree with @rushabh_mehta that is not easy to hack! Any way I agree too with @all here, that offline is a important issue!

In a tecnical point of view, offline access requires a lot of code and data replication, that turns it very hard to do!

Anyway it is possible! The team have a virtual machine for everyone download and use, so, in another tecnical point of view, these virtual machines could be the solution for the offline issue too!
Since you are able to implement the replication system of MySQL (MariaDB) in the virtual machine, you are capable of solve this issue.

Everyone that is interested on solve this issue, just take a look into http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/replication-implementation.html, it is not hard to do, only requires a bit of time, to understand how the things works.

So, just enjoy the reading!

1 Like
16

CouchDB/PouchDB are supposed to offer interesting features on this subject (which I am as well looking for)

Though, I don’t realise how much time such implementation would cost.

17

All cloud based POS system are now working with offline / online.
Here is a list (yes none of them open-source) that are supposedly able to work offline / online. Not sure how fault tolerant they are tough. But off-line mode is definitely an expectation when it comes to POS.

http://www.shopkeep.com

https://squareup.com/global/en/register

1 Like
18

I had a quick look at vend and a few other cloud based POS solutions. When in offline mode POS functionality is greatly reduced.

As mentioned by @wale In a standard retail situation the stock is either available in store or it isn’t. This stops negative stock issues.
@daniel I like your DNS trick.

19

I think if the whole erpnext system would have a offline/online feature is very complicated you have to manage many things example handling of data updates and conflict management. and I think there some module that could really benefit offline mode like the POS module. One approach would just use existing opensource POS and develop a plugin to sync sales and items or enhance the existing erpnext POS to have offline mode with limited functionality like google docs approach.

20

Talking with some of our accountants guys here and the Sage Pastel system they are using…
Apparently one of the problem is when internet connection is lost during a transaction (so incomplete transactions), it corrupts the db or only put part of the transaction in the db. I guess that is what is meant by fault tolerant system?