I really enjoy the simplified and aesthetic nature of the POS app. I would like my delivery team to be able to have a version of this which would allow them to
Add/Remove/Modify quantities/ products
Get signature from receiving party…
As it currently stands, the interface is very cluttered and the signature field is a bit glitchy on some devices making the keyboard pop up unexpectedly as well as having a lot of editable fields that can be accidently hit.
Can the POS be modified to act as a delivery confirmation app?
How about an Android App that serves the same purpose? Do you make deliveries off a truck? So we configure a warehouse for your truck, you do a stock transfer to your Truck warehouse and as you make deliveries the Android App cuts an invoice. We can configure a small place for signature on the Android device, if that works for you.
JayRam,
What you are describing is very much my ideal solution but I was seeking something simple already existing because there doesn’t seem to be a heavy focus on mobile with ERPNext.
I am actually teaching myself app design right now so that I can contribute more to that side of things, as well as the need for my greater mission (which I will mention in my response to @clarkej) .
I’m in a situation where I have a business that is not highly profitable but does good in the community here in Bali and I am trying to do the quickest and easiest stabilization of that with ERPNext as it is available now so that I can focus more on learning and working with deeper coding. So the allocation of my time right now has to be pretty pragmatic on solutions I can implement quickly, since a lot of what I have to work on is dealing with the other parts of this business.
My goal is to have things smoothed out with Key for Life (my business in Bali) so that I can really focus full effort on app development towards permaculture and social benefit.
If you are already working on the Android app aspect that you mentioned I would love to collaborate with you.
For reference, the best Invoicing app I have ever used was InvoiceASAP… http://invoiceasap.com/
I am a great believer that user interface and elegant design can be of huge benefit to the usability and wider adoption of opensource platforms. Please let me know where you are in the process with an app for delivery and how I can help, perhaps with ergonomics and user interface now and coding later?
Very excited by the possibilities and challenges.
The idea of native app been around, just some action needed. Will be a killer for so many big names in the game. I think the corodova container is great, just that some code needs to be written to connect the functionalities within corodova to client side of frappe.
Clarkej,
absolutely. And my plan is to be able to offer much more actionable design and coding to this project soon.
I’ve got a business that I am implementing ERPNext in and stabilizing it after some shocks from various challenges not the least of which was the massive tourist decline in Bali afer the volcano scares.
So I have a massive enthusiasm for taking initiative with projects such as this and also have the pragmatic reality of needing to get the brick and mortar of my business stabilized.
My larger goals and mission have been for much of my life centered around permaculture and distributed systems.
Both my current business and ERPNext represent aspects of this, but my goal is to within 6 months be focused on creating the Farm to Table distributed mesh network (Holochain based) that I consider to be crucial to the redemption and survival of the culture and environment in Bali and beyond.
So my intention with asking about a simple way to convert the POS app was based on looking for a short term solution until I can really focus energy on apps and integrations that bring elegant user interface and deep-wealth principles to those who would never have access to such wonderful tools as ERPNext due to their non-technical nature.
So I was looking for a low-tech (coding free) solution to free up my time to focus on getting my coding understandings and skills up to par in order to help ERPNext be more accessible to non-tech people haha… hope that made sense
Not really a fan of containers… I don’t see the point of an app that’s practically the same as using my mobile browser… not exactly the best mobile user experience
Although I have both Android and iOS I am mostly centered around the Apple environment so I am (slowly right now due to need to focus on my other business) delving into React Native, which to me seems the most promising due to it’s cross platform abilities as well as the fact that it seems to outperform Cordova as well…
I think that focusing on a native Delivery app rather than a complete ERPNext native app is the way to go from a user interface aspect. (Simple, focused and elegant wins the day on mobile) One of the biggest hurdles I had to get over in my embracing of ERPNext (which I now have fully) was the user interface which makes great sense from a developer standpoint but was very difficult to get my staff using without having them get lost.
The POS is the one interface that is fairly clean and aesthetic, so that was why I referenced it. I haven’t delved into the code of ERPNext enough to know how difficult it would be to modify it into a delivery app but certainly a React based or fully native app would be amazing and I’m looking forward to collaborating on that.
and yes @wale , putting effort into a container app seems shortsighted unless it can be rapidly implemented as a stop-gap while a native app is developed. For a delivery app having offline capabilities is important, especially in countries like Indonesia where the internet infrastructure still has some issues.
Can you clarify if you were referring to a work already in progress with this Android App and if you are talking container app or native offline?
Thanks in Advance for your response
Busy, busy, busy! Have 5 implementations going on simultaneously and running from one unhappy client to a more unhappy client. No, all implementations are going well. I mean as well as an ERP implementation can go. Apologies for being incommunicado.
Olamide & @Solivety: Will build the app. Either or both of you guys find a client willing to try it out and I will deliver the app to you in 4-6 weeks. And involve you in the design and architecture.
We can do routes for version 2 and for version three we can do GPS tracing and authentication, meaning delivery rep would only be able to make a delivery if her/his GPS coordinates matches with the GPS Coordinates of the customer. Customer GPS cpprdinates can be updated in the Customer Address field.
Will you please arrive at your thoughts for version 1 and send them over to me by March 14?
Ooooo… Yeah… I like this idea. Even if I don’t use the part about allowing deliveries only if there is a match, I can still use the GPS part for other functions. Like maybe locking in the location of a New Customer when one is identified by a route driver.
Our drivers are encouraged to find and sign up new long term customers. They create the new customer right in the POS application now when they find one. It is the last option at the bottom of the drop down list in the customer field of POS. Being able to get the GPS info at the same time would be a nice addition.
When you get ready to start that part of your application, do let me know. I may be able to add to the funding pool for that piece if my clients are ready.
I tried to find the ‘link to version 1’ that was mentioned and haven’t found any versions.
An offline invoice-oriented pos would be ridiculously helpful.
Likewise, just being able to add a sig field option to the existing online/offline POS module would be sweet.
forealthough… My mouth is watering slightly at the version 2/3 comments regarding built in routing/GPS verification. Hell, the GPS verification via geofences bit could be tweaked minimally to allow for auto-open of customer profile (hop out if the truck and open app to find the profile already open and ready to go) as well as autofill of ‘New Customer’/‘New Location’ data. Flipping a switch (so to say) of the doctype from ‘sales invoice’ to ‘stock transfer’ would allow the same ‘auto-by-location’ functionality for internal movements between warehouses/stores/etc.
Heading into my busy season, I’d love to help in the near-term as a tester. In a few months, post-season, I can hack away at it to some degree as well.
