What this book covers

The book is divided into three sections:

Now, let's discuss in some detail what each chapter will cover:

Chapter 1, Setting Up Odoo, gets you started right away by showing you how to use Odoo online without any setup. Just open your browser and you are ready to get going. Next, the chapter goes on to cover the different installation types and prerequisites for both Windows and Ubuntu. Instructions are provided to find the right download package and set up Odoo on your own server. The chapter then goes into the basics of configuring Odoo. At the end of the chapter is a useful collection of tips on how to troubleshoot your Odoo installation.

Chapter 2, Installing Your First Application, begins by introducing you to the real-world case study that will be used as an example throughout the book. We continue by showing you how to create the company database and configure the basic company settings required to quickly get your first Odoo system up and running. The first module, Sales Management, will be installed, and we will walk through the steps to enter a customer and a product. The chapter concludes by entering a sales order and completing the sale and producing an invoice.

Chapter 3, Exploring Customer Relationship Management in Odoo, starts with a basic overview of CRM systems and their importance in today's modern business environment. After we cover the installation of the CRM application, a lead is entered for our sample company. We will demonstrate the CRM workflow by turning the lead into a customer. Next, a quote is generated for our newly acquired customer, and a call is scheduled for follow-up by using Odoo's meeting functionality. We also cover the OpenChatter feature that is used throughout Odoo to provide notes and messages associated with Odoo documents.

Chapter 4, Purchasing with Odoo, shows us how to install the purchasing application, set up suppliers, and begin purchasing and receiving products in Odoo. Later in the chapter, you learn how to tie purchasing into sales orders to automatically generate draft purchase orders based on your business requirements.

Chapter 5, Making Goods with Manufacturing Resource Planning, begins to explore some of the primary functionalities of ERP systems for manufacturing operations. You will learn how to set up your manufacturing orders and define the bill of materials to specify the raw materials that will go into your final products. Manufacturing operations can then be extended with routing and work centers to give you more control over tracking time and resources.

Chapter 6, Configuring Accounting Finance, discusses the Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable basic functions. Next, we will introduce the Chart of Accounts and discover how to set up fiscal periods. This chapter will also include the basic accounting reports and how to close a period.

Chapter 7, Administering an Odoo Installation, begins by discussing the overall considerations for implementing Odoo into a business environment. This includes advice on server configurations, documenting your processes, and the importance of considering business continuity. We then go into how to manage users, groups, and set up security roles to manage access to various applications within Odoo. Finally, we look at how to implement Internationalization for multiple languages and currencies.

Chapter 8, Implementing the Human Resources Application, begins by installing the basic HR applications and goes over the employee directory. Other topics in the chapter will include timesheets, the recruitment process, and leave management. At the end of the chapter, we will look at how to create online interviews and hire employees using the tools in Odoo.

Chapter 9, Understanding Project Management, covers the features of the Project Management application in Odoo. We will create a project, see how to enter tasks and tie a project to a specific customer. Next, team members are assigned to the project, and we configure task stages. We then will go over real-world examples of using the Project Management application to more easily manage complex orders and customer needs. Finally, we see how Project Management can be used along with analytic accounting to provide better reporting.

Chapter 10, Creating Advanced Searches and Dashboards, demonstrates how to utilize the advanced search features and configure custom dashboards in Odoo. By the end of the chapter, you will be able to create and save custom searches to reuse later, as well as add search results to dashboards.

Chapter 11, Building a Website with Odoo, is dedicated to exploring Odoo's powerful new website building platform. At the beginning of the chapter, we will look at what a CMS (Content Management System) is and some of the other popular website building platforms. We follow along with Odoo's website building tutorial and then look at the features that can be used to promote your website right from within Odoo.

Chapter 12, Implementing E-Commerce with Odoo, builds on the previous chapter by adding a fully functioning online shopping cart to the website. We see how to publish products to the website and the various options to change their appearance. Midway through the chapter, we cover product variants that add additional flexibility to how you manage your products within Odoo. Finally, we conclude by examining how to set up a payment processor to take payment online through PayPal.

Chapter 13, Customizing Odoo for Your Business, explains how to enter the developer mode for making a variety of custom changes to Odoo. We will walk through the steps to add fields to the sales order form and then include the fields in tree views for sorting and reporting. From here, we will get into advanced configuration topics to better customize Odoo for your specific business requirements.

Chapter 14, Modifying Documents and Reports, goes over the basic reporting mechanisms available in Odoo and weighs up the advantages and disadvantages of the various options. We learn how to use the powerful qWeb template language to modify the default Odoo sales order form.

Chapter 15, Understanding Workflows, introduces the workflow editor and analyzes the basic sales order workflow. Using our case study example, the workflow is modified to improve the flow of information through the business. By the end of the chapter, you should have a basic understanding of modifying workflows to better handle unique business processes.

Chapter 16, Discovering Custom Odoo Modules, introduces the process of developing custom solutions in Odoo. We build on what we learned in Chapter 13, Customizing Odoo for Your Business and create a module that will persist our custom field and views within our module. Next, we build on the workflow modifications we made in the previous chapter and upgrade our module to approve art designs for our real-world example.

Appendix, Locating Additional Odoo Resources, covers a list of resources that can extend your knowledge in supporting an Odoo installation.