The ERPNext Newsletter ? July 2021
Hey there,
Recently, there were sensational revelations about how hackers were able to snoop into your system and sell your privacy to government officers or whoever was interested. This makes Free Software even more important. With closed source tools, you never know how you are being tracked and mined. With FOSS, you have that peace of mind.
Starting with updates, we have a third set of releases v13.5 and v13.6 that bring manufacturing, accounting, and slight onboarding improvements. There’s also an upcoming feature that allows customizing the desk home page.
In blogs, you’ll see two stories—one on how we worked with Zerodha to build a loan management system in ERPNext and the second one on a customer success story with a modern tea manufacturing company. And the release blog describes all major features added recently.
Later, we see how an election happened at Frappe, a different approach to organization structure, and see some FOSS updates.
Product updates
Here are some product updates for the month:
Subcontracting saw some enhancements like the consumed quantity which can now be edited in the Purchase Receipt, non-consumed components can be retrieved from the Supplier and recorded in a Purchase Order, and there’s a new report called ‘Subcontract Order Summary’.
The ‘Form Tour’ feature helps in setting up guided tutorials so that users can learn how to use ERPNext. Previously, it could be used only in onboarding flows, but with a recent update, it now works on any form in ERPNext. This means users can now create their custom form tour. “Save on completion” is also an addition that shows a save prompt at the final step of the tour flow.
An upcoming feature is the ‘Wiki based Desk Page’ which will allow users to configure the desk with custom pages and sub-documents! We’ll share more developments in future updates.
Blogs
Coming to the blogs:
The third pair of quick releases after V13 bring more bug fixes and features. The highlights include enhancements in job cards and subcontracting, employee grievance in HR, and an updated maintenance schedule. Find out more in ERPNext and Frappe Framework release v13.5 and v13.6.
In a growing business, there’s always a new need. At such times companies either purchase new software or pay for long-drawn customizations. But there’s also another option: When old systems don’t work, build your own. Creation of the loan management system in ERPNext.
Imagine you’re a growing company, the hefty price tags of big name ERPs sink your heart and potentially bleed the ledger. But you still need features and the ability to customize quickly to changing needs. Let’s see a similar situation in the customer story where we see What happens when the freshest tea seller meets the world’s best open-source software to implement ERPNext.
What’s up at Frappe?
Frappe leadership council (FLC)
As the first term of FLC came to an end, the second set of members were elected with a pitch and election. The whole company watched from the audience as the discussions and questions took from a polite to a confrontational to an argumentative nature. Rushabh sums the fun learning experience in Democracy at Frappe - Electing the Leadership Council.
Organization structure
The open culture at Frappe meant that there has never been a traditional hierarchical org structure. One could say Frappe had a flat structure but then it’s hard to track things in a flat structure as the company strength grows. I proposed a hierarchical system minus the traditional autocratic tendencies, which some others also favored. But the majority leaned towards The Sandwich Organization.
FOSS United
FOSS Meetup - July 2021 brings an AdonisJS, evolution of cloud native chaos engineering, the growth of ToolJet, and more.
New members
Last month, we welcomed four engineers and three consultants to the company.
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Cheers,
Prasad from Frappe.