I am pleased to announce the first release of the Asset Maintenance package is now available on the xChange bringing Planned and Unplanned maintenance functionality to the xTuple ERP solutions (http://www.xtuple.com/node/2284).  This package is based on a Design Specification posted in January (http://www.xtuple.org/node/3809).

The Maintenance package is designed to allow organizations to plan maintenance of assets into the future and to schedule the preventative maintenance of assets to reduce or eliminate costly breakdowns.  The unthinkable always happens so Unplanned Maintenance is also covered in this package. Read more »

While we do publish PostBooks Installers that will quickly and easily install PostBooks, some people like to make the installation a fun little project by installing the individual components.  And really, it's not a bad way for you to practice installing, or to get hands on experience with some of the pieces that we try to hide from you in the packaged installers.  This will be like taking a long walk, but in the end, it's the journey that counts.  Now, if you've been following my writings/ramblings for a while, or if you have met me in person, you know that I'm fiercly aligned with the Penguin Nation, that is, I use, recommend, endorse, and otherwise try to sell everyone on using some flavor of Linux.  Well, In this blog, you'll notice I don't say "Now, go to 'terminal' and..." .  Yep - ALL GUI.  How's THAT for a surprise?  The other surprise is that I wrote this using screen shots from Windows 2000.

          Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
          I took the one less traveled by,
          And that has made all the difference.
                    - Excerpt from The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost (1915)
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Has this happened to you?  You're called in to sandbox the newest version of xTuple for a customer.  "Piece of cake" you think to yourself, "I'll buzz in and buzz out, 30 minutes tops".

"ERROR: syntax error at or near "(" at character 578"

Arrrrgh!  We'll you try again, maybe even open up the update package and poke around looking for a syntax erorr.  "I know this worked on my laptop when I tried it at home..."  Deep breath, keep your cool... We all know that the 10 minute jobs are the ones that end up taking days and years off of our lives.  Read more »

The decision making process for selecting an ERP system is often reliant on the needs of Accounting and Operations people whose primary concern is functionality.   Yet I.T. Administrators bear the burden of deploying the application and anything that goes wrong seems to fall on their shoulders.  Ask any I.T. person what they want in a business system and the answer is “Something that is easy as possible to maintain.”  For this reason I.T. Managers often assume that what would be easiest is a browser-based solution because they don't have to install anything on their users' client machines.  Think again.  xTuple's zero footprint solution is easier than that. Read more »