I would tend to agree with Bob on this one. If the development of LSMB concentrates on making it the best at what it does (which is accountancy first and foremost with hooks into inventory, PoS, etc.) and then builds a solid, consistent API on top of that then I would consider that as job done. Those who want to add in various CRM, ERP, RT and who-knows-what-else functionality can then choose their preferred CRM, ERP, etc. tool and just write the glue to go between them. This is the open source way. Please don't add in features like this which don't really belong in an accountancy package and which are implemented well elsewhere - just give us the tools (ie. an API) so that our choices of applications can be made to talk to one another. Pete On Sat, Jul 23, 2011 at 11:16:53AM -0700, Bob Miller wrote: > > My last job before I became self-employed was a company that put some > resources into mixing sql-ledger and request-tracker. They eventually > got it to work, but the accounting code was flaky after that, the system > was too unreliable, so they abandoned the project. As far as I know, > they never released the code, I somehow doubt it even exists any more. > They had it set up so that you could click a button in tracker to list > all customers in ledger's database and select one to fill a custom field > in tracker, and another button that could be used to add inventory items > to a ticket in other custom fields. Finally, when the ticket was > resolved within certain queues in tracker, it sent all the time > worked/inventory items/customer info to ledger and ledger created an > invoice and emailed it to the customer. Ultimately a user of the system > could complete the entire billing process without ever logging into > ledger. Had it worked, it would also have made it so bookkeepers only > had to collect money and enter payments, and not have to manually > generate invoices. > While I wasn't there any longer when the project was finally completed, > I remain friendly with the staff there, and I heard nothing but what a > beautiful thing it was for the staff (except accounting staff, who spent > all their time tracking and fixing the stuff that went buggy). > If ever I get to stop working again for long enough to learn > programming, this is one of my dream goals. both tracker and ledger are > a huge piece of my business operations, a marriage of the two would make > administrative overhead in my business a lighter load. > Anyway, I just mention it because Request Tracker does all the things > you mention, and I think what my former employer did very closely > resembles what you are talking about doing yourself. Perhaps you might > find value in hearing about this approach... -- Openstrike - improving business through open source http://www.openstrike.co.uk/ or call 01722 770036 / 07092 020107
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