1. www.unamur.be
What are the benefits of OpenERP’s
modularity for the University of Namur?
François Degrave
PhD in Computer Science
Responsible for software architecture

2. www.unamur.be
Context
●
Finance: Software developed internally (80's)
– Last major changes in 1992
• Outdated technology, servers, architecture...
●
Education: developed internally in 1999
●
Plans for a merger of universities in 2008
– Freeze of any new development !
– Common projects with the other partners
●
The merger failed in Dec. 2010
●
Catch up on lost time !

3. www.unamur.be
Requirements
●
More integrated approach
●
More participation of users
●
Larger an extensible functional scope
– Accounting, purchases, sales, budgets
– Education management
– ...
●
Short delay :
– 01/01/2013 for finance
– 2013/2014 academic year for education

4. www.unamur.be
Why OpenERP?
●
FOSS philosophy
– Control over our data
– Advanced adaptations for specific usages
●
Major actor in open source ERP software
●
Belgian editor
●
Many active partners

5. www.unamur.be
Timeline
●
Education offer: 10/2012
●
Accounting, sales, purchases: 01/2013
●
Student registrations: 03/2013
●
Budget monitoring: 04/2013
●
Student registrations payments: 06/2013
●
Student social funding: 07/2013
●
Student careers: 09/2013
●
...

6. www.unamur.be
OpenERP modules
Shared objects
academic years, identities, entities...
noe_utils
LDAP, encryption
noe_login
Education management
Offer, registrations, student careers
noe_edu
Accounting and sales adaptations
noe_account
Purchases adaptations
noe_purchase
Financial aspects of education
noe_edu_account

7. www.unamur.be
OpenERP modules
●
Dependencies:
– OpenERP: account, purchase, l10n_be
– Noviat: CODA import, payments
– Syleam: JasperReport (for all reporting)
●
No need to modify/patch the existing code
(server or modules)
– Except monkey patch :-)

8. www.unamur.be
Finance
●
Adaptations of existing modules
●
Analysis with a partner
– Strong knowledge of standard processes and “best
practices” in finance and ERPs
●
Implemented and deployed by us
Analysis Implementation Deployment

9. www.unamur.be
Finance: main functionalities
●
Budget management
– Use of budget accounts
– Actual vs committed amounts

10. www.unamur.be
Finance: main functionalities
●
Multiple business entities
– Budget responsibility
– Sales / Purchases approval process
– Different rights for budget/purchase
●
Heavy adaptations of analytic accounts

11. www.unamur.be
Finance: main functionalities
●
VAT computation
– Deductible, not deductible, pro-rata, not taxable
– Can be different for each invoice line...
– Taxes are supported by the entities
●
Advances on expenses
– Help for complex process
– Many moves, statements and reconciles involved
●
Internal invoices
– Simplified invoices between departments
– Particular accounts for internal transfers

12. www.unamur.be
Finance: success!
●
Learning curve was fast
●
Many improvements vs. legacy system
– Coda, payments
– Decentralized processes
– Much less file transfers between entities
– Real-time follow-up for budget managers
●
Successfully revised by company auditors !!
– Approbation processes of documents
– Trustworthiness of the figures

13. www.unamur.be
Finance: some figures
●
~16,000 invoices, on avg. >600/week
– Students excluded (~10,000 a year)
●
~150,000 journal items, on avg. >5700/week
●
~2,000 purchase orders

14. www.unamur.be
Education
●
From scratch!
●
Different development methodology
●
Completely separated project, same OpenERP
instance
●
All by ourselves
Analysis
Design
Implementation
Specific subject Validation
Customer's
requirements
Workshop

15. www.unamur.be
Education: offer
●
Many different objects
– Programs, reforms
– Courses, subjects groups, allocations
– Teachers ( Identity User)→ →
●
Many different access rights
– Secretaries for each faculty
– Teachers (own courses only)
– Education administrators
– Assignment managers
●
Multiple languages
●
Web publication

16. www.unamur.be
Education: offer

17. www.unamur.be
Education: registrations
●
Encoding of >6,000 applications / year (growing)
– Particular stress on speed and responsiveness!
●
Track all the required documents to claim/produce
– Depending on each student profile
– >10 documents / student
– Parametric “ rule engine” for documents/claims
Growing use of e-mails
– 18,000 sheets of paper spared in the last 2 days !
– Uncountable hours spared...

18. www.unamur.be
Education: registrations

19. www.unamur.be
Edu.: registrations accounting
●
~10,000 invoices (6,000 in Sept, 4,000 in July)
●
Amount depends on
– Registration type
– Student profile
– Students funding
●
Parametric “payment rules engine”
– Automatic generation of invoices
●
Much time spared
– Invoices sent by e-mail
– Automatic reconciliations
noe_edu noe_account
noe_edu_account

20. www.unamur.be
Edu.: registrations accounting

21. www.unamur.be
Education: student career
●
Students custom programs and exams
– Constraints
●
Exam sessions and registrations
●
Successes, failures, automatic re-registrations,...
– Very complex and time-consuming
– Automate everything possible !
●
Ongoing developments, due in September 2013

22. www.unamur.be
Education: student career

23. www.unamur.be
Ongoing and future work
●
Students fundings and loans
– Ongoing work, subcontracted to Audaxis
●
Many requirements coming everyday!
– New functionalities in existing modules
– Points of sales
• Books stores
• Central store of office supplies
– Student housing management
– Assets management
– ...

24. www.unamur.be
Ongoing and future work
●
Technical stuff
– Testing framework
– Migrations...

25. www.unamur.be
OpenERP modularity...
●
...allowed us to:
– Work on different aspects with separated teams
– Start the applications at different moments in the
same instance
– Link the different aspects afterwards through new
modules
– Cleanly re-use and modify existing modules
– Subcontract the creation of new modules