• Destinationcrm: Xtuple Expands To The Cloud Xtuple Open Today

XTuple, a provider of commercial open source business management software for small to medium-size businesses, announced the release of the latest version of the company's flagship product and the expansion of the xTuple Cloud service. New features of the open source ERP software include a QuickStart Wizard for improved system set up configuration and an xTuple Desktop interface with sample graphical workflows for sales, CRM, accounting, purchasing, and manufacturing. Expanded features and enhancements include xTuple Desktop, a loadable package that is customizable and allows users to create their own favorite places in the application, as well as customized workflows for defined business processes and summary dashboards of key business metrics. Another upgrade is the QuickStart Wizard, an add-in package that complements the Desktop with a guide for setting up a company from scratch. It is available for purchase on the xTuple xChange for $30 for users with locally installed databases.

Calling itself the 'world's #1 open source ERP,' xTuple offers ERP solutions that aim to help businesses grow. Although xTuple software can be used in any industry, it has editions specially tailored to the needs of manufacturers and distributors. In fact one of xTuple’s senior developers went so far as to open his presentation at the user conference by saying, “Open source ERP is all about customization and extension.” But leaving development entirely in the hands of the end users and partners is risky business.

It is also included with the xTuple Cloud service at no additional charge. XTuple PostBooks is the free open source offering, which is aimed at small businesses.

XTuple Standard is a midrange commercial offering, which adds inventory control, warehousing, and other features to the core package. XTuple Manufacturing is the company's most advanced commercial offering, which is aimed at manufacturing companies in both discrete and batch process production, make to order, make to stock, or mixed-mode, and job shops and engineer-to-order. Existing xTuple users can also elect to move their onsite database to the cloud. Red Wolf LLC, a provider of contract assembly, machining, and fabrication services, said they would be migrating its current five-user Manufacturing database to the xTuple Cloud service. 'As a small business with limited IT resources, we're happy to have our xTuple business software run in a reliable cloud environment,' said Red Wolf president Kim Sutton. 'We have seen significant improvements in our business since initially implementing xTuple, and look forward to continued success with this new service.' Further reading.

xTuple Cloud Service also enables users across all three editions of the software to run their database in the cloud via Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2). Recently, xTuple also announced the release of the xTuple Web Portal and the Time and Expense add-in package. The Web Portal enables xTuple users to utilize their website to work directly with customers, suppliers, or other business partners. The Time and Expense package provides companies with project accounting functionality by integrating billing and vouchering for professional services. 'Today's release makes our solution significantly more accessible to small to midsized businesses without major internal IT resources. The software is easier to use, less intimidating and more accessible for the average user,' said xTuple CEO Ned Lilly. 'Life beyond QuickBooks doesn't have to be hard.'

Before you begin, please be aware that it is not necessary to install the xTuple database locally. You can instead connect to which provides unlimited access to an xTuple database in the cloud. If you prefer to have the database on a local computer, however, please follow the instructions below.

If the command line is your preference, we have for you to follow. There are also simple GUI approaches, as described in the. For additional information, you might also read Perry Clark's blog post '.'

Quick Overview This quick overview assumes you are not using the. Download and extract the xTuple ERP client application to a local directory.

Download and install PostgreSQL. Initialize PostgreSQL for xTuple (This simply means adding the super user 'admin' and the group 'xtrole'.). Create a database using UTF-8 encoding. Download and restore an xTuple database on your new database PostgreSQL Considerations Before you can start using xTuple ERP, make sure to check the page for the latest details on which PostgreSQL version will work best with your xTuple ERP version. For information related to easy database administration using the open source tool pgAdmin, please see the below. And for additional information related to installing PostgreSQL, please visit where you will find in-depth documentation and other resources related to PostgreSQL.

Note: xTuple ERP uses encryption for credit card processing —and because of this, the PostgreSQL 'pgcrypto' module is required to support encryption in xTuple ERP. You should be sure to include the pgcrypto module when installing PostgreSQL.

If you do not, you will encounter errors. Detailed Instructions The following paragraphs detail the steps (long version) required to both initialize your PostgreSQL instance to support the xTuple Database and load the database schema.

To skip these details, see the (short version) section below. Or skip to the below to learn about initializing and loading your database using pgAdmin, a free GUI database administration tool.

Once you have the PostgreSQL server running, the next step is to establish the user 'admin' and the group 'xtrole' on your PostgreSQL instance. This is done by executing the 'init.sql' script, which is available in the downloads area. The complete text of the 'init.sql' file is as follows: - - Create the database roles that xTuple software needs for bootstrapping - CREATE ROLE xtrole WITH NOLOGIN; CREATE ROLE admin WITH PASSWORD 'admin' SUPERUSER CREATEDB CREATEROLE LOGIN IN ROLE xtrole. Note: Please also note that since the default password the admin user is 'admin,' you'll want to change it immediately. You may create a different admin user with a different name if you choose to.

However, do this with caution as all documentation examples refer to the default admin user. When you have finished executing the init.sql script, you should next create a new PostgreSQL database to contain the xTuple Database schema. Use UTF-8 encoding when creating the database. You can name the database anything you want.

Shorter names that are easy to remember are preferred. Once the database has been created, you are ready to load the xTuple schema into it. There are several starter schema to choose from, including the following:.

empty.backup - This is an empty database with no data, but all the tables and structures created. quickstart.backup - This database contains a basic Chart of Accounts and also the Account Assignments required to run the full range of transactions. demo.backup - This database (if available) contains a suite of sample data built on top of the 'quickstart' database Like the init.sql script, the database schema can be loaded on the command line. Alternately, you may use GUI tools like pgAdmin III to execute the script and load the schema.

For information on loading the databases using pgAdmin, please see the below. The '.backup' format of the xTuple Database schemas is a compressed format used by the pgrestore binary.

This format may be loaded seamlessly using pgAdmin. To load a.backup file using pgAdmin, connect to the database you created. Right-click on the database object and select the option 'Restore'. On the resulting screen, use the ellipses to navigate to the location of the.backup file on your local machine. With the.backup file selected, simply click OK. To learn more about the psql utility or the pgAdmin application, please consult the PostgreSQL documentation. Command Line Examples The following examples demonstrate the steps needed to initialize, create, and load an xTuple Database.

You may give the database you create any name which does not conflict with the rules for naming PostgreSQL databases. However, we recommend that you choose a simple name with all lowercase characters.

For example, we have used a database named 'production' in the following example. With a clean PostgreSQL instance installed, you can use the following commands to get started: psql -U postgres -f init.sql template1 createdb -U admin production pgrestore -U admin -d production quickstart.backup -v The first command line example uses the 'psql' utility to load the 'init.sql' script. This script creates the user 'admin' and the group 'xtrole'. The first option ('-U postgres') tells the system to connect as the postgres user. This user is typically the default PostgreSQL superuser. The next option ('-f init.sql') tells psql to read the init.sql script and execute the commands. The last option ('template1') tells psql which database to connect to.

Note: You are not required to run the init.sql script against the 'template1' database. You may also run it against another database you create.

Also: In newer versions of PostgreSQL, the 'postgres' database is the new default template. By default, the init.sql script will create the 'admin' user with the password of 'admin'. You should be sure to change the password once you have your xTuple system installed and running. The second command line example uses 'createdb' to create a new database.

Notice that this command uses the same first two options as used in the psql command to specify the user to connect as. Note that now we are using the option '-U admin' to indicate we want to connect as the admin user created previously. The last option is the name of the new database we want to create (e.g., 'production'). The third command line example loads the schema for the xTuple 'quickstart' Database. The.backup file format is a compressed format and is used by the pgrestore binary.

The -d switch enables you to specify the database into which the restore will be performed (i.e., the 'production' database in this example.) Next, we specify the name of the.backup file with the path to its location if necessary. Finally, we specify -v for verbose output. It is important to keep in mind that if you configured PostgreSQL to listen on a port other than the default port of 5432, you will need to specify this with '-p XXXX' where XXXX is the port number. Info: If you want a.sql file instead of a.backup, you can easily do this using pgrestore, as follows: pgrestore -f quickstart.sql quickstart.backup This example says use pgrestore to create a file called 'quickstart.sql' from the file called 'quickstart.backup'. This completes the command line examples section.

Using pgAdmin To Get Started is a free, cross-platform GUI tool for administering PostgreSQL databases. In this section we assume you have PostgreSQL already installed on your system. The following screenshots and narrative describe how to get xTuple ERP running on your PostgreSQL server. We will describe how to accomplish two main objectives:. Configuring PostgreSQL for xTuple.

Loading the xTuple database(s) Configuring for xTuple Since you already have PostgreSQL installed, the first thing to do is initialize the server so xTuple databases will run successfully on it. While that last sentence may sound complicated, the reality is you only have to do the following things:.

Link pgAdmin to your PostgreSQL server. Create a group called 'xtrole'. Create a user 'admin'. Create a password for the user 'admin'.

Put the user 'admin' in the group 'xtrole'. Note: This section assumes you installed PostgreSQL on your local drive (a.k.a. 'localhost' or '127.0.0.1'). Okay, so the first thing to do is to create a link between your pgAdmin application and your PostgreSQL database. If that link already exists, then you can skip this step.

But if not, simply select the 'File' menu option and then select the 'Add Server' option. Add New Server When you are presented with the new server screen, enter the information as it's shown in the next screenshot.

You have flexibility in some of the options you choose. However, the following must be used:. Host = localhost or 127.0.0.1. Port = 5432. Username = postgres.

Password = Password used for postgres user when you installed PostgreSQL Server Definition Once you have the connection between pgAdmin and PostgreSQL completed, the next step is to configure PostgreSQL so xTuple databases will run successfully on it. The first thing to do then is to create the 'xtrole' group. By right-clicking on the Group Roles section, you can select the 'New Group Role' option. Group Roles When creating the new group role for 'xtrole', you only need to enter a minimal amount of information. Enter the same information as it's shown in the next screenshot.

The Role name should be lower case. And the only Role Privilege you need is 'Inherits rights from parent roles'. No password required. And you don't have to add any information under the other tabs that are shown.

Group Role for xtrole Now that you have the 'xtrole' group role define, the next step is to create the 'admin' user and place the user in the group 'xtrole'. The next screenshot shows how you can access the screen for creating a new login role. Login Roles The screen for creating a login role for 'admin' looks similar to the screen we saw before for creating the 'xtrole' group.

However, this time we will need to add more information —and select more options. You have some flexibility over some of the options you choose, but the following should be the same as shown in the screenshot:.

Role name = admin. Role Privileges = Select all If you don't need the account to expire at a certain point, then just leave the expiration date blank.

Destinationcrm: Xtuple Expands To The Cloud Xtuple Open Today

That will keep the account open indefinitely. Login Role for admin User Once the 'admin' user's properties have been defined, select the Role membership tab. It's on this screen you make the user 'admin' a member of the group 'xtrole'. The following screenshot shows the end result of this action. By using the double arrows ' you can move 'admin' from not being a member in 'openmfg' to being a member in 'openmfg'.

Admin in Group xtrole And that's all you need to initialize PostgreSQL for xTuple. You can now load xTuple ERP databases onto the server and connect to them using your xTuple ERP client application. Creating New Database The last getting started step is to create a database and load (i.e., restore) an xTuple ERP backup file into it. The next screenshot shows how right-clicking on the 'Databases' element enables you to access the 'New Database' option.

List of Databases You can name your database anything you want to. In our example we will be calling our new database 'dbTest'. When you are creating a new database with pgAdmin, be sure to use the following values, as shown in the screenshot:. Owner = admin. Encoding = UTF8. Template = template1 You can leave everything else with the default values pgAdmin gives you.

And there's no need to enter additional information under any of the other tabs. Create New Database The database we just created now appears in the list of databases, as you can see in the next screenshot. Our final step is now to load an xTuple database backup file into the database we created.

For the purposes of this example, we will assume you have already downloaded the database backup file from either the PostBooks®—or from the xTuple website (Distribution and Manufacturing Editions only). Restoring from Backup File As the next screenshot shows, we can reach the 'Restore' option by right-clicking on the new database we just created. The 'Restore' option is the one we need to load the xTuple.backup file. Restore Backup File The Restore screen looks just like the next screenshot.

All you have to do here is. Browse your computer for the xTuple.backup file you downloaded.

Select it the.backup file so the path to it appears in the 'Filename' field You should leave the other options not-selected —except for the last one, which will give you more verbose messaging during the load process (this can be helpful). And then simply select the OK button to begin the restore process. Begin Restore Don't worry if the restore takes several minutes to complete. This is normal.

At the end of the process you will see log messages which look like those shown in the following screenshot. Depending on the circumstances of your PostgreSQL installation (e.g., whether previous databases have been installed there, etc.), the messages pgAdmin reports may vary.

The ideal scenario on a fresh PostgreSQL install is for 0 errors to be reported and an exit code = 0. However, as the next screenshot shows, pgAdmin may report a number of errors and a non-zero exit code. If this is the result you get, don't be alarmed. Simply review the list of errors by using the scroll bar in the 'Restore Database' screen. Scroll to the top and review the list of errors which were reported. Most if not all of the errors you get can safely be ignored. Here are some examples of error messages which can safely be ignored.