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ERP for Drupal

Submitted by Peter on Wed, 2011-02-23 17:47

ERP for Drupal is both a package of Drupal add-on modules to build your own custom ERP system and a prebuilt profile delivering a ready to use ERP system. The Drupal ERP profile is a quick way to set up a test ERP Web site if you have previous Drupal experience. The ERP package is the way to add ERP with the minimum overhead to an existing Web site.

This page is based on comparing the complete download, drupalerp-6.x-1.1-beta3-core.tar.gz, from drupal.org/project/drupalerp and the regular ERP module, erp-6.x-1.1.tar.gz, from drupal.org/project/erp.

The ERP package includes a lot of optional modules and trying to decide what you need is difficult. You could experiment first with the Drupal ERP profile then use your experience to configure the ERP package.

Access

You could use ERP on an internal Web site to limit access to sensitive company data. Australia and some other countries have privacy laws requiring strict control of customer information. An internal Web site is the strongest protection.

If you want limited external access to your ERP system and to some other internal applications, use a VPN, a Virtual Private Network. You install the VPN once and you get controlled access to all internal systems.

If you want external access to the Web site containing the ERP application and you want to limit access to the ERP data, use role based security. The Drupal ERP profile uses a role named staff for access to ERP.

Do you want your customers to see items related to them? ERP for Drupal includes a customer access control. You should be able to give a customer a login to open support requests and to see the progress of those requests. I will experiment with customer access when I have my external ERP Web site running.

Conclusion

ERP is useful for businesses of all sizes. A Drupal based ERP is a better long term investment because of all the other Drupal modules you can use. ERP for Drupal is a good choice for small to medium sized companies not requiring the specialised manufacturing related features of some expensive ERP products.