Odoo Experience, the main Odoo event of the year, represents the culmination of 12 months of hard work, sweat, and triumph to deliver the latest version of Odoo – the next generation of business applications.
Our goal is to unleash every company’s potential by empowering users with tools they love which means that we are constantly looking for ways to provide you with the best apps, features and user experience. This brings us to the latest version of our software – Odoo 11. Fabien Pinckaers, our founder, unveiled the Odoo 11 during his keynote presentation at the Odoo Experience. The highly anticipated event was attended by a record breaking 1200 participants plus 1000 live stream Youtube visitors!
Enhancing Performance:
Improved User Experience and Speed
At Odoo, we strongly believe that the details are not just insignificant things that can be overlooked – they help to make our product feel more humane and provide our users with a positive experience. This degree of increased user satisfaction trumps every other factor in the release of a new version. Our Usability team has spent the last 12 months working on hundreds of tasks dedicated to work on those small details which, put together, will make using Odoo smoother and more harmonious.
A New Look & Feel
With this new design, our primary goal was to delight our users with an interface which is aesthetically pleasing and facilitates ease of use. Odoo has always been known to challenge accepted industry standards, we shifted the paradigm from traditional, austere ERP interfaces to a fun and attractive one. We took that to a whole new level with this version. From the home page to the Kanban and form views, the chatter and even the reports, we wanted every interface to be ’pixel perfect’:
- The traditional colours of the backend have been switched to a more pure, bright and high chrome palette which is optimized to adapt to all screen sizes and devices
- The fonts are cleaner which makes it easier to read
- The interface has been improved in order to fit perfectly to every working environment (smartphone, laptop and wide screen)
300% improved speed
When you work several hours a day on your Odoo database, every click matters. We know that if the speed of a single click is improved by just one second, you will save a huge amount of time at the end of the month and boost your productivity and happiness at work. This is why our R&D team managed to decrease the number of SQL queries by operation in order to make Odoo 11 faster than the previous version.
The performance test we ran went beyond our expectations. On average, Odoo 11 is 3 times faster than Odoo 10 – and the gap is even bigger depending on the size of the database!
A New Kanban Layout with a Useful Progress Bar
This is one of those little details that can make a huge difference, especially for sales reps and project managers. With the new progress bar on stage headers, your teams will be able to filter on the status of their activities (To Do, Done or Overdue) in just one click, allowing them to track their activities and follow up on their ongoing deals better than before. Another nice “little big detail” is the new animation updating the forecast of each stage when you drag and drop an opportunity to the next stage.
A Dedicated Mobile UI for Odoo Discuss
Chatting on the go with your colleagues is a breeze with this new user interface. The app has been redesigned for mobile users and the main buttons are now accessible within the ‘thumb zone’ at the bottom of the screen, allowing better IMing , livechat and overall communication from your smartphone.
Enriching the Product:
New Features to Help You Get Things Done Faster
Releasing new features and enriching the existing product is an essential element in the growth of a business software such as Odoo. For every new release, we are driven by one single purpose: helping our users to become better at their job and to accomplish more with Odoo. Once again this year, we are convinced that we have reached the target.
Here is an overview of what’s new.
Odoo Project: Analyze Project and Employees Profitability
Odoo is a great tool for service companies because of its comprehensive integration between apps that cover each stage of the usual workflow:
- Odoo Sales to increase customer satisfaction
- Odoo Project to deliver your services
- Odoo Timesheet to control the time spent on projects
- Odoo Helpdesk to manage customer support
With Odoo 11, we have added one extra element to this rich list of services: the ability to analyze the profitability of your employees and projects at a glance in a convenient report. Based on your invoicing methods, you will get attached to each project a detailed analysis of the costs and revenues of all your fixed and billable products as well as the number of your non-billable tasks.
New Accounting Localizations:
Mexico, Spain, Switzerland, Netherlands, Germany, Colombia
On top of some usability improvements implemented to improve the end-user experience (simplifying the UI and smoothing the onboarding), Odoo Accounting has been improved and adapted for the following countries with the localization packages:
- Mexico: Updated chart of accounts and taxes, CFDI 3.3, DIOT, Trial Balance and new CoA report.
- Spain: New chart of accounts (Pymes, Associations, Corporates), updated taxes, legal statements (Balance Sheet, AEAT Modelo 111, 115 and 303).
- United States: New check register report.
- Germany: Updated chart of accounts (skr03 and skr04), updated taxes, new legal statements (P&L, Balance Sheet, Intracom Tax Report), updated tax report, DATEV Export.
- Switzerland: ISR invoices (BVR), DTA → SEPA, cash rounding management, postal bank support, currency rate live update based on Federal Tax Agency.
- India: The accounting localization has been adapted for GST
- The Netherlands: Updated chart of accounts and taxes, general ledger XAF report, new legal statements: P&L and ICP.
- Colombia: Updated chart of accounts and taxes, Certificados de Retencion. Tax base field on journal items.
Odoo Studio: Additional Features and Better UX
Odoo Studio was the highlight of last year’s release. The tool has added a tremendous added value to the overall product by providing any end-user with the ability to create and customize business apps in minutes – even without an IT background.
This year, the goal was to release an app that’s more mature and user-friendly. Some of the feature highlights include:
- Switch between apps: customize several apps without leaving the Studio app
- Edit list and form views for One2Many and Many2Many fields
- Generate Gantt views from your custom app
- Drag & drop fields in your view
- Customize your app with more related fields
Odoo Inventory and MRP: Flexibility and Robustness
The R&D team has worked hard to come up with a new and improved version of these 2 core apps.
From a functional point of view, the major improvements include:
- A better user experience thanks to additional features as well as cleaner menus and improved reports
- Better flexibility & robustness thanks to the ability to update any transaction (Inventory) and consumed/produced items (MRP)
- Visual indicators, logged notes and warning to help prevent mistakes or oversights.
Introducing New Apps:
Marketing Automation and Online Appointment
Finally, an Odoo release is never complete without new, exciting apps. This year, we took the leap and developed new tools that will help our users to scale and automate their business processes while reducing their workload.
Online Appointment
Odoo Online Appointment is an easy-to-use and user friendly scheduling solution which allows clients to self-book their own appointment online based on your real-time availability. The tool synchronizes with your Google Calendar, giving you total control over your schedule and avoiding double booking.
What’s so great about this app?
- Watch your agenda fill up effortlessly and 24/7 thanks to the self booking system
- Send automated emails or SMS’s to make sure appointments are not forgotten
- Want to update your availability? Do it straight from your Google Calendar and the system will synchronize it in real time
- Publish your appointment type on your Odoo Website in one click
Marketing Automation
Traditionally, a marketing automation software is used by the marketing department to automate repetitive actions such as email campaigns. For example, if you want to enroll every new incoming lead in a specific campaign of 5 emails sent every week, any marketing automation tool will do the job.
This new tool is perfect for lead nurturing and automating lead management as well – but it goes even beyond that. Odoo Marketing Automation features tight integration between apps and can be used by any department to automate any business flow. A few examples :
- Accountants will be able to automate payment follow-ups thanks to the integration with Odoo Accounting
- SaaS experts will automate their users’ database notifications thanks to the integration with Odoo Subscriptions
- Registration confirmations, reminders and follow-ups for events can be managed on autopilot.
- Etc.
What’s so great about this app?
- The visual interface lets you envision the whole workflow at a glance
- It’s more than just a marketing automation tool. It’s a business automation tool
- Thanks to the lead generation, lead scoring and lead assignation functionalities, it’s an amazing lead management system
Odoo App for iOS
The iOS users will finally be able to take their work out of the office and work on the go from their iPhone. We have released a new Mobile app optimized for any iOS device, providing iPhone users with the next level of flexibility for their business management software.
Every application is available from one native app, allowing you to maintain your records, reports, sales, content management, and more. Push notifications keep you informed of every task or action you follow, and the adaptive content delivery system ensures that every screen is optimally viewable from any device size.
