jueves, 19 de mayo de 2011

Are widgets meant for casual users?

It’s obvious that for those who use Openbravo ERP as their main tool, being able to have their most used applications available in their Openbravo Workspace as widgets is great.
It gives you the possibility of having your ToDos, Calendars, eMail summary and lots of other convenient tools very handy.

But, what if you just use Openbravo ERP from time to time?
 I, myself, as a consultant, use Openbravo ERP in a weekly or monthly basis just to register my time and expense sheets. My first thought was “Openbravo widgets are not made for me. I wouldn’t place my most used applications somewhere I seldom visit “.

But, with the appearance of Query widgets, this argument is no longer valid. Query widgets give you instant access to your most useful information in the ERP, no matter the frequency in which this piece of information must be reviewed.

There’s always a useful report for every user. In my case, this report would be about the timesheets I have already registered during this current month, allowing me to see at a glance the total number of hours and identify if I still have timesheets pending to be allocated or even editing any just by clicking on it in the widget.

I decided to build the widget1 myself and it was much easier than I thought. Now I can have a summarized view in my Workspace or visit a more complete version by expanding it.



That’s my golden Query Widget, what would be yours?
Note1: This widget is called My Current Timesheets and it’s been included in the Widgets Collection