FAQ


User FAQ


If you have any questions that are not answered feel free to contact us: info@linogistix.com

During the installation process I choose english but now the software starts in german.

Try to login with 'english' as username and password.


The questions:

 

1.) How much is the commercial software licence?      

   The commercial licence is 3.800
2.) If I require additional features on the commercial or open source version is it possible to pay someone to develop them (I'm not a java developer)
     Yes, that's our main business :-)
3.) Does myWMS support billing based on time, incoming or outgoing goods?
   Billing is only available in the commercial version. In our definition  billing means providing the data for billing __not__ factoring (creation  of the formal bill, i.e. billing number, taxes, ...)





    

4.) I take it I would be able to interface to myWMS to automate Jobs-->myWMS(Picking)-->Dispatch-->Customer Delivery etc.

     Correct - supported by means of webservices which are provieded by myWMS

5.) I notice the mobile application is web based, is there a web portal for the customers to see their stock levels and raise loads?


   We  did this is in several customer projects. Again, the inventory data is  provided by a webservice which can be called from a portal. We have good  experience to   integrate in OpenCMS or JSF. PHP will be easy going as  well.



Is there another release of the project planned ? Is there a large community ?  

The next release (1.4) is planned for August 2011. myWMS is actively developed by LinogistiX (main contributor), Fraunhofer Institut for Material flow and Logistics and a dozen other partners. Of course the community is not as large as other open source projects like Linux or JBoss - due to the fact that WMS is a specialized application. But on sourceforge we have 200 downloads per month and our community is small but powerful.



Is it dynamic ? 

Concerning dynamic: yes. We are using myWMS in a lot of projects - from industrial purposes to research (e.g. habe a look at the video at  www.iml.fraunhofer.de/de/presse_medien/pressemitteilungen/cemat_201 1.html).  That's why there are always new components built on top of myWMS. Some are closed source, some are open source to customers and partners.

 

Does myWMS LOS support partially filled palettes?

Yes it does. You are even able to put items on a already stored palette in case that

  1. it is not full

  2. There are no constraints that permit this (see unit load)

How is the warehouse topology entered to the myWMS LOS?

This is done by importing an XML file (menu: File -> Import). See UserGuideDataImport for more details. At the moment we are developing a module to design the topology (racks + storage locations) graphically. But I can't tell when we have a first release and if it will be released under the GPL.

Does myWMS LOS use ABC analysis?

Not out of the box. It is possible to define Zones and declare them to be an A-Zone, B-Zone, C-Zone. And then link this Zone to an item data (article) or storage location.

How does myWMS LOS determine the storage location for new goods? What parameters does it use for it?

At the moment, the storage location is chosen by the lowest lexicographically match of the storage location name.

When I open the client all of the menu options are in German. How would I go about changing them to English?

The GUI client is presented in the language that has been configured for the logged-in user. Configuration is done in the locale property of the User. See This HowTo for more information.

 

Developer FAQ

 

Internationalization

Which languages are supported?

At the moment

  • english (default)

  • german

  • french (partially).

How do I translate/ add support for other languages to myWMS LOS

 

In short terms: We are using standard java localization mechanisms, see http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/Intl/ResourceBundles/

1) Identify bundle propertie files

Every server module has a subpackes res (e.g. de.linogistix.los.location.res). Similarily, every client module has a subpackes res (e.g. de.linogistix.location.res). Where to find this package depends on the distribution you work with:

In the source distribution

  • Under server.app directory you'll find the server modules (i.e. los.common-ejb, los.location-ejb, los.inventory-ejb, ...)[1] each having a source subdirectory src. Look for the res package there (e.g. server.app/los.location-ejb/src/de/linogistix/los/location/res).

  • Under rich.client\los.clientsuite you'll find the client modules (LOS Common, LOS Location Browser, LOS Inventory Browser, ...) each having a source subdirectory src. Look for the res package there (e.g. rich.client/los.clientsuite/src/de/linogistix/location/res).

In the individual res package you'll find the Bundle properties files (e.g. 'Bundle.properties' for default language (english) and 'Bundle_de_DE.properties' for german language).

In the ear package or jar archives

  • For server modules, have a look at the deploy directory jboss/server/default/deploy/los.reference.ear. There you'll find the modules, e.g.:

    • los.common-comp.jar
    • los.inventory-comp.jar
    • los.location-comp.jar
    • los.stocktaking-comp.jar
    • los-mobile.war
    • myWMS-comp.jar
    • project-ejb3.jar

  • Each *.jar contains its res package. Look for it2] and you'll find the Bundle properties files inside (e.g. 'Bundle.properties' for default language (english) and 'Bundle_de_DE.properties' for german language).

  • for client modules, hava a look at los_reference/linogistix_clientsuite/modules:

    • de-linogistix-common.jar
    • de-linogistix-inventory.jar
    • de-linogistix-location.jar
    • de-linogistix-logviewer.jar
    • de-linogistix-losdataimporter.jar
    • de-linogistix-reports.jar
    • de-linogistix-stocktaking.jar
    • de-linogistix-wmsprocesses.jar

  • As for server modules, each *.jar contains its res package. Look for it and you'll find the Bundle properties files inside (e.g. 'Bundle.properties' for default language (english) and 'Bundle_de_DE.properties' for german language).

2) Create new bundle properties file

Copy Bundle.properties to a new localized bundle properties file. E.g. to add support for russian this file will be called Bundle_ru_RU.properties . Then open the file in an editor[2] (UTF-8!) and replace in each line the english expression (or value part of the property, i.e. everything on the right side of '=') with its russian translation.

Please watch out if you have special characters in you language or use a complete different character set, e. g. russian do. The file has to be encoded not in native but in ASCII style. If you experience issues with not correctly displayed characters in the software / NetBeans IDE please consider the support.

Example:

    NOT_LOCKED_0=Not locked

has to be changed in

    NOT_LOCKED_0=<<the russian translation of 'Not locked'>>

3) Deploy the newly created properties file

Copy the newly created file in the src folder (or in the jar archive depending on your distribution) where the original bundle properties files reside- And you are done.

4) Take the changes in effect

Start the LOS rich client. In the User section add a new user and set his locale property to 'ru_RU' (or "en_EN" for English). This can also be done in the database: adapt mywms_user.locale to your needs.

After a restart of the LOS rhich client and new login with this user the GUI comes in the desired language.

[#1] a complete list of modules is given in the description of how to setup Sources

[#2] Some zip programs like 7-Zip not only allow for browsing a jar file but for conviniently editing/adding files "on the fly" inside the archive without the need of unzipping/adding/zipping manually.

[#3] A very convinient Editor comes with NetBeans IDE. There you see just one virtual file 'Bundle.properties' in project view that masks the individual files 'Bundle.properties', 'Bundle_de_DE.properties', 'Bundle_ru_RU.properties'. Choosing "Edit" in the contextmenu opens a spreadsheet-like view containing the key of the property on the first left column followed by one column per language.