DEV Community

Cover image for Odoo and Blockchain, a proposal to innovate
Fernando
Fernando

Posted on

Odoo and Blockchain, a proposal to innovate

What follows is an article of a technical nature. An explanation of how my new module that serves to innovate with #Odoo in the #Ethereum #Blockchain ecosystem is made. It is very simple, but first, a brief introduction:

I usually discuss it with the people around me. I believe that the solution posed by Blockchain for the challenges that lie ahead is very successful. But there is a problem, it is a combination of technologies that should help us to pivot business models, but there are no products or services on the market that have been decentralized to reach new heights of success. Or at least I haven't heard it. What does resonate a lot is the use of crypto money, speculation with these new types of assets and from time to time a historical maximum like that of recently. But this, attentive readers, in my view is not a disruptive change in the nature of money. It is not taking advantage of Blockchain 100%.

Well, to what I was going, since I read the last blockchain book that fell into my hands, my head did not stop spinning about the matter. We must facilitate innovation in this technology. And what better than joining the world's most used ERP with Blockchain?

The module I link below is supported by #MetaMask, a well-known crypto wallet. All you have to do is configure this extension with one of your Ethereum public addresses and you will be able to interact with the SmartContract that I have prepared.

But you will ask me, what does this module do? It's simple, it implements a state machine within Odoo and makes it public through a Smart Contract. It also provides a universal API, well known and documented. Regarding the specific functionality, if you review the module, you will see that it creates a Contract against the Initiatives / Opportunities model, and that within them 4 states are defined: Draft, Approved, Confirmed and Canceled. Well, what the module does is add these four states to the Initiatives. Once the Odoo user visits an opportunity, the system publishes a Contract in Draft state. Being a public and accessible contract, as well as open, interoperability is total. That is, if you have software that can make JSON API calls yourself, you could change to one of these states and it would be reflected in my system. The potential is quite interesting. It is a twist to the interconnection through APIs. Perhaps to connect two systems does not add much value, but it is greatly facilitated when we talk about more types of software, both proprietary and custom. I'm talking about how we could be sending Contracts from Odoo, signing from WhatsApp or from the management software that "our computer friend" made us and each and every one of them would only have to use a single API. Also, if we used Ether as a currency, we could be charging/paying with this currency saving us a lot of paperwork.

The module is very simple but the potential is demonstrated. I insist as I have done on other occasions: It is no longer so much about sending us information but rather about reaching an agreement. To make the information we exchange real, traceable and auditable by anyone. And, of course, that the modification history is not changeable. I encourage you to innovate in your business, to do it with Odoo, the best ERP in the world and to put the chain of the header in motion. If you have any questions, you can contact me by this same means.

Top comments (0)