ERPNext v13 changes? What should we expect?

In ERPNext v13 and next releases, I expect better reports for Education Module such as those suggested Report Card Generation for each student Suggestion for assessment result in Erpnext schools module as well as in Suggestions/Fixes for Assessment Result Tool #8737.

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January ended, when could we hear the news?

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Is anyone in a hurry to see v13 ? I know am not. Still trying to stabilize v12. Many functionalities not working to spec yet. We should not just ignore this and jump to a new version.

Let’s focus on fixing the broken!

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@olamide_shodunke One thing gets fixed and another gets broken. It’s pretty worrying that this happens all the time. The latest is workflow auto email alert. I raised the issue after v12.5.0 was released and so far no word on if and when it will be fixed. This is really critical for users that rely on workflow and i can’t figure out how to implement the Workflow Action within a custom email alert.

What’s the issue? None has reported any issue so far.

@nabinhait email alerts are no longer sent on workflow state change. I reported this issue in this thread and this change could be the culprit but as i am not a developer and don’t know much code this is just conjecture. But this issue only came up after v12.5.0 which included the workflow action PR.

I have spun several test servers both on a local machine and cloud VPS with no data and tested just to be sure the issue is not with my production instance and in all cases i could replicate the issue as workflow state change does not generate emails while other email alerts such as new user creation and password reset which are automatically generated work as expected.

I honestly cannot tell why no one else has reported the issue. But i am assuming someone who uses the standard email alert feature will notice soon enough and report same. I am reporting it because i rely on it heavily and as demonstrated in this thread i cannot set up my own custom email alert to function the same way without help from community.

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I have accepted that some things might break going forward as the core changes and improves. A workaround is always to build your feature as a custom application, so you control 100% what the code does. If at any point the core code change breaks something, it is a simple matter to check the error and traceback the process.

I understand this might be tedious to some, but It is a small price to pay to have open source code with CI /CD. I prefer to suffer these consequences than having a licensed product change without me being able to adapt a priori, or worse yet, have the license “revoked” by the software supplier.

“With great power, comes great responsibility”

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Yes that plus no license required - for better or worse :slight_smile:

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I agree and I have chastised a few who have complained about missing features before because I believe that if you want extra features or functions, if you cannot get anyone to create the feature or function within the community then pay a developer to do it for you if you lack the competence. But when an existing core function breaks especially as a result of an update or a new feature, it saves time and more beneficial for everyone if the change that caused the function to break is studied rather than ask everyone to sort themselves out individually, that can be messy.

But when you say “It’s free so suck it up” as @clarkej’s sarcastic remark here suggests, it defeats the whole idea of putting in time to make the application better. The fact that it’s free does not mean it has to be useless to the end user. If it is useless to the end user then what is the point? If people find bugs and report them especially when they result from recent changes, that’s not being unappreciative, that’s helping the application become better. If you have to spend thousands of dollars to maintain a free application because it breaks everytime then the application is not free in the true sense, that’s paying to use the application by other means.

I appreciate the work of every developer that have contributed to making ERPNext what it is today, i really do. But it is unhealthy to promote the notion that because the application is free and opensource, don’t point out issues, put up or shut up. I am sure many would have seen this same bug but chose to be silent because they don’t want to be ridiculed for pointing it out. And it is not good publicity for an application that is growing to compete with some of the best applications in its category.

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Preach !!

Would love to have branch accounting introduced in v.13. Instead of installing separate instances for each branch, it would be great to have all branches under one umbrella and then have a feature of consolidated accounts.

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Uhm… not so fast please.

I am sure that was not the intent of @clarkej posting. He, like the rest of us understand that we do not and cannot exercise very much control over how an opensource project evolves unless we each contribute to making it better.

I am sure that @clarkej and others (myself included) have all contributed to the core project in some way and at some time. It is what we do if we believe in something enough to want to use it in our own businesses. Many of us have spent thousands of dollars on contributions to this project. Once those contributions are included in the core, we no longer personally have to support them. They become part of the overall project and are supported by the core developers.

How many other opensource projects do you know of that work that way?!?

Most force a sort of app store approach where you have to download other peoples work and add it to a project yourself. After that, if something breaks you are waiting for the party that created the add-on application to fix it! That to me is just as perilous as hoping a core team can always get it right. However, the core approach makes life easier on everyone at some point in the future. Right now they just happen to be having trouble managing the size of this extraordinary project.

So, just focus on reporting bugs in the GitHub Issues section and help if you are able.

I am sure @clarkej comment was just an acknowledgement of this process “for better or for worse.” :grin:

BKM

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@bkm Your response is as thoughtful as well as it is insightful and I do appreciate it. Not to even mention your overall contribution to ERPNext. I am in no way discounting @clarkej’s comments or contributions here as his inputs at various times have helped so many… me included. I just felt that his post and reference suggests a different message.

As for reporting issues, I do take time to learn from everyone and every post and try not to raise flags and if I did not feel that the email was a critical bug in the core that needed fixing, I would not flag it; more so as it may have originated from a recent modification of the function. I am already trying to find a way to either fix this issue or implement a workaround. I only just expressed the same frustration that many, including top ERPNext contributors, have expressed about a core function modification breaking an existing function. And I do know that it will be easier to fix the bug if I can understand the reason and depth of the modification in the first place… but this would be a lot easier and faster if handled by the one who modified the function in the first place. This is the crux of my post and nothing else.

I could not agree more!!!

I also believe that the core devs should possibly re-organize themselves around how bugs are handled so that the ones that create them are the ones closest to the source and likely the best one to fix them.

That being said… I am still mindful of the stark contrasts found in how this project is supported compared to others that may be similar. While it may not be the most perfect of constructs, it is what they are able to muster and we just need to do our best to work within the framework.

They recently announced a reorganization around how they want to handle new releases and even point releases to give the ongoing addition of new users a more stable platform. I think that while still imperfect, the last release was a moderate step in that direction.

Lastly, thank you for your continuing contributions. Your willingness to jump into the breach and help when the work get tough is recognized by many and appreciated. Likewise, the buildup of frustration can affect all of us. Believe me, I have had entire threads removed from the system by top moderators in the past. I am not one to throw stones here. I have just tried harder to take a deep breath first and make the best of what we have.

Thank you for taking time to respond. It shows integrity that is sometime missing here. I am sure @clarkej will not take offense. He is no better or no worse than the rest of us and I would bet he understands the same frustrations.

Thanks again @flexy2ky for your work.

BKM

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Thanks for your kind defence BKM -

To clarify somewhat my “for better or worse” quip , the idea is this - despite all the equity we have invested here and no matter how qualified we might deem ourselves - no licence is required to drive ERPNext.

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Kind of like visiting Boston. It is the only city in the world where I feared for my life walking down a sidewalk. A driver there (at midnight mind you) drove up onto the sidewalk half a block away and would have run me down had I not pushed my wife out of the way and jumped out of the way myself. He just continued speeding down the sidewalk.

With not another moving car to be seen anywhere I wondered if the driver had a license.

The story only becomes more frightening when I reveal that it was a Boston police car with no lights on!! (and no, he didn’t stop to see if we were alright)

Cheers.

BKM

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As a pedestrian, I’ve been most-frightened in Lima, Peru. Humans are simply a variation of “speed bumps” there.

As a passenger, my favorite drive was in Rome. The taxi driver swerved deftly between lanes, across lines, through lights, etc. What made it surreal was he was energetically singing-along to the music from the 1980’s TV show “Fame”. :thinking:

We walked back.

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That is funny. I didn;t even have any trouble walking across the street in downtown Manila, Ph. I was told that was the most dangerous place in the eastern hemisphere but still the jeepnees and the mopeds just go around you there with some elegance compared to the cop car in Boston.

Still funny.
I wish I could get to visit Peru. I really want to visit Machu Picchu.

BKM

Clearly, the path is to raise issues for the core, as it is the ultimate destination. However, the whole point is that if the feature was there in the first place, then it was taken out, and someone STILL needs it, arguing over it endlessly might not be desirable, and thus scratching your itch is necessary. Some features will be regionalized, and with any software project this large I hardly believe that users in Germany, or India will benefit fully from a regionalized API application for another country. The whole point is: There are OPTIONS. No one can satisfy everybody all the time. And as a good friend and mentor says: If you focus on exogenous factors you are a victim, but if you focus on the endogenous factors, you are a player. Yes, this is “messy”, but again, ERPNext is powerful in that if the CORE lacks a specific feature, you can develop your own as a custom app. If it will benefit the community, send a pull request for core.

Obviously studying the change is practical for some, but I doubt every business owner has a sophisticated IT department or the time to check for this, whilst some crucial process is not functioning because the user decided to update without checking first. This is why I suggest to err on the side of caution, and do this study a priori (test production server) before commiting to updating on true production.

I also doubt @clarkej meant to be sarcastic, as I also did not intend for it. I am being blunt about my opinion though. Do you really believe we intend this to be “useless” to the end user as you state above? Do you really believe reporting bugs is unappreciative? Do you really believe we promote not pointing issues because the app is free and open source? Quite the contrary. App needs to be useful to all. It already allows for this. Bugs are quite enthusiastically reported as you can see.

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@Tropicalrambler I get your point and I understand that ultimately there’s always going to be the dark spot hidden somewhere within a “perfectly white” canvas.

The thing is I honestly didn’t and wouldn’t believe that @clarkej would want to shoot down any complaints. My intention was to highlight what his response suggests as part of a wider conversation about issues: what kind of issues or bugs should be reported, who should report them and who should take responsibility them. I understand and i have accepted that it may not have been his intention and I accept that different statements can mean different things to different people.

Again I insist that I am not in any way unappreciative of everyone in this community: ERPNext is what it is today because hundreds of developers dedicate their time daily to continue to improve the product at their own expense and for the benefit of everyone. I have also seen features come and go since I joined this community and the one time I broke my instance without double-checking changes during an update I openly admitted it and have not made that mistake since.

The issue at hand is a bug in auto email notification for workflows. There was no change log for the alteration made to workflow action In v12.5.0 hence I could not have checked it. The response might be “but you should have checked everything”. But that would mean checking every single code in the application for listed and unlisted changes every time there’s an update. This would be time consuming and expensive, especially if one of the listed changes is supposed to fix a critical issue as was the case with v12.5.0. This is why I voiced my concerns and requested for the developer who introduced the unlisted change to look at the code introduced to find why it broke the function. I am also checking myself and if I am lucky enough to find it, I will highlight it and hopefully someone can implement the fix.