Over the last couple of days, I have been working on the implementation of GST specific features for India. In the first cut, all the features were implemented without much consideration that they have to be effectively hidden for other countries.
Here is how we managed to separate things:
1. Module “Regional”
We created a new module in ERPNext called “regional”. All country-specific doctypes, pages, reports, scripts can go here.
Note: All doctypes, reports and pages must have no default permissions so they remain effectively hidden.
Why regional? Because the words “internationalization” and “localization” had long and ambiguous spellings! Also customization does not have to be based on nations only, in a federated setup, even local governments can have their regulations
2. Put your setup script in: erpnext.regional.[country].setup
You can add your country’s setup script in the country folder for your country and in setup.py. Here you can create the custom fields and add permissions on reports and doctypes
Here you can:
- Add custom fields with
frappe.custom.doctype.custom_field.custom_field.create_custom_field - Add Custom Role for reports
- Add DocType permissions for
frappe.permissions.add_permission - Create other fixtures like tax defaults etc
3. Use hooks for automation in forms
Once you have setup custom fields, you can use the standard hooks.py system to extend functionality of forms.
4. Make reports, forms extensible where needed.
If you find that the reports and forms you want are not extensible, you should break them up so that they can be imported in your custom reports with additional columns.