Thread: Postgres and/or Access, Oh My!

I've got a meeting with a Harrisburg, Pennsylvania based non-profit to talk about a creating a very light warehouse management system.  This will be a meeting to determine the scope of work, but initially they were asking for an Access solution.  When I get in there (and after I figure out the scale of the project), I am anticipating offering a Postgres backend solution, contigent on their needs and the software they are currently using.

This is a small organization that services the sight impaired and blind of south central Pennsylvania.  This particular aspect of the organization employs the sight impaired and is a type of third party logistics.  The organization receives product,  do some light assembly of sample packets, and ship it out for a manufacturer in the area who is asking for more and more detailed data.

If anyone has done nonprofit work with Postgres, I'd appreciate any references/case studies/etc. to add to the credibility of Postgres to an nonprofit organization that is currently owned by Microsoft.

Regardless, if this comes through, is there a repository for case studies, or links to case studies, success stories, etc?  I'd really like to help advocacy, and if this works out the way I think it will,  this seems like a good way.

Thanks!

- Bret

Bret Fledderjohn wrote:
> I've got a meeting with a Harrisburg, Pennsylvania based non-profit to
> talk about a creating a very light warehouse management system.  This
> will be a meeting to determine the scope of work, but initially they
> were asking for an Access solution.  When I get in there (and after I
> figure out the scale of the project), I am anticipating offering a
> Postgres backend solution, contigent on their needs and the software
> they are currently using.
>
> This is a small organization that services the sight impaired and blind
> of south central Pennsylvania.  This particular aspect of the
> organization employs the sight impaired and is a type of third party
> logistics.  The organization receives product,  do some light assembly
> of sample packets, and ship it out for a manufacturer in the area who is
> asking for more and more detailed data.
>
> If anyone has done nonprofit work with Postgres, I'd appreciate any
> references/case studies/etc. to add to the credibility of Postgres to an
> nonprofit organization that is currently owned by Microsoft.

For profit, not-for-profit is about tax accounting.  I think you need an
accounting package that handles light to medium manufacturing --
LedgerSMB -- which uses PostgreSQL for it's database.  Oh yeah, it is FOSS.


\\||/
Rod
--
> Regardless, if this comes through, is there a repository for case
> studies, or links to case studies, success stories, etc?  I'd really
> like to help advocacy, and if this works out the way I think it will,
> this seems like a good way.
>
> Thanks!
>
> - Bret

> This is a small organization that services the sight impaired and blind
> of south central Pennsylvania.  This particular aspect of the
> organization employs the sight impaired and is a type of third party
> logistics.  The organization receives product,  do some light assembly
> of sample packets, and ship it out for a manufacturer in the area who is
> asking for more and more detailed data.

This sounds like ERP.

Pretty much *all* of the open source ERP systems ship with PostgreSQL by
default, and some use only PostgreSQL.  Among these are:

* xTuple
* LedgerSMB
* OpenBravo
* Apache OfBiz
* Adempiere (Compiere fork)

I'd suggest combining one of the above with Radix or Access for ad-hoc
querying/reports.  Or just BIRT for reports.

Unfortunately, due to not being very organized about case
studies/references, I don't have anything offhand from the multiple
charities which use PG.

--
Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL Experts Inc.
www.pgexperts.com

Josh

You raise some interesting ideas. The only question that I have is if/how once:radix fits into a possible joint solution. It may be possible but the problem for us is that we have quite specific requirements in the database. This is needed to set up the security infrastructure.

So I don’t know whether it is possible have it share the same database without some major rework. But it is certainly a proposition that deserves some investigation.

I’m happy to look at it if there is a specification.

Rob


On 3/8/09 5:13 AM, "Josh Berkus" <josh@agliodbs.com> wrote:

>
>> This is a small organization that services the sight impaired and blind
>> of south central Pennsylvania.  This particular aspect of the
>> organization employs the sight impaired and is a type of third party
>> logistics.  The organization receives product,  do some light assembly
>> of sample packets, and ship it out for a manufacturer in the area who is
>> asking for more and more detailed data.
>
> This sounds like ERP.
>
> Pretty much *all* of the open source ERP systems ship with PostgreSQL by
> default, and some use only PostgreSQL.  Among these are:
>
> * xTuple
> * LedgerSMB
> * OpenBravo
> * Apache OfBiz
> * Adempiere (Compiere fork)
>
> I'd suggest combining one of the above with Radix or Access for ad-hoc
> querying/reports.  Or just BIRT for reports.
>
> Unfortunately, due to not being very organized about case
> studies/references, I don't have anything offhand from the multiple
> charities which use PG.