"Realize how powerful Odoo and its ecosystem can be"
Contributor Story: Lorenzo Battistini
As our first contributor story, the OCA would like to take you to Genova, Italy to meet Lorenzo Battistini.
Hello Lorenzo, can you introduce yourself to our readers?
Sure! My name is Lorenzo Battistini, I am a software engineer from Genova, Italia. I have been working for Agile Business Group, designing and developing Odoo solutions for our customers.
When and how did you discover Odoo?
I discovered OpenERP 4.2 when version 5.0 was about to be released, at the end of 2008. I was looking for an open source ERP system to use and possibly sell. Since 2010, I have been working with OpenERP/Odoo full
time.
Why and how did you start contributing to Odoo?
I started working on the italian localization and translation because it was almost totally missing. At that time the Odoo italian community was starting. We tried to gather the efforts by creating the www.odoo-italia.org website, the launchpad project and so on. Since then, I contributed to Italian and international modules in order to build a great software and sell our services based on it.
What does your contributions consist in?
I mostly design and develop new modules, like l10n_it_vat_registries, l10n_it_ddt, l10n_it_fatturapa, account_vat_on_payment, sale_properties_dynamic_fields and many others. I have improved and fixed odoo core modules and OCA modules, like currency_rate_update, base_location_geonames_import, l10n_ch_payment_slip, account_due_list, base_report_to_printer, and participated in the Italian translation effort.
What was your main challenge?
Knowing and understanding all the features - existing functionalities and technical features - provided by Odoo. They are huge and powerful. Knowing the most of them - I will never know them all - allows me to save a lot of time.
How did you overcome this challenge?
Reading code and documentation, and asking the wonderful community of Odoo. About this, I would like to thank for their help Stephane Wirtel (who, 7 years ago, sent me a very simple module, add_field_to_partner, and introduced me to odoo/OpenERP development world), Olivier Dony, Denis Ledoux, Martin Trigaux, Fabien Pinckaers, Antony Lesuisse, Pedro Baeza, Alexandre Fayolle, Guewen Baconnier, Yannick Vaucher, Stefan Rijnhart, Holger Brunn, Davide Corio, Leonardo Pistone, Alex Comba and every OCA reviewer.
Does contributing meet your expectations and why?
Yes, it does! When I propose a module to the OCA, I know it will be reviewed by Odoo experts who will teach me a lot of things and improve my module's quality. Moreover, several modules I uploaded to the OCA (a few examples: super_calendar, website_cookie_notice, purchase_partial_invoicing,
report_qweb_element_page_visibility) have been later improved and extended by others.
What would you say to a new contributor who is reading us?
Get involved in the OCA! You will realize how powerful Odoo and its ecosystem can be.
Lorenzo, thank you very much for your time.
