Socrate – the integrated Enterprise Resource Planning system was in a continuous development in the last years, from SocrateOpen – the open source ERP & CRM to SocrateCloud – 100% available in private and public cloud, becoming now the Open Business Platform in cloud, including on one side, complete ERP, CRM and Business Intelligence functionality for customers who want to run their business more efficiently, and on the other side a rapid development platform, for partners who want to extend functionality and develop new applications using the existing SocrateCloud infrastructure.
What means Open? Open means that SocrateCloud is a platform developed on innovative architecture, that allow the rapid development of new functionalities or applications for specific needs and niches.
We don’t believe in customers or partners captivity, that’s why we developed an open system, which can be extended based on needs. And that should be done easy. But in order to do this, the possibility to extend the system should be anticipated from the architectural design phase.
In SocrateCloud, the functionality can be extended in different ways, depending on the specific needs.
The first and easiest one is to make changes in the Application Dictionary. Part of the architecture, the Model Driven Platform provided in SocrateCloud, enables the application to be easily customized and extended “without programming”. All you can see and use is defined as objects in an Active Application Dictionary. So, besides other customizations, you can change the way of displaying data in windows, new fields can be added, constraints related to data input can be modified, new columns can be added to reports or new reports can be generated, and printing formats for the reports can be added or modified.
In case the changes made in the Application Dictionary are not enough for obtaining the required functionality, there is the possibility to develop new components with the desired functionality. The components advantage is the possibility to develop complex functionality as here code writing is needed. For developing components, the necessary data structure (table, fields), the displaying way and the constraints at data input, should be defined in the Application Dictionary, and in the component code the application logic should be written. This logic includes other validations and constraints, changing data by defining specific processes, reports that require data consolidations and that cannot be defined only in the application dictionary. This components will be installed on the application server together with the application.
Besides the Application Dictionary and the development of components, SocrateCloud provides an API interface, using REST web services that allow the interaction between third applications and SocrateCloud. This interface has a double role: to offer the possibility to extend the SocrateCloud functionality and to allow the use of SocrateCloud functionality in other applications.
Using the API interface gives you the possibility to develop new applications for specific niches uncovered by SocrateCloud existing functionality. The big advantage of using the API interface for developing new applications is that you don’t need to have knowledge about the SocrateCloud architecture or use another programming language. The only one condition is to be compliant with the API interface.
SocrateCloud includes complex ERP, CRM and BI functionality required and used already by companies from different industries. In the same time it’s an open platform, allowing customers and partner to easy extend and develop new applications.
