Step by step to set up an ERP and CRM for your SME

Luigys Toro

6 minutes

In the article of Ideas for using free software in your SME we commented on the multiple ways that free software can help improve the productivity of your company, but we also highlighted that with free software SMEs can save a lot of money by having solutions with characteristics very similar to software valued in thousands of dollars. Based on what has been commented in said article, we want to help you give life to that process of implementation of free applications in your SMEs, so in this first article of many, we will share a step by step to set up an ERP and CRM.

The ERP and CRM we have chosen is Odoo which we talk about in the article ODOO: The OpenSource ERP that is giving something to talk about! and that was taken into account in our articles on How to retain customers with free software y How to grow our business with free software. For this practical case we will install Odoo in its V8 version with the help of an OVA of TurnKey Linux, that is, we will use a Debian-based virtual machine that will have the necessary software preconfigured and pre-installed for Odoo to run properly.

Requirements to set up an ERP and CRM for your SME

We can set up an ERP and CRM like Odoo on a machine with few resources as long as the volume of use of the tool is not excessive, for the majority of small SMEs it is enough that we have a team with more than 1 GB of free ram, 20 GB of disk space and connection to a network.

We must have installed VirtualBox on that computer and have the appropriate permissions to configure the firewall and open or close ports. In the best of cases, we can complement our computer with a backup disk and many other features to improve the performance of the ERP and CRM to be installed.

How to install Odoo using a TurkeyLinux OVA?

  • Download the Odoo Ova developed by TurkeyLinux from here..
  • Import the previously downloaded ova from VirtualBox, for this go to File >> Import virtualized service, select the Ova, click on Next, check or modify the virtual machine preference (ram, cpu, name etc) and click on to import. set up an ERP

  • Configure the network of our virtual machine so that it has access to the internet and can also be accessed from the host machine, for this we must right click on the virtual machine that we have imported >> select configuration >> Network >> Adapter 1 >> Enable Network adapter >> Connected to Bridge Adapter >> and we choose our Adapter >> Then accept. In some cases we must also enable Adapter 2 >> Choose Enable Network adapter >> Connected to NAT.

  • We run the virtual machine and begin the initial parameterization process of our Odoo implementation.

Odoo initial parameterization

When the virtual machine is run for the first time, it starts an operating system with Debian to which we must parameterize its root password and we are also asked to parameterize some services necessary for the control and proper operation of Odoo. The detailed steps for this initial Odoo parameterization process are:

  • Login and check Debian Root password.

  • Enter and check the postgresql password that will work as the Odoo database.

  • Enter and check the password for the Odoo database Management Screen Password, which is used by the Odoo Database functions.

  • If you want to use TurnkeyLinux services, enter your API Key or press Skip.
  • Enter an email for system notifications.
  • We install the necessary security updates.
  • In case the security update is high level (like a kernel update) it will ask you to restart to configure the update, we reboot it and wait for the machine to start again.
  • Once the virtual machine is started, we have all the services started and configured so that Odoo works properly, a screen with the services and the IP to access them will be shown. Personally I recommend that we reconfigure the IP that the virtual machine gives us by dhcp for a fixed IP of our network, for this we go to Advanced Menu >> Networking >> eth0 >> StaticIp and enter the corresponding data.

Odoo deployment settings

After having properly executed the services necessary for Odoo to function properly, we proceed to the configuration phase of the Odoo implementation, with the creation of the database, the parameterization of Odoo with the information of our SME and all the related processes . To carry out this procedure, follow the following steps in detail:

  • From the host computer (or from any computer with network access) enter the Odoo IP that was shown in the initial step, in our case https://192.168.1.45 a website like the following will open:

  • Create a database for our implementation, choose an access password and a database name, we can also choose that our implementation comes with test data (for the cases where we want to test the tool). To finish this step we give on Create Database
By default, the administrator password is 'admin'
  • With the previous step, we already have our Odoo installed and connected to a Database, we will be shown a page like the following one where we can install Modules to enrich our Odoo implementation, just choose one and click on install.

Remember that in addition to Odoo, the Turnkey Linux Ova gives us access to a Web Shell to manage the distro from the console, the popular Webmin panel, Adminer as postgresql database manager and SSH and SFTP access. The default users to access these applications are the following, the password is the one you entered in the parameterization

  • Webmin, SSH: user root
  • PostgreSQL, Adminer: user postgres
  • Odoo Master Account: admin

This simple and fast procedure will result in an implementation of Odoo v8 on a Debian distro, optimized and configured to work in an optimal way. In the future we will do tutorials that will allow us to put our ERP Odoo in tune and we will learn how to configure it to adapt it to our SME.

Please tell us what you think of this type of content and what you want us to cover in our next tutorial. Thank you very much and we continue !!