Odoo 17 has landed! It’s even faster and more secure than before and packed with exciting AI solutions. We also developed new apps that accompany our oldies-but-goldies – that have, of course, been injected with new features.
Let’s talk about the elephant in the room: Odoo has been completely redesigned! We’re sad to see the purple go, but the new design represents everything that we stand for: it’s clean but exciting, intuitive but fun, and it makes your work days better, just like the rest of Odoo – one feature at a time, for over a decade.
To know more about Odoo 17, you can try it for free, read the release notes and watch the video below.
With that said, let’s dive into this version’s highlights!
Industry Library
Building a database can be overwhelming, especially when choosing from Odoo’s 70+ apps. Combine that with settling into new business flows and creating data, and you might end up with implementation gone wild!
Fear not – with Odoo 17 comes a solution! The new industry module is designed to jumpstart the whole process. No need to start from scratch anymore; simply choose your industry from the library, and a selection of related apps will be automatically installed, already preconfigured with business flows and demo data for your industry.
Think automatically generated Website, with the right templates and copywriting, a selection of demo products in your Catalog, customized templates, or preconfigured Appointment types – the possibilities are endless.
We hope the industry library will not only be a secret weapon for our clients and partners. We also believe that it will truly flourish with the support of our community. We count on you to provide us with input on your business line and your unique needs, resulting in improvements for all!
Point of Sale revamp
Point of Sale underwent major changes this year, resulting in state-of-the-art software – a dream come true for modern restaurants and shops. It’s all about giving you and your customers options: they can now order and pay by scanning QR codes with their phones or using a self-service kiosk.
The new Kitchen Display app is designed with kitchen staff in mind, allowing them to process each order as efficiently as possible. Having said that, it can also be used for assembling orders placed online or preparing large orders, for example, in a furniture store.
Customizing your menu has gotten much easier, with new fun features like combos - allowing you to manage the pricing of complete menus (think lunch or a tasting menu) - and improved variants. Last but not least, a new integration with Appointments allows clients to book tables online. You were asking for it, and we heard you!
Get to know our new Point of Sale (and Odoo's new office in Belgium!) in the video below.
AI strikes back – ChatGPT in Odoo
ChatGPT had its moment in 2023, and it’s becoming clear that it’s not just a moment – it’s a revolution. Keeping in line with that, we have integrated ChatGPT with Odoo. You can now use it to generate alternatives for your text across our apps. And if you’re feeling completely stuck, all you need is a good prompt to generate text from scratch!
The possibilities are endless. Just imagine what AI can do for your Knowledge articles, campaigns across Marketing apps, or email templates… And when it comes to the Website app, we stepped it up even more: creating a new website or page is a breeze with auto-generated content that perfectly aligns with your business line. Plus, the AI copywriter tool offers a range of alternative text suggestions for every need.
Website news!
Exciting news for anyone embarking on an Odoo journey: the website scraper is finally live! This new feature allows you to transform any website into an Odoo page. Forget lengthy migrations, manual copy-pasting, and redesigning your digital home from scratch. Just paste your website’s address and let the magic happen!
WebP format images haven’t been getting as much press as ChatGPT, but they’re a small revolution on their own. Compared to traditional formats like JPEG and PNG, WebP images are much more compressed, which results in better page load times, improved visitor experience, and even better SEO ranking! Why are we telling you this? Because all images in Odoo Website are now automatically compressed to WebP format!
Other exciting features in Odoo Website include a better overview of page templates, a new header and footer design, an improved shape library, as well as tags and images for variants in eCommerce. We also included an often-requested possibility of adding multiple email domains.
You will also notice that the customer portal, along with the front end of eCommerce, Events, Forums, and Appointments, has gotten a complete revamp.
Your sales' secret weapons
This year, we added some new weapons to the arsenal of sales staff. The new quotation builder allows you to go the extra mile and create personalized quotations for your clients. Include pictures, detailed product descriptions, custom messages, and terms and conditions – the sky is the limit!
We also improved the product catalog – forget searching and adding products to quotations using an imperfect drop-down. Instead, with one click, you get a complete view of all your products.
You asked for it, and we delivered – WhatsApp has been integrated with Odoo!
This powerful tool needs no introduction, but let us walk you through the possibilities it offers in Odoo. The range of operations includes sending Sales Order confirmations, shipping details, invoices, payment links, Point of Sale receipts, Event reminders or tickets, or customized messages from Contact view.
Last but of course not least, you can receive and respond to any other types of messages, making customer relationships stronger than ever!
Supply chain
We did not forget our friends who work with Manufacturing, Inventory, and Barcode. We paid attention to your feedback and came up with several new features that we hope you’ll enjoy!
The new Manufacturing Order Overview centralizes all relevant data, including the component status and reordering options. It makes replenishment super easy, and you can even compare vendors directly from the dynamic report.
The new Shop Floor app replaces the Tablet View and is an absolute game changer for work center operators. Once a Manufacturing Order is confirmed, it’s displayed on the Shop Floor, and the operators of each station can follow all types of work instructions with minimal effort. And with a simple tap on the touchscreen, the data in your DB is perfectly updated!
This year, we introduce yet another way of handling manufacturing orders – this time, using a barcode scanner, or any mobile device. Simply scan the used components, and everything is updated! We also introduced the possibility of automatic printing once a barcode is scanned, as well as other improvements.
Last but not least, the Inventory app got a revamp of the picking flow - you now instantly get the quantities per location as you reserve products.
Employees, Attendance, Payroll & all things HR
This year, we gathered our efforts to develop the best version of our HR apps to date. We redesigned Employees, including a new hierarchy view, as well as Attendance, making it easier and more user-friendly than ever before – the handy little button that we added looks innocent at first, but it allows you to check in from anywhere, thus revolutionizing the way Attendance works.
The homeworking module, together with the geolocalization tracking option, ensures a better overview of employees’ working plans.
To allow our international users to benefit from tailored payroll packages, we improved and created new localization packages (Belgium, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Kenya, Mexico, the United States of America, and Australia). The tailored packages have all the necessary elements and requirements according to the countries’ standards.
Accounting
New and improved localization packages have been deployed in the Accounting module. Some highlights include Belgium, Mexico, Brazil, and Spain. See the full list in our release notes.
We're also excited to announce that our Accounting app now supports Peppol, a standardized e-invoicing system, making it easier than ever for you to streamline your invoicing and financial processes. We also developed a scam protection feature, which will generate a warning when creating a transfer to a vendor bank account that has not been marked as trusted.
The management of deferred entries is now distinct from assets, which allows the creation of deferred revenues and expenses without setting up deferred models in advance.
New apps: Meeting rooms, Frontdesk, To-do
Last but not least, we created two new apps: the Meeting Rooms app includes a display mode to show the current and upcoming meetings planned in the room. It’s also possible to book the room directly from the display mode, for example, from a tablet next to the room’s entrance.
If you ever invited a guest to visit your business and had them wander aimlessly in the lobby or even get lost, the new Frondesk app is for you! Once a guest arrives on site, they can check in, notify the right person, and even request a drink - all using one deceptively simple mobile app.
Remember the Notes app? Don’t be surprised if you can’t find it! This handy little app has been transformed into To-do, a simple but powerful tool designed to boost productivity. Any To-do can be converted into a Project task, allowing you to organize your days even better!
Meet Odoo 17