Planet Odoo

Don't Miss the Marketing Magic - Roadmap Odoo 17

October 10, 2023 Odoo Season 1 Episode 37
Planet Odoo
Don't Miss the Marketing Magic - Roadmap Odoo 17
Show Notes Transcript

Join us for another roadmap episode! Luc Nailis, Product Owner at Odoo, delves into what's on the horizon for Odoo 17's marketing features. Interested in updates related to WhatsApp, appointments, events, and beyond? This is an episode you won't want to skip.

Also, be sure to register for the Odoo Experience to catch the big reveal of all the innovative features Odoo has in store!
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Concept and realization : Manuèle Robin, Ludvig Auvens, Marine Louis, Cécile Collart
Recording and mixing : Lèna Noiset, Judith Moriset
Host: Olivier Colson

Luc:

So the idea with WhatsApp is that we provide two main modes of using it. We'll have sort of a trial test mode. There, the idea is really that, out of the box, you have something that works where you can send templates to your customers, to your recipients. If you want to go further, you can connect your own WhatsApp account and there you get extra features because you can design your own templates. And from there you can also catch replies. Having a CRM is cool. Having an email marketing tool is cool, but it's even better if they work together. So we have a lot of very long flows actually where all the apps can work together and that's really what makes using marketing in Odoo really interesting. Up to now, Appointment was designed so that you could schedule meetings with a person. In this new version, the idea is that through appointments you can manage all sort of bookings, whether it's a person or an object. For example, your resource could be a tennis court. If you want to handle that, it could be a sauna, a swimming pool, or it could be tables of a restaurant. So knowledge was a really big thing, right? In version 16, we released it. This year it was more about polishing, adding new things. When you start working with documents, the first thing that you want to do is to be able to interact with other people or comment on the document. Right? On the content. Yeah, we added comments, which is pretty cool. And also we added the notion of visibility. We let people say, okay, I have access to that, but I don't want to see it if I do a specific search because I say I want to see it, show it to me, but when I'm just working on other stuff, just hide it. When you create an article from scratch instead of showing you just a white screen, we add a few buttons and we say like, "Do you want to load a template?" And we know that maybe you won't use those templates like per se, but at least you see like, okay, knowledge let's can do this and this and that.

Olivier:

Hello Odooers. Welcome back for another Roadmap episode. I am Olivier, your host, and today we've got something special for you. As the world of marketing constantly evolves, so does Odoo. And guess what? We are giving you an exclusive sneak peek into the marketing wonders of Odoo 17. With us is Luc Nailis, one of the brains behind Odoo upcoming marketing marvels. Today isn't about lengthy discussions. It's about giving you a sneak peek of what's to come. So if you're eager to know the game changing features Odoo 17 has in its marketing pocket, you're in the right place. Let the reveal begin. Hi, Luc.

Luc:

Hello.

Olivier:

So today we're going to talk about marketing. Very broad scope, I would say. So maybe it would be nice to first recall what we put in it.

Luc:

Mmh.Yeah.

Olivier:

What exactly?

Luc:

Indeed. Um, it's quite a big team, so we have quite a few apps. We do so all the like marketing, like email marketing, SMS marketing, automation, but also apps that are connected to marketing. So CRM, Appointments, Surveys, all those that are not really marketing per say, but pretty close and that are really integrated.

Olivier:

How are they connected exactly? Uh, could you give examples of integrations like that?

Luc:

Yeah, that's what we do mostly is like we try to have flows because, um, having Having an email marketing tool is cool, but it's even better if they work together. So we have a lot of very like long flows actually where all the apps can work together. And that's really what makes using marketing in Odoo really interesting.

Olivier:

And so, uh, for the new release of Odoo, so Odoo 17, yeah, I heard we were things a little bit. So WhatsApp, what do we have with that exactly?

Luc:

Yeah, it's something that's been requested quite often. So it was about time because there is a lot of markets where people don't use email almost at all. So we had to find a new way and provide a new way to communicate with your customers.

Olivier:

Plus, I guess it's, uh, I think it's it gets more and more easy to miss mails So I guess WhatsApp is also a means to touch people more directly in some cases where it's useful.

Luc:

Yeah, for sure. And WhatsApp notification people will for sure check it out and see your content. If it's an order, something they ask for, they will be very happy to be sure that they see it and they get it. Yeah.

Olivier:

So how is it integrated exactly? So first it's a new module, I guess.

Luc:

Yeah.

Olivier:

Okay.

Luc:

Yeah. So the idea with, uh, WhatsApp is that we provide two main modes of using We'll have sort of a trial test mode available on odoo.com when you create your database. There, the idea is really that out of the box, you have something that works where you can send templates to your customers, to your recipients. So the idea is when you want to send them, for example, tickets for an event or an order or something or a notification for something they ask for, you can use a template.

Olivier:

Okay. And it has to be a template?

Luc:

Yeah.

Olivier:

Why?

Luc:

You need to use templates because the um, so Meta is very strict about what you

Olivier:

Okay.

Luc:

So you have very clear guidelines and rules of what you can...

Olivier:

Only spam with acceptable things.

Luc:

Usually if it's like if it's their order, normally they ask for it, so it's But you cannot just send a ton of messages like out of the blue to people that never like ask for anything because all you need is their phone number, right? And then you can start.

Olivier:

Yeah. They don't want WhatsApp to become the new mail where you essentially skip So.

Luc:

Exactly. Yeah.

Olivier:

That makes sense. Okay. So that was the first mode. And there is another mode.

Luc:

So if you want to go further because this is just a test mode with a few credits can connect your own WhatsApp account and there you get extra features because you can design your own templates, right? You need to make them reviewed and have a review by Meta, but then you can have your own content and from there you can also catch replies. So of course if you send an order and the customer replies, can you add this product etcetera, you need to catch that into your database. With your own account, it will work and you will be able to chat with your customer through your computer, but you will receive it on WhatsApp.

Olivier:

And from the interface point of view, I guess it's integrated somewhere around

Luc:

So you send it through the chatter as you would send an email template and then discuss easily even if you're doing something else as a sales person, for example, you can just follow up on the messages you get.

Olivier:

All right. All right. So powerful new things, I guess.

Luc:

Yeah, yeah. Pretty cool.

Olivier:

Talking about new powerful things. Uh, there was something we, we actually, we already talked about a little bit in an old episode of the podcast, so maybe people remember it because there was this episode about restaurant features with Fabian. We have new things coming for Appointment.

Luc:

We have a lot of new things.

Olivier:

Yeah, tons of new things. Pretty interesting, I guess. I mean, even from a from a purely technical point of view, I think the modeling is interesting. So could you explain what we have exactly with that?

Luc:

Yeah. So up to now, Appointment was designed so that you could schedule meetings So it was you could book a meeting with a sales person, for example, to get a demo in this new version will allow bookings with basically things, meaning you can have your resource, your resource will have an agenda, and you can book with that. For example, your resource could be a tennis court. If you want to handle that, it could be a sauna, a swimming pool, or it could be indeed tables of a restaurant. So the idea is that through appointments you can manage all sort of bookings, whether it's a person or an object. And we went really far in the in the options that are available in terms...

Olivier:

How to configure that, because I guess it's not obvious to most people, at least So maybe I'm stupid. I don't know that that that a tennis court would be like the same from a certain point of view as a table in a restaurant. So how can it be the same?

Luc:

Yeah, it's not really the same, right? We had to see all the business cases.

Olivier:

Okay. But I mean, you, you, you configure it with the same object. So there is some kind of abstraction that makes them similar. And so how.

Luc:

Yeah, so the idea is you create a resource and then you can decide is my Like if you book a tennis court, I mean, we don't mind if you want to play with two people, 4 or 17, it's your thing. But if you say, I want to come to a restaurant and we want to eat at 8 p.m., you will tell we're X persons and we need to make sure that we can manage this capacity, right? So we, we had to integrate that and say a resource as a specific capacity. It has X seats. And so if people ask for ten seats, you need to make sure that you get a table with enough room. But of course, it's not that simple because restaurants, they move tables around all the time, right?

Olivier:

So normally not in a tennis court.

Luc:

So normally not. I'm not an expert.

Olivier:

I'm not an expert. I don't think so.

Luc:

Indeed. So the the thing is, you need to list all the tables that can go the tables around to prepare the different groups of tables so that when people arrive, they can just sit together.

Olivier:

So from one table you will see this, you will say, this table can be put And so that means you can you could exclude tables that are no fixed or that are on another stairs or something...

Luc:

Exactly. Like this table one goes with table two and three, but table four is Things like that. Yeah.

Olivier:

Okay. Okay. So pretty powerful already. Okay. Are there other, um, I would say settings, settings like that that, uh, allow fine tuning things?

Luc:

Yeah, we really wanted to cover all possibilities. So we also added the fact that a table could be shared, a resource could be shared. Maybe you've, you've, you know, like cool restaurants. Sometimes they have like very long tables where you sit with people you don't know because there's only 1 or 2 big tables. We need to handle that as well. So you can say this resource has 20 seats, but it can be shared, meaning that when someone books a few seats, the resource is still available but for the remaining seats only.

Olivier:

Okay. Okay. Yeah. So pretty powerful again. So it's just I guess it's just a boolean to set on the object.

Luc:

Mmh.

Olivier:

Okay, cool.

Luc:

And the thing also is that we wanted to make sure that, you know, when you're a otherwise you end up with two customers upstairs and two like downstairs. It doesn't make sense. You want to make it look like your restaurant is always busy, right? So you want to put like people in front of the windows first.

Olivier:

Or they will attract more people. Like when the. When the place seems safe. Yeah. All the people will come.

Luc:

Yeah. It needs to look crowded, even if there's only a few people. Um, so the tables, we don't allocate them randomly. Uh, we let you decide the order at which we try to allocate them.

Olivier:

So I guess with just a sequence on the object, like in many other Odoo models.

Luc:

Yeah, it sounds less exciting. Like this.

Olivier:

Yeah, that's. That's familiar. No, I mean, it's interesting to use it, but it's cool to see that the mechanism we use are the things that people are used to when possible at least. So we're not reinventing complex things all the time. It's just a sequence. So. Yeah. Makes sense. Yeah. Um, okay. Uh, could you maybe because we talked a lot about restaurants, about that, but maybe could you give other examples of businesses that would need this flexibility in the way we allocate resources? Because I guess people can, can, can be a bit surprised. Like, Yeah, okay, but all those things are grouping people together and share resources, it's nice for restaurants, but for other businesses I don't get, I don't have examples. So maybe you have some.

Luc:

I mean, there's a lot of businesses where people just book something, right? Whether it's a person or an object. Um, it could be a VR room. If you want to play online with friends, it could be a spa, you know, where you can book a sauna or a space with a swimming pool just for you. You can say, Well, the swimming pool. Maybe it's when you book it, you get the entire pool just for you. Or maybe it can be shared, but you want to make sure that it's only up to ten people at once, you know? So basically, all the case, you could come up with, I guess we should be able to support it.

Olivier:

Okay. It was just to get a few examples for people to better visualize it. Yeah. So talking about now, uh, people and organizing things and going to places that are, I guess, new things in events coming as well.

Luc:

Yeah. Yeah.

Olivier:

What exactly?

Luc:

Um, Event is a very interesting app because we go very far in what we decide to So it needs to...

Olivier:

So it has to work.

Luc:

Yeah, it has to work. There's a bit of pressure on the side, but also we go very far in terms of features because we do a lot of things for the Odoo experience. So the tracks, the talk, the planning, the booth, etcetera. Here we wanted to make sure we even for the basic stuff, we would be well covered. And we got, for example, a lot of feedback from customers about, for example, the tickets. You know, when you create your register page, people wanted to be able to order the tickets with a specific order, which makes sense because if you make a ticket for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, you want to make sure that they appear on this specific order. So it seems I mean, it's the kind of small stuff, it's like a quality of life change that we do. We do a ton of things like that every year, but it's just to make sure that indeed in your daily work you're not, you know...

Olivier:

It's interesting, it's interesting because the the most interesting changes are changing changes for the users are not especially the more complex ones because here it's, yeah, it's just, just a sequence. But, uh, it's important when you, when you develop a software like that to interact with your customers and see what their needs are and where the gaps were in what you had before. Otherwise you might do something very nice from a technical point of view, but it will be completely unusable in no time. So I guess it's interesting to mention it. Yeah. Um, so, um, uh, for events are, there are other things we didn't mention yet or is it the only thing?

Luc:

Yeah, we worked a bit also on the registration form because we wanted to let will make sure that you do get the phone number. So you want to make sure the phone number is mandatory. In other cases, you maybe you will ask other questions and you want to make sure you get answers or maybe you want to ask the phone number but you know, it's something for kids, like it's some, um, an activity for kids, and so you want to make sure it's like emergency contact number in case of something happen.

Olivier:

So it's just, uh, uh, to, just to be clear, it's, uh, when you register, you You have questions that, uh, people that are registering can answer with anything you want them to answer to. And so what changes exactly with that?

Luc:

Uh, well, you had a few, a few fields that were not options. So name, email, phone. Now everything is optional and can be customized, so you can really design your own form with your own questions and make sure that you do get the replies that you need with, um, specific like mandatory fields.

Olivier:

Okay. And, uh, do you have ways of getting, uh, statistics on what was entered

Luc:

Yeah, yeah.

Olivier:

Because I guess people want to want them to be reported somewhere.

Luc:

Yeah, I mean, you collect those. And of course, for example, if you say, are you vegetarian and you collect replies because you need to prepare something to like to cook, you need to have an overview after after a while of like we have X person that are vegetarian so that we know how much we need to order, etcetera.

Olivier:

Okay. So they can get more information more easily about the people that are

Luc:

Their replies. Yeah.

Olivier:

Okay. Okay. So now we are talking about information. So when talking about information in Odoo, there is something that comes to mind immediately, or at least that should there is the knowledge app, right?

Luc:

I hope it does.

Olivier:

So it's part of your scope. What do we have for this one?

Luc:

Yeah. So knowledge was a really a big thing, right? In version 16, we released it. It was the first version that was like deliverable. And it, it had all the basic things we wanted to include. This year it was more about polishing, adding new things and all the things that we didn't really have time to finish.

Olivier:

So it was like that. Yeah, it's part of the job. I mean, that's the magic of it.

Luc:

Yeah. I mean, and in version 16, it's already very cool. We got some great feedback, but there's always a few things you want.

Olivier:

It's just, as I said earlier, you have to interact with your user base and see Make sense.

Luc:

Yeah, and it was really exciting because it's a new app. So you do user tests when you check, you know how they interact with it and you see a lot of things like you didn't, you would never think people would do that.

Olivier:

Oh shit, what are they doing?

Luc:

Or Oh, for you. Yeah. Or you think it's really clear. And then you see people play around with it and you say, Wait, yeah, we missed that. So we did a lot of indeed quality of life changes and then we added a few features.

Olivier:

For example?

Luc:

Well, when you start working with documents, the first thing that you want to do the content. So that's the big thing that we're adding now.

Olivier:

Anyone who used Google Docs knows that.

Luc:

Yeah, of course.

Olivier:

It's really, it's it's it's the feature when you discover, when you discover It's super useful.

Luc:

Yeah. And it's just like a new way of working where you just pass around the a long meeting or to comment with very long emails. It's just like, Ah, I will change this.

Olivier:

Or send mails to people with a commented word file uh, every time. And I know some people do that.

Luc:

Version three, version four.

Olivier:

If you want to know. My my father told me about a bunch of stories about his So...

Luc:

They should move to knowledge. Should move to knowledge.

Olivier:

They should use knowledge.

Luc:

Because yeah, we added so comments, which is pretty cool. And also we also wanted to you know, when you start having a knowledge base that you really use as a company, it gets pretty crowded. But we wanted to make sure that it would stay light for the user in their daily work. So we added the notion of like visibility, meaning like this is an article that maybe you need here and there. It's like an HR FAQ, you know, with all the things you need, how do I make an expense, etcetera. But you don't need it all the time. You don't need to see it every day whenever you do a search, etcetera. So what we do is now we we let people say, okay, I have access to that, but I don't want I don't want to see it if I do a specific search because I say I want to see it, show it to me, but when I'm just working on other stuff, just hide it.

Olivier:

So yeah, adding one level of accessibility to the to the documents. Uh, okay. Uh, that's cool. And I mean, it's, it's interesting again, because, uh, too many things in too many places. It's like we said with notifications are too many, too many things that you can be attracted with. Uh, everywhere. It makes it just messy and you just don't. Don't open them or don't find what you need. Okay. Um, other new things coming for knowledge.

Luc:

A ton of stuff.

Olivier:

Ha, ha. Tell us, tell us.

Luc:

Um, so, uh, we also added a lot of new content that you can add into your For example, if you start to make documentation or tutorials, you want to include videos for sure. So that's something we added. Just do slash video and then you put the link of your video and it works and it's inside your article. So it's pretty cool.

Olivier:

And all the all other new widgets. I don't know how you call them, uh, are like that?

Luc:

Yeah, a lot of them. You can add banners, for example, if you want to attract the attention about something, you can put, um, I mean, we have a lot of small things that are just like in terms of layout so that you have something that works. And then we also worked a lot on the, the real views like the database that you include inside an article, which is like what makes knowledge really stand out is that it's inside your database. So it has all the other tools as well. So say you do a checklist, you could do a simple like to do list with just like, you know, items that you click and then it's a strikethrough. Or you could now you can build a real Kanban where you just do slash Kanban, you add your todos, you know, like you would do in a task for tasks or CRM and you can just drag and drop when it's done.

Olivier:

Okay, so it's cool. Yeah, it's, it's way more advanced than just, uh, word file. Yeah. Yeah. You can, you can interact with it more directly and it has an effect on your database. So. Yeah. Okay, so that's where the magic happens.

Luc:

Yeah, exactly. That's it.

Olivier:

Okay. Uh, uh, about. This about the editor? Maybe. Are there other things? So you talked about new new blogs like that. Are there new things that people could use in Odoo 17 that weren't there before?

Luc:

I mean, as you said, one of the challenges that when people open knowledge, they put a few colors and they say, okay, it's cool, but I don't really see the point. So what we had to do is to find ways to show them that it's way more than that. And so we do it, for example, by providing templates. So what we do is when you create an article from scratch, instead of showing you just a white screen, we add a few buttons and we say like, Do you want to load a template? And we know that maybe you won't use those templates like per se, but at least you see like, okay, now let's can do this and this and that.

Olivier:

You have an example. I think it's always better when well, yeah, maybe not have some things that are preset and that the user can look into. So you have the documentation that's important, of course, but having the example and the actual thing just to check or to copy what you need, paste it and just change a few things on it is super interesting.

Luc:

Yeah, yeah. You need some inspiration to see. Okay. That's what it does. That's how I could use it. And it's not just text, it could be a to do list, it could be an agenda, it could be whatever. And we do the same for email marketing. We added a few extra templates and we know that maybe this is not one you will use because it's not your company colors or your logo is missing, etcetera, but at least you can see okay with Odoo email marketing, I can do cool mailings. They look good and I have a few ideas maybe for blogs that I could use. Change a few colors and you have something that really looks good.

Olivier:

Talking about emails. So you mentioned when preparing this episode, you mentioned something very interesting I think for a lot of people. So I'm not saying more. I'll let you I'll let you showcase it.

Luc:

You're talking about the multi company?

Olivier:

Ah! Ah! Of course. You had a doubt. Really?

Luc:

Yeah. We do a lot of things. So, um. It's a bit I mean, it's a bit technical, but people that use Odoo will for sure know this, this issue. The thing is, when you have a single database, you can have on it different companies, right? You can have your dance school and maybe another business and another business, etcetera, and you can just have them and have different websites, etcetera. And it looks very clean, at least on the website part. But for the email flows, it was a bit of an issue because the domain had to be shared. So it was like info at Something and that something had to be unique for all your companies database, which is a problem because you want to have info at dance school and then info at car garage. Or...

Olivier:

If you manage multiple companies on your database, you expect them to be

Luc:

And you don't want your, you don't want your customers to see that there's

Olivier:

Yeah. If you organize dance lessons and your and your email address is your Uh, that's it.

Luc:

That's it. So what we what we do now is that we make sure that they are really info at dance school and then info at car garage or something so that you clearly have different domains and you can have different aliases and different flows etcetera. And you don't have this weird mix where you could do everything except that.

Olivier:

Yeah, indeed. It's cool because it's, uh, I guess it was pretty, pretty But uh, yeah, it, I, I think we had to do it at some point, right?

Luc:

Yeah. For sure.

Olivier:

Uh, since we're talking about technical things, uh, I heard there were new a property field is.

Luc:

Yeah. So we added property fields in version 16. And the idea is that we want to allow users to customize the database but in a very light way. So not with studio or development really. Like I'm a project manager and for this specific project I need to store 1 or 2 information, like just a checkbox or a small number or something. So property fields are made for that. You can create them without being an admin, without being a developer or anything, and you can just do it in the case of in the context of this project or these sales teams, etcetera, meaning that you're not even changing the view of your colleagues. It's just for your own thing, you can, you know, play around with other fields that you can add.

Olivier:

And so technically speaking, uh, just in case some developers are listening to Uh, technically speaking, when you modify, uh, when you add fields with studio, you're adding columns into the database. And here it's not like that. You have actually a JSON field where you put all these information, but it's just one JSON field on the object. And so that's why that's how you can have like distinct fields for the same model, for different instances of the, of the, of the same model.

Luc:

That's it. You're not changing the model and you're not changing the views, have the same fields. But, of course, we're creating sort of a framework inside the framework. So we were able to support the form views and now we added a lot of other options. And because of course you start to store data, you want to filter with those values, you want to group by, you want to search.

Olivier:

Immediately when you add a field like that, people are going to want to well, aggregate data.

Luc:

Yeah. And you can now go very far because you can create your own fields, have a small tag that you created, a new field that you created only for your project or your sales team, or again your helpdesk team, not everywhere and you're not an admin, you're not doing it with studio, it's just on your side. You do this and it makes even more sense in knowledge because in knowledge you can create your own database. As I said, you create your todos, you know, and you integrate a Kanban view. If you put a deadline, for example, a field deadline, you want to see it in the Kanban so that you can with a glance see, okay, that's something I need to do soon, etcetera.

Olivier:

So essentially now from a user perspective, of course not technically, it works

Luc:

Yeah. As much as possible. We try to make it look like a normal field, except that it's actually not.

Olivier:

Magic.

Luc:

That's. That's the challenge. Yeah.

Olivier:

Magic. All right. And on that magic note, we are reaching the end of the episode. So, as usual, as a conclusion, I would like you to give a few glimpses at the future. What is what is coming for after Odoo 17 for your scope? Can you tell us?

Luc:

Yeah. First of all, there's a ton of things that we did for version 17 that were For the future, if I have to imagine the roadmap for the next version, I would like to go back to social. I think we have a few things to do there because it evolves quite a lot. Especially the market also evolved. So we need to catch up a bit. A good example is, for example, you know with social you can post on multiple platforms at once, for example, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, let's say. But today, with the way it evolves, you're not going to publish the exact same content. You're probably going to be more formal on LinkedIn, a bit more short on Twitter, and maybe put a lot of pictures of Facebook.

Olivier:

You would like to add some flexibility on that in Odoo.

Luc:

Yeah, that's something maybe we, I mean, we're considering it. Not sure.

Olivier:

Of course it's it's, uh, it's the future of future. So it's just ideas for now.

Luc:

Yeah. Um, don't take it for granted. Like, that's the thing we're considering because we really think social.

Olivier:

So if if it's not done next year, uh, you would like people not to harass you.

Luc:

I never said that. Um, and then, of course, we have a lot of things to do on the apps we're working on. So knowledge, as I said, we, we did quite a few things, but it's still a new app, so there are still things to do, especially as I said, usability testing and all the things to be sure that when you open knowledge you see like how it works, etcetera. And the same for appointment for now, we we added a ton of new features. We opened a broad new scope, right with the resources. There's a lot of things to do afterwards to follow up. So for example, we are adding payment flows as well so that you can pay in advance when you book a court. But maybe you want to say like the um, the resource can only be booked during a specific week. And so you want to specify it's only that week and then that's it. Those kind of things, we are considering it and working on it for the next version.

Olivier:

All right, so sounds promising.

Luc:

Yeah.

Olivier:

Well, that's the end for today. Thank you very much for your answers.

Luc:

My pleasure.

Olivier:

And see you next time.

Luc:

Yeah, see you.

Olivier:

Odooers, exciting times ahead with Odoo 17th marketing, right? Want more? Check out our other roadmap episodes. And remember the big reveal is in November at Odoo experience. Don't miss it and register now. Until then, cheers.