Duration: 38:33
PART 1 — Analytical Summary 🚀
Context 💼
This 38-minute demo is led by two Odoo business analysts, Dafne and Rosali, who walk through how an event management company can run its end-to-end sales and operations using Odoo’s industry pack for Event Management. The story centers on a fictional premium agency, “Odel,” showcasing how the combination of the Industry: Event Management pack, Rental, Quotation Templates (with Quote Calculator and Quote Builder), and deep integrations with CRM, Project, Planning, and Website apps streamlines quoting, staffing, logistics, and branding. The talk also highlights what’s new in Odoo 19: creating rental orders directly from the Project app and a tighter, “seamless” Planning integration.
Core ideas & innovations 🧠
Leads originate from a branded website “Get a quote” form—preconfigured by the Event Management industry pack—which creates a CRM opportunity automatically (using the website form’s “Create Opportunity” action). From the opportunity, the team launches a Rental quotation rather than a standard sales quotation, because events often mix rentable items (e.g., décor, furniture, masks) and services (e.g., photographers).
A prebuilt Quotation Template becomes the sales payload and the productivity engine. It bundles:
- A Quote Calculator: a spreadsheet embedded in the quotation that supports Excel-like formulas and Odoo-specific functions. It pulls live data from the database via defined data sources (e.g., Vendor Pricelists for freelancers, existing sale order lines), calculates complex pricing scenarios (venue choice, attendee counts, menu mix, add-ons), visualizes budget consumption, and then syncs selected cells back to the quotation lines. The sync can update any line field—unit price, quantity, and even rich descriptions—ensuring the quote is accurate and consistent without manual copy/paste. Crucially, each template-embedded calculator is duplicated per quote so editing one doesn’t affect others.
- A Quote Builder: generates a polished, multi-section PDF that reflects brand identity. It supports a custom cover and footer plus product-attached documents (e.g., a PDF menu for “Menu A”). Dynamic fields (e.g., quote reference, customer, order date) are injected into the PDF. Authors design these fields in tools like Scribus or Adobe Acrobat by placing named PDF text fields; Odoo maps them to any quotation field (no more restricted list, a notable Odoo 19 improvement).
Pricing and availability are governed by Rental. Users set a rental period (start/end), then “Update Rental Prices” aligns prices with configured duration tiers (hourly/daily/weekly). For example, masks priced per “day” are auto-selected for a 9-hour event. Rental products are stock-tracked, so availability is checked and warnings appear if items are short. Services like photographer/videographer combine Rental for internal planning logic with Vendor Pricelists plus a margin to compute selling rates. Roles (e.g., “Photographer”) and eligible resources are defined so the Planning app can generate accurate shifts.
Once the quote is confirmed (customers can also sign and pay online), the configured event product triggers a Project with a pre-defined template and tasks. This is where Odoo 19 shines: users can now create additional Rental orders directly from the Project’s top menu, ensuring all orders are linked to the same event project. Staff and freelancers receive published shifts from Planning, with event times synced from the rental order. Logistics are handled via pickup lists to prep, deliver, and return items; a schedule view shows all rentals by date with quantities to help the warehouse plan. Email communications leverage a customized template (via Email Marketing) matching the brand.
Impact & takeaways ⚙️
This flow replaces fragmented spreadsheets and manual quoting with a cohesive, automated experience:
- Complex quotations become fast and reliable thanks to the Quote Calculator pulling live, structured data (products, vendor costs) and synchronizing results back to quote lines in one click.
- Customer-facing documents feel premium and on-brand via the Quote Builder with dynamic, mapped fields and attachable product PDFs—no manual assembly needed.
- Rental rules and stock checks prevent overbooking, while duration-based Dynamic Pricing keeps rates consistent and transparent.
- With Project autogeneration and Planning sync, sales and operations remain aligned—tasks, shifts, suppliers, and logistics all reference the same event context.
- New in Odoo 19: create rental orders from the Project app, deeper Planning integration, and fewer limitations on dynamic fields in PDFs—making configuration simpler and more powerful.
Net effect 💬: reduced errors and time-to-quote, stronger branding, full operational visibility, and a scalable pattern you can reuse across themed packages or bespoke events—all within one integrated system.
PART 2 — Viewpoint: Odoo Perspective
Disclaimer: AI-generated creative perspective inspired by Odoo’s vision.
What I love here is the balance between freedom and structure. A spreadsheet is familiar, but when it’s connected to live product and vendor data—and synchronized back to the quote—you eliminate the “copy/paste” chaos without losing flexibility. That’s the Odoo way: keep it simple, keep it integrated.
Industry packs accelerate time-to-value. You can start with a working site, a quoting flow, and the right products. Then the community makes it better—templates, calculators, and documents can be shared, improved, and adapted. Integration should disappear into the background so teams focus on crafting great experiences, not on stitching tools together.
PART 3 — Viewpoint: Competitors (SAP / Microsoft / Others)
Disclaimer: AI-generated fictional commentary. Not an official corporate statement.
The event scenario shows Odoo’s strengths: speed of implementation, unified UX, and a clever use of spreadsheet semantics to tackle complex quoting. For SMBs and midmarket service firms, the integrated Rental + CRM + Project + Planning flow is appealing—particularly the dynamic PDF and quote synchronization tricks that reduce admin overhead.
At larger scale, questions remain: governance of spreadsheet-driven logic, auditable change control, and template lifecycle management need mature processes. Enterprises will evaluate multi-entity complexity, SoD/compliance frameworks, and deep localization. Rental plus subscription recognition, multi-country tax, and granular approval workflows can be demanding. Still, Odoo’s UX differentiation and velocity are strong; the challenge is sustaining that simplicity as organizations layer on compliance, scale, and cross-system integrations.
PART 4 — Blog Footer Disclaimer
Disclaimer: This article contains AI-generated summaries and fictionalized commentaries for illustrative purposes. Viewpoints labeled as "Odoo Perspective" or "Competitors" are simulated and do not represent any real statements or positions. All product names and trademarks belong to their respective owners.