Odoo Experience 2022 was held in Brussels, Belgium from 12 to 14 October 2022, and Odoo version 16.0 was unveiled there. Below, from Odoo CEO Fabien's keynote speech on day one, are the various new features and improvements, following the presentation as it went.
Better performance, a new app called Knowledge, a website builder with more to it, a handier dashboard and more, with screenshots.
Related links:
- Odoo V16 released - new features and improvements (2)
- Odoo V16 released - new features and improvements (3)
- The blog post on the day-two talk "Keynote - Vision & Strategy" is here
- Odoo's own Odoo 16 release notes are here
- Odoo's blog post "Meet Odoo 16" is here
Performance
Faster
Compared with V15.0, the website is 2.5 times faster, eCommerce 3.9 times and the back end 3.7 times!
(There is an announcement every year about how much faster it has got… but this time I have hopes.)
Editing and saving, automatically
Until now you had to click 「編集」 (Edit) before editing and 「保存」 (Save) in order to save; in V16.0 editing and saving happen automatically, with no button to click.
When you change data, 「手動保存」 (Save manually) and 「破棄」 (Discard) buttons appear, so you can still save by hand or throw the change away.
(Clicking edit and then save every single time was a nuisance, so this is a real convenience!)
Website
Menus
The website menus have become handier: from the Website app screen you can reach back-end products, events, appointments and so on directly.
The "device" shape
An image can now be displayed set inside the frame of a device screen — a phone, a tablet, a PC. The colour of the device can be changed too.
Mobile preview
With the mobile preview you can edit what shows only on a mobile device, what does not show, and so on.
Analytics (and the cookie consent banner)
Cookie consent is required where cookie information is passed to a third party, and is held not to be required where you use it yourself. In Odoo V16.0 the Plausible.io tool lets you do the analysis yourself without passing data to a third party, so it becomes possible not to show the cookie consent banner, which is said to hurt conversion.
eCommerce
Rental
Rental orders can now be placed from the website.
Other things
Grid layout: place elements wherever you like. On-scroll animation: animate an image so that it rotates or moves left and right as the page scrolls. Hover animation: animate an image when the mouse hovers over it. Product filters: filter products on an eCommerce site. Product image layout: choose whether product images are shown as a carousel or in a grid. Alternative products: set alternative products on a product and they appear at the foot of that product's sales page. Back-in-stock notification email: send a notification email when something out of stock comes back in. "Add to cart" button: place an "Add to cart" button on pages other than the product page. Bulk image upload: upload product images together from the front end
Web chat
Chatbot
A chatbot answers chat enquiries from website visitors automatically.
A new app: Knowledge
A knowledge-sharing tool
Knowledge sharing has drawn attention in recent years. Sharing knowledge inside a company can be expected to stop work depending on particular individuals, to raise the quality of the work and its efficiency, and to lower the cost of training people and of handing work over.
Odoo now has a new Knowledge app as well. It is fully integrated with Odoo, so live Odoo data is easy to insert.
What Knowledge does
- Simultaneous editing: several users can edit the same article at the same time
- Adding properties: properties can be added to an article
- Data from other apps: data such as the product master or an analytic report can be inserted
- Emailing an article: an article can be sent from the send-email button
- Sharing an article: it can be published on the website
Context-based custom fields
Custom "property" fields
Custom "property" fields can be created on tickets, opportunities, tasks and articles.
Sales support
Manufacturing forecast
The manufacturing forecast, new in V16.0, lets you check the stock of the BOM components needed to manufacture.
Sales
Coupons & promotions
In V15.0 there were awkward gaps — a gift card could not be used on a back-end sales order, a loyalty card worked only in PoS — and in V16.0 all of it works in eCommerce, on a sales order and in PoS.
Services
Planning
Shifts can be planned in the Planning app for a service on a sales order line.
Shifts for several employees can also be planned in one go.
Purchase
Requests for quotation
Up to V15.0 a purchase agreement was needed; from V16.0 it is not.
From the alternatives tab you can create a request for quotation to a different vendor.
The responses to a request for quotation can be compared product by product and chosen individually.
Odoo V16 released - new features and improvements (1)