1.2 Odoo core concepts: apps, users, companies & navigation

Apps versus modules

New users conflate "apps" and "modules," but the exam expects precision. Apps are the large, user-facing applications shown in the Apps grid — Sales, Accounting, Inventory, CRM. A module is the underlying installable package of code and data; an app is simply a module flagged as a top-level application. Installing one app often pulls in several dependent modules automatically — installing Sales brings in the invoicing and CRM plumbing it needs. In Odoo 19 you add and remove these from the Apps menu, but a large share of "features" are not separate installs at all: they are toggles inside each app's Settings page. Enabling Variants, Units of Measure, or Multi-Step Routes flips a switch rather than installing a module. Knowing whether a capability is an install or a settings toggle is a recurring exam theme.

The database

Everything in Odoo lives in a single PostgreSQL database. One Odoo server can host many databases, and each database is a self-contained world of companies, users, and records. This matters functionally: duplicating a database gives you a safe sandbox to test in, and the certification itself runs in a dedicated database so your experiments never touch real production data.

Users and access rights

Odoo distinguishes user types, and the distinction drives both licensing and security:

Access is then layered from broad to granular. Groups (roles) grant access to menus and features; you assign them per application under Settings ▸ Users & Companies ▸ Users, where each app offers levels such as User: Own Documents Only, User: All Documents, and Administrator. Beneath groups sit access rights (create/read/write/delete permissions on each model) and record rules that filter which rows a user may see — for example, a salesperson who sees only their own opportunities. Remember the hierarchy for the exam: user type → groups → access rights → record rules, from widest to most specific.

Multi-company basics

A single database can run several companies. A user is granted access to one or more of them, and the company switcher in the top menu bar controls which company (or combination) is active. The active company filters the records you see and stamps itself on new documents. Some data is company-specific — journals, bank accounts, and pricelists — while other data can be shared across companies. Inter-company rules can even auto-create a purchase order in Company B when Company A sells to it. You do not need deep multi-company mechanics for the exam, but you must recognize the switcher and understand that the active company scopes your data.

Navigating Odoo

Odoo's power comes from switching views over the same underlying data. Master these:

The search bar is the heart of navigation: type to search, add Filters, apply Group By to cluster records, and save the result as a Favorite for reuse. Breadcrumbs at the top-left let you step back up the trail from an open document to the list it came from.

Everyday record actions

A few standard actions apply to almost every record and appear often on the exam. New starts a blank form, and Odoo 19 saves through a persistent save/discard indicator rather than a separate edit mode. From a form's action (gear) menu you can Duplicate a record to copy its values, or Archive it — archiving hides a record from normal views without deleting it, which is preferred over deletion because it preserves history and links. From any list view you can Export selected records to a spreadsheet or Import data from a file, mapping columns to fields. These UI actions, not code, are how functional users manage data at scale.

Settings and Developer Mode

The Settings app holds both global preferences and each installed app's feature toggles. At the bottom of General Settings you can Activate the developer (debug) mode, which reveals technical menus, internal field names, and XML IDs — invaluable for understanding how records connect and occasionally required to reach an exam answer.

Cross-app concepts

A handful of tools appear on records across every app and are heavily tested:

• Chatter: the message/log thread beneath a record for notes, emails, and tracked field changes, with Followers who get notified.
• Activities: scheduled to-dos (call, email, upload document) attached to a record and surfaced in the Activities view and the clock icon.
• Documents / attachments: files clipped to a record, or managed centrally in the Documents app.
• Record flow: a quotation becomes a sales order, which generates a delivery in Inventory and a customer invoice in Accounting — the same product and partner threading through each app, linked by smart buttons at the top of the form.