Hey other #hackspace board members here on mastodon.
What software do you use to manage your hackspace?
Like administrate members, administrate payments and all the stuff you have to deal with in your space?
@mcfly We gave up trying to edit our entry ages ago as we couldn't find a way to register an account that allowed us to edit the entry for our space. Looks like we still can't and can't register a new user ID. Our registered address is a Gmail one too which apparently doesn't help. Looks like there has been a lot of activity recently though. Last time we tried was a couple of years back. If we could get in we would update our entry.
@mcfly From what I can tell the landscape of Hackspace bureaucracy infrastructure is bizarre. Here in Darmstadt our member database is a git repo with json files (or yaml these days). Our finances also in a plaintext git repo with https://ledger-cli.org.
Other options are gnucash or jverein? Probably there are better options out there …
@maralorn@mcfly
I use #gnucash to run parts of my wife's shop and I can't recommend it at all: the user interface is ultimately bad. From what I got from their mailing list, they don't even use it themselves. If I could somehow break out of that vendor lock without loosing years of data, I would immediately do so.
@maralorn@mcfly I mean it makes sense for a non-profit that has to do proper #accounting towards auditors if demanded by authorities and towards it's due-paying members that stuff is being quasi-public (aka. accessible for members but not like on a public website)...
@kkarhan
The board reports a summary to the meeting of members once per year and there is a detailed audit by appointed club members. Data is handled quite confidential and I think that's important.
Our board also keeps a public list of all expenses it approves.
@maralorn I mean it lilely is also a requirement per law to do so amd whilst tax authorities may not scrutinize every years' bools, it's always better to exceed compliance rather than having nosy bureaucrats find reasons to get more annoying...
@mcfly at @nottinghack we still use and maintain our Hackspace Management System. There are a couple of other spaces using this in the UK too (Southampton for sure, I think another one, and Ashfield are opening soon and will also be using it).
We recently also added support for Discord roles, so team members can have private channels etc.
@mcfly not involved much now but used to be: London Hackspace basically uses the website codebase (it’s all on GitHub) - it’s actually a mix of Python and PHP. I reworked most of the payment handling code a couple of years ago to use GoCardless for payments
So yeah, custom stuff, like I believe most spaces should be using heh
@mcfly We (@doubleunion, based in the US) use homemade OSS for member applications and member administrative stuff like dues and keycodes (https://github.com/doubleunion/arooo), Slack chat, Xero for accounting, a virtual mailbox service for paper mail, a door lock with keyless entry (keycodes), Stripe for dues payment processing, Google Groups for mailing lists, Google Drive for files, probably more I’m forgetting.
data management and calendars (separated board members specific stuff and a possibly public calendar): #nextcloud
Used mainly by the board members but set up using group folders to have a area for all members to check out photos, protocols and so on + work together. Is not in use by every member yet. Thinking about integrating the calendar into our website (which we should rebuild to make use of an #CMS like #joomla or #WordPress I guess).
@mcfly Makespace.org uses keyfob tags to control entry, and enable access to machines you have to be trained on before you can use it. There’s a ‘badger’ that prints name labels which people are encouraged to use (to promote community). Lots of the software is available on github.
(I’ve not kept up with developments since Covid started, you could maybe get more info by contacting them. Info on the website: makespace.org.)
@mcfly fablab munich here. From what I know we use jVerein to do that. I don't know to which extent though, not directly involved in membership management.
@mcfly we use our own software which does a lot of stuff that a hackspace management software shouldn't do (like the calendar or the website). But it's been keeping the space running for something like 15 years.
Originally the idea was that it will become a generic hackspace management software but that never happened. https://github.com/Metalab/mos
Specifically built to manage the members, it handles everything from payment processing up to entry access. Big tool access is all locked down to inducted members via the same RFID tech as the doors.
@mcfly We‘re using a german web-based software MeinVerein.Web https://www.buhl.de/meinverein/ for membership administration and payment. Nextcloud, Jitsi, Mattermost for communication. And Microsoft M365 for Mail, Teams and DNS.
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