Shop data management?
What kind of data do you record as part of your shop operations? Right now we use a somewhat abused set of spreadsheets to track our pertinent info, but I'm in the process of creating a more task-specific database (a web app) to handle it all better. Here is what we track now:
- Volunteer hours (to add volunteer sweat equity credit to volunteers'
records)
- Sweat equity used (to subtract credit for purchase of bikes, parts, stand
time)
- Bike sales: Bike ID, how it was paid (cash/equity), how it will be used
Our cash & credit sales are tracked independently on a POS/register.
Right now that is all done on paper, then later entered into the spreadsheets. It's kind of a cumbersome process, but visitors are comfortable with a paper sign-in sheet, and volunteers are comfortable with a spreadsheet (vs. a database).
We don't track overall number of shop visitors (although we do hang on to our paper sign-in sheets), or gross volume of stand time provided. While we have contact info for all visitors on a waiver they fill out the first time they come in the shop, we would probably have a difficult time if we needed to quickly find an emergency contact for someone, since they are all just on paper right now. I'd like to integrate that all together into the database.
Since I'm writing this front desk app, I thought I'd ping the community to see if these are common needs, or if there are other common needs that I could consider as I develop it. I'd love for it to be useful enough to offer to the broader community at some point.
-Andy Broke Spoke Community Bike Shop Lexington, KY
We run our website on Drupal CMS, and have as of this year begun to us the CiviCRM module of Drupal for data management. specifically, we use it for:
-membership database -membership mass mailings (monthly newsletters) -classifying members as volunteers, patrons, under 18, organizations, businesses, etc. -tracking Learn & Earn Hours (our earn a bike classes)
it has the capacity to: -track volunteer hours -track bike adoption -link bike serial numbers to members .... but we are taking it one step at a time.
so far so good, and it is part of our website, so core members can simply log in on line.
andrew Troy Bike Rescue Troy, NY
On Thu, May 9, 2013 at 10:03 AM, Andrew Shooner ashooner@gmail.com wrote:
What kind of data do you record as part of your shop operations? Right now we use a somewhat abused set of spreadsheets to track our pertinent info, but I'm in the process of creating a more task-specific database (a web app) to handle it all better. Here is what we track now:
- Volunteer hours (to add volunteer sweat equity credit to volunteers'
records)
- Sweat equity used (to subtract credit for purchase of bikes, parts,
stand time)
- Bike sales: Bike ID, how it was paid (cash/equity), how it will be used
Our cash & credit sales are tracked independently on a POS/register.
Right now that is all done on paper, then later entered into the spreadsheets. It's kind of a cumbersome process, but visitors are comfortable with a paper sign-in sheet, and volunteers are comfortable with a spreadsheet (vs. a database).
We don't track overall number of shop visitors (although we do hang on to our paper sign-in sheets), or gross volume of stand time provided. While we have contact info for all visitors on a waiver they fill out the first time they come in the shop, we would probably have a difficult time if we needed to quickly find an emergency contact for someone, since they are all just on paper right now. I'd like to integrate that all together into the database.
Since I'm writing this front desk app, I thought I'd ping the community to see if these are common needs, or if there are other common needs that I could consider as I develop it. I'd love for it to be useful enough to offer to the broader community at some point.
-Andy Broke Spoke Community Bike Shop Lexington, KY
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participants (2)
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Andrew L -
Andrew Shooner