Hackerspace CRM (Community Relationship Management) is a web application built with Laravel that helps communities around the world to run and manage their Hackerspaces/Makerspaces.
Github: https://github.com/altinukshini/hackerspacecrm
My friends and I run Prishtina Hackerspace (a hackerspace in Kosovo), and since the beginning of it we always struggled finding the best solution to manage members, payments, keys, etc. I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel, we tried many different applications but I think we need a better solutions for this. I think that many hackerspaces face the same problem when dealing with 30+ members. I know all hackerspaces have different structures, but we could maybe boil down to something common and useful for all of us.
There are many open source CRM software out there like CiviCRM and such (paid ones as well) that actually do have more functionality in them but are hard to use because of their complexity.
Hackerspace CRM tends to be more user friendly and come to use only to Hackerspaces. The idea is to have most of the application parameters configurable via the administrator panel. The application should be modular so that other hackerspaces around the world can write their own specific functionalities. Anyone can write a theme for it or even localize the CRM for use in their own language.
Features
So far, I’ve thought of couple of features, most of which I liked in Seltzer CRM, and some that I thought might be useful based on my experience with Prishtina Hackerspace and some local hackerspaces in Balkans. But, in order for this CRM to be as good as it can (and obviously better than the existing solutions), I need your help to let me know what do you struggle with, and what would you need to have in such application? How do you process this kind of stuff, what services you use and what would be the easiest way to complete your hackerspace administrative tasks via this CRM.
So far this is what I came up with (call them modules or simply features): The following need to be more detailed (will document them more soon)
- Membership
- Members
- Membership Plans
- Mentors
- Reports
- Membership reports
- Expenses reports
- Space Frequentation (part of door access control and checkin system)
- Finances
- Transactions (income and expenses)
- Billing (charge members / run billing)
- Online Payment (Pay membership dues with Stripe/Paypal)
- Access Control
- Keys
- RFID Cards
- Alarm Pins
- Door access Control and Checkin System (API for Raspberry pi/Arduino based solution)
Technologies used (planed to be used)
Software:
- Laravel PHP Framework
- MySQL database management system
- BootStrap front-end Framework + Admin LTE control panel and dashboard theme (for the default theme).
- Stripe API for payments over internet (in later versions as module)
- Paypal API for payments over internet (in later versions as module)
Hardware for developing the Checkin System and Door Access control System (in later versions as module):
- RaspberryPi
- Python for managing the GPIO ports and the functionality
- 2×16 LCD Screen
- Electric door strike
- RFID reader and cards
I’ve already done something for this, but will have to adapt and refactor the code so that it’ll work with Hackerspace CRM: https://github.com/altinukshini/HACCSY
Contributing
I would very much appreciate and love any contribution! I encourage you to create a new personal branch after you fork this repository. This branch should be used for content and changes that are specific to your use. However, anything you are willing to push back should be updated in your develop branch, since there is still no stable release (master branch) of this application yet.
Please feel free to check the issues page. I’d love to see any contributions in issues listed there.
Altin Ukshini 