DB-based Association Management Software? 37
BrynM asks: "I work for a professional association that is currently using several Symantec Act! databases to keep track of Membership, Event Registration and Continuing Education. This 'solution' is growing very long in the tooth as Act! is really just a contact database and not a full blown management system and doesn't handle payments for member dues, orders or registration fees at all. I have worked for an Association that used iMIS, which is fully featured but is way beyond my current employer's budget to implement. There's a short list of software in the Google Directory, but foraging the vendor's websites hoping for a demo and trying to get a quote for all of them would be unrealistic. Finding something that uses a database back-end that we can interface other things with would be ideal. I'm OSS agnostic on this one - we just want the most useful and practical solution. What software would you recommend? Do you have any experiences with software to avoid?"
I'm sorry, I have to vent (Score:2)
Unrealistic? By which you mean a lot of effort and time? But you want the rest of us to spend our time typing up our experiences and opinions about the software we've used for this? That is very selfish of you, in my opinion. How about you do the work of testing demos and write up your experiences and share it with the rest of us to comment on. That way you will have actually contributed somethi
Re:I'm sorry, I have to vent (Score:1)
Re:I'm sorry, I have to vent (Score:2)
SQL Ledger? (Score:3, Informative)
MySQL and some sweat (Score:2)
Re:MySQL and some sweat (Score:2)
Re:MySQL and some sweat (Score:2)
So...you're *not* really OSS agnostic after all, are you? IMHO, the poster has given you the solution. I suggest that you show up one Saturday and implement the MySQL/PHP solution. Make sure to write a user manual too,
Re:MySQL and some sweat (Score:2)
I would add - document it very well to allay fears that they'll be left high and dry by the under-the-bus or disgruntled-employee scenarios.
That's two forms of documentation - a users manual and a maintainers manual. There's the advantage of open source - it's all open and as long as it's well documented, developers are fungible.
Just a tip (Score:2)
But software to keep track of your friends and how much they owe you? I'm going to need a little help understanding this concept of 'friend'. What is that?
Or maybe I could just look it up on Google.
Re:Just a tip (Score:2)
They aren't friends, they're dues paying members of a professional association. These are business transactions. Let me Google [google.com] a little for you... ;)
Codecharge Studio (Score:1)
Re:Codecharge Studio (Score:2)
Yeh, (Score:2)
Just talking with my wife about this subject (Score:2)
She's involved with a ski club, Toastmaster's and a church, and in all three cases there is *no* good way to share the work of supporting the organization.
Just about all the members have broadband ethernet and she'd love to have a software package that would allow multiple members to share the work without stepping on each other's toes or
Re:Just talking with my wife about this subject (Score:2)
Re:Just talking with my wife about this subject (Score:2)
www.memberclicks.com [memberclicks.com]
www.aar-online.org [aar-online.org]
Re:Just talking with my wife about this subject (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Just talking with my wife about this subject (Score:1)
uh.. what? (Score:2)
I'd be glad to... (Score:2)
Re:I'd be glad to... (Score:2)
Maybe it's because I've been on enough cold medicine lately to kill a large pet. Or maybe not.
Maybe the person who posted this is just making the problem so complex, they can't find a reasonable solution?
hmm...
Re:I'd be glad to... (Score:2)
Go back about 3 posts to mine that said "Just talking with my wife about this subject" along with the OP's followup and you'll get the picture.
Re:I'd be glad to... (Score:3, Informative)
I made it as simple as I could. I work for a Professional Association [google.com] like the AMA [ama-assn.org], the APhA [aphanet.org], IWA [iwanet.org] (International Webmaster's Association) - hell, the RIAA is an association too! These associations have members who pay money we call dues. In return they get access to a network of similar professionals, continuing education (which is required to keep your license to practice for people like lawyers
Sacramento software vendor (Score:1)
They were a reseller for a national software package. They were also developing a home grown association management package. Right now I can't remember their name but I've e-mailed someone I used to work with back then to see if they could remember.
If I find out the name I'll post again.
Re:Sacramento software vendor (Score:2)
MASS (Score:3, Informative)
I haven't tried this one personally, but it does have the ability of letting you use different back end databases. A demo copy is available for download. From the FAQ:
"Can this membership software database integrate with other databases?
Yes. The default database engine is dataflex, which has ODBC support. Other backend database engines are also available-at a cost. We support MS-SQL, Oracle, mySQL, Pervasive, IBM-DB2. The worst case scenario is to use the import/export functionality.
Further information on the database capabilities see http://www.dataaccess.com"
Re:MASS (Score:2)
Clubdata (Score:1)
Aviansus (Score:1)
http://www.saraf.com/Aviansus_Home.html [saraf.com]
It's built on OSS technologies, including Apache, Tomcat and Postgres, IIRC. I'm working with a Chamber of Commerce which is in the middle of migrating to it from an old IMIS system. They should be going live on it soon. Contact me if you want me to put you in touch with the end users for a reference / first hand account of how it works.
Re:Aviansus (Score:1)
Good Topic - Lot's of Orgs Could Use This (Score:1)
We're not pro coders, just interested neophytes. So far we've rolled out own with PHP/MySQL based site, with self made template main pages, phpMyAdmin, phpbb conferencing, LinPHA photo album, and some other stuff.
Getting it all to work together and getting the config for each done has proven to be a great DIY project, but it sure is a long road. It's been in process for quite awh
InfoCentral (Score:1)
OK, so I went off and checked out the InfoCentral online demo. It looks like it might fulfill some of the requirements.
It's another web based MySQL front end. OSS too. Mostly weighted to member management, it seems to have some financial stuff. It's designed to be a church membership management thing, but plenty of customizing ability is built in.
Check it out: http://www.infocentral.org/ [infocentral.org]