hOurworld

 

Software FAQ

See a Comparison of Community Weaver 2.0 and 3.0 with Time and Talents

Why Time and Talents? (Movements Moving Together!)

We believe in Open Innovation. We implement the best ideas of our members and coordinators. This broad based co-production model of development affords us all the best tools for sustaining our local communities!

We believe in removing ALL the barriers to time banking that we can. Access to the hOurworld platform is and will remain FREE. It's easy for new members to join and learn, and easy for coordinators to manage and report on their members and activity.

We believe in supporting local diversity while maintaining a central cooperative organization to provide accessible support, training, and communications. We are documenting and teaching these models.

We believe that every member have control over their own privacy and content. We operate on private secure servers on HIPPA compliant data centers where all information is encrypted before going out on the internet.

We believe that time banking is one spoke in a wheel of Movements Moving Together. We foster local community organizations drawing together to create powerful local economies as they integrate CSA, Food Co-op, Buy Local, Transition Town, BALLE, CAP and others. The opportunities to provide care are profound!

A Brief History of Time and Talents (3.33min)

Time and Talents Time Banking Software Overview - Members

• Post & reply to messages to the whole exchange!
• Receive a weekly email of new messages, offers and requests (or opt out)!
• Post & reply to messages to groups (and copy them by email).
• Search for Offers, Requests, Messages, Members, & Bios, and Help!
• Add offers and requests and set their expiration.
• Manage contact information and privacy.
• Report hours and view/print/email your statement.
• Add an image to any service offer!
• Translate page content into your preferred language
• [Contact Coordinator] or [Contact Tech Support] from any page after login.

• Members may post and reply to messages to/from the whole exchange, group members, or a single member. Single and group members are copied by e-mail whenever a message is posted.


• Members may manage their profiles, offers and requests, contact information and privacy, and group affiliations.


• Members may report hours they have provided or received, indicate their satisfaction with a service, and endorse another member. Hours logging supports one to many and many to one transactions and comments by both parties.


• Members may e-mail, view or print their statements and may delete any transaction they have provided, effectively issuing a 'refund'.


• Members may search service listings with words, phrases and include city or zip. Member's service descriptions are included in the search.


• Members may search for other members by any part of their name.


• Members can post immediate offers, requests or announcements in the News area.

Time and Talents Time Banking Software Overview - Administrators

As an admin you may do all the tasks above for other members and then some.

• Track, email, contact and map your membership using 25 easily customizable reports.
• Manage Services, Attributes, and Groups associated with members accounts.
• Manage the colors and look of your exchange.
• Create your own login page content.
• Edit all automated system notices and emails.
• Track new member's join process with an 'Applicant Pool' report.
• Access context sensitive help, search help or 'Contact Support' from any page after login.
• Manage a 'Paper Only' branch of your membership.

• Manage Member Profiles, Exchanges, Services, Attributes, Groups, Contact Info and Privacy.

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• Query by Example Reporting lets you report on any cross section of your membership.

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• Create Email lists and send custom email to any cross section of your membership.

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• Create Mailing Labels and Contact Lists for any cross section of the membership.

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• Report on Transactions by Member, Count, Hours, Services and so on.

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• Perform statistical analysis on your members activities (helpful for Grant Writing & Funding)

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• Map any cross section of the membership or any history of transactions. Fully integrated with Google Maps API for powerful visual presentations of your activity!

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Access to hOurworld is for Startup or Established Time Banks

Whether you are setting up a brand new Hour Exchange, or converting from your existing software, Time and Talents© offers simple, intuitive and user friendly tools to help you grow and manage your organization!

We can handle the conversion of your existing TimeKeeper or Time Banks USA: Community Weaver II data (Drupal 6 or 7 Versions). We can do a test conversion so you may evaluate Time and Talents to see if would meet your needs before you make any decision to convert. We encourage you to remain connected to TBUSA and other resources providing you support for timebanking.

Access to hOurworld, supported by Time and Talents© is and will remain FREE!

Request and Track Annual Member Donations

• Automatic email and login notification on member's join date anniversary.
• Automatic debit of hours if any, and placement in the Accounts Receivable report queue.
• Report and mark paid as funds come in. A thank you letter is auto sent. Embedded PayPal, etc. if you have it.

Report On or Contact ANY Cross Section of Your Membership

Report Types Include:

Email List	Services Provided by Count
Mailing Labels	Services Provided by Hours
Contact List *May be Mapped!!!	Members Without Contact Info
Services Offered by Service	Members Without Attributes
Services Offered by Member	Members Without Services
Services Offered by Count	Members Without Groups
	Members Without Address
Trans Count Between Members
Transactions By Provider *Mappable!	Hours or Count of Services by Category
Transactions By Receiver	Accounts Receivable
Transactions By Service	No Attribute in a Category
Applicant Pool	All Members & Their Attributes
Newsletter Recap	*** Custom Reports for Your Exchange ***

Any of these base report results may be customized in real time using a query by example form to narrow search results to a specific cross section of your membership or transaction history! Easily meet your Outcomes Reporting and Grant Funding requirements.

hOurworld Scalability and Server Support

Our service provider, Gaia Host, is a cooperatively owned business. They manage server clusters for customers which receive as many as 10 million page views per month.

hOurworld / Gaia Host support and setup:

Backups: Included are daily backups of files and databases with archiving of the daily backups for two weeks. Customized backup solutions are available including longer archiving and geographically redundant backup storage.

Servers: All servers are RAID 1, mirrored storage, with multiple processors. They are providing us with a Virtual Server up to date with standard OS and web server stack upgrades. Gaia Host Server Support: 24/7/365 with active server monitoring and 15 minute urgent response time over phone.

hOurworld - Time and Talents Maintenance and Upgrades

Upgrades and New Features are available to all exchanges immediately.
Since we host a single instance of the software on our own Virtual Dedicated Servers the application runs 25% to 30% faster.
We have complete control over the php 5.+/MySQL database engine configuration.
The source code is proprietary. Keeping it under our one roof preserves its integrity. (No forks.)
We operate in an arena of 'open innovation' and co-production and implement our members and coordinators best ideas!
Simple integration of Time and Talents© into your existing web site, so navigating between the two is transparent. (Though no website is required for startups.)

What is your funding source? You do a great job of maintaining the site, is there a team or just you?

hOurworld derives funding from trainings, personal investment, brokered agency software, RPF research data access, grant funding and member gifts. Access to hOurworld for local 'mom and pop' service exchanges is and will remain free.

Linda Hogan, Terry Daniels and I (Stephen Beckett) co-founded hOurworld in 2010. We have teams of member helpers and consultants that are participating in various software development, training and research projects.

Want to participate? We have projects!

Who has converted from Time Banks USA's Community Weaver II?

Speak with Lisa Conlin-Lewis (former TBUSA CEO and Board President) at the
New Hope Time Exchange in RI:
or Beth Thorpe, Communications Chair and Webmaster, Louisville TimeBank:
or Steve Bosserman, Columbus Ohio's Care & Share Time Bank:

They'll share honest reports about their conversion process and how they are doing now.

Hour Exchange Portland, ME

Hour Exchange Long Island, NY

Time Exchange of the North Shore, MA

L-A Time Dollar Bank, Lewiston ME

KNEx, Kalamazoo MI

The Michigan Alliance of Timebanks

Merry Meeting Community Shares, ME

Greater Lansing Time Bank, MI

Lathrup Village Time Bank, MI

Plymouth-Canton Time Bank, MI

Royal Oak Time Bank, MI

TimeBank Mahonning Watershed, Ohio

Woodstock Time Bank, NY

New Hope Time Exchange, RI

Care & Share Time Bank, OH

Worcester Time Trade, MA

Sonoma County Time Exchange, CA

Ferndale Timebank, MI

Villages Neighbor to Neighbor Time Bank, MI

Share Care Time Bank, MS

Skill Share, CO

Unity in Our Community Time Bank, MI

Southeastern Massachusetts Time Exchange

Valley Time Trade, MA

Time Bank of Lake County, CA

Time Trade Circle, MA

Akron Time Bank, OH

Milwaukee Area Exchange, WI

Umpqua Valley Time Exchange, OR

Barn Raisers Time Bank, PA

Sedona-Verde Valley TimeBank, AZ

Santa Fe Time Bank, NM

Greenbelt Time Bank, MD

Salem Time Bank, MA

San Benito Time Exchange, CA

Waterloo Region Time Exchange, Ontario Ca

Orange County Time Bank, La Habra, CA

Milwaukee (Area) Time Exchange, WI

Berkshire TimeBank, MA

First In Families of North Carolina

Harvest Connect Timebank, High Point, NC

Time Trader, Rochester, MN

Long Beach Time Exchange, Long Beach, CA

Santa Barbara Time Bank, Sanata Barbara, CA

Central de Talentos, Oaxaca, Mexico

North County San Diego TimeBank, San Diego, CA

Dallas Neighborhood Time Bank, Dallas, TX

Guelph-Wellington Time Bank, Ontario Canada

The Daily Seed, Cary, NC

North Texas Time Bank, Fort Worth, TX

Upper Valley Timebank, White River Jct, VT

Rock Hour Community, Evansville, WI

Hour Dollars, St Paul, MN

Battenkill Time Traders, Greenwich NY

Central Coast Hour Exchange, Los Osos CA

Fidalgo and Friends Timebank, Anacortes WA

Grapevine timeXchange, North East PA

Transformation Team, St. Louis MO

PDX Time Bank, Portland OR

Ventura Time Bank, CA

The Tapestry, Cedar Rapids IA

Erie TimeBank, PA

Louisville Time Bank, KY

and a half dozen others now evaluating...

What help resources do you have for members and coordinators?

Once logged in there is context sensitive help throughout both sides of the system. Click [Help] for help about where you are in the system.

Searchable Help (Knowledge Base) built from answered support tickets and an original more verbose copy of the help system.

[Contact Us!] button in the header of every member page to activate the member help ticket system.

[Contact Support] on the admin menu bar to do the same thing - only this one adds content to the admin side of the KB.

We're here! Contact Us!