Chris G wrote:

Exactly, you can't use software to fix something that isn't working to start with. This is a very common error/problem and is often the reason for major software projects failing.

I think it is working at the moment, it's just not as efficient as it could be (nor as scalable as they want it to be) and they're looking to improve it. If I'm going to design something from scratch then it'll probably very much be a case of moving their existing paper-based system to a web-based (intranet) system to make it easier to generate reports etc.

But while I am able to do something like this from scratch I think it may be cost prohibitive and if there's an existing solution (or something that's close to it) I'd rather put my effort into adding whatever is necessary to that instead. It seems to me that this is a relatively common requirement amongst groups who would be unlikely to be able individually to afford a bespoke system and where a FOSS solution is ideal, and I'm constantly amazed just how many niche requirements already have a FOSS solution working.

In the meantime I'm looking at Xataface[1] as a quick way to build a database-based web package that gets close to what they want.

[1] xataface.com

Dennis Dryden wrote:

Sounds like they need more then just software they need a whole system! I'm guessing your working as there a systems analyst though? What do you have control to change and whats the current setup? For example can they have a unique identifier printed on each bag/leaflet? Do they have the people to process them when they come back?

I think this would be the right approach for a major organisation (eg if I was writing something for the Post Office to use) but is overkill for the scale involved here.

All I think I want is a system which allows manual route entry (by description, eg area, street name and house number range), a way of allocating routes to people, and a way of ensuring that all routes that get bags delivered get a collection on the date specified on the bag. Adding feedback to that (how many bags were collected in each area) should be fairly straightforward. From there, everything will work around printing out a "job sheet" for each person/group of people, and data entry based on what is scribbled on the printout by the collectors.

for the barcode stuff there is gnu barcode[1], kbarcode[2], libdmtx[3].

Although overkill for this job, these are useful to know about - thanks!

Adam Bower wrote:

A GPS on each person who shoves the annoying sacks through the door to track where they went and some sheets of paper to write down how many they posted along with some way to overlay the GPS traces on a map?

I don't think this level of detail is needed. In fact it may only be sufficient to track how many bags come back out of (say) 500 which go out to one large area.

As to the annoyance factor; it's probably a necessary evil but I'd rather it was done properly (ie not getting two bags, and getting a collection on the date promised) than have it mismanaged. I tend to take things to my local charity shop, but if I were to fill a bag and not have it collected I think I'd be quite annoyed by that.

Adam Bower wrote:

Just because it's not needed doesn't mean you can't use it ;)

Very true!

Steve Fosdick wrote:

Sorry I don't have any software suggestions but on the subject of getting it done properly my experience is that the bags are generally thrown into our side garden (where the "front" door is) rather than put through the letterbox and specify only a day of the week for collection rather than a date.

The result is we never know how long a bag has been sitting in the garden before we found it and if it was put out and not collected we would not know if this was because we had already missed the collection day or the collectors had not turned up.

I have a meeting with the people who do the deliveries so I'll raise this point.

Those limitation make the system essentially useless for us even before taking account of how, for many of these schemes, the charity in whose name the whole thing is done receives a relatively small proportion of the proceeds of selling what is donated.

This is a different issue entirely and I do agree with you; it should be made clear what proportion of sale value of goods goes to the charity.

I'm not naive; I understand that too few people volunteer these days and even for entirely voluntary setups there are costs (the bags, leaflets, etc). But knowing what the charity makes is still important.

I long ago started boycotting charity Christmas cards because so little goes to charity; I buy cheap (eg) supermarket cards and give the money I save to a charity I know will make good use of the money. But I have no idea what value a charity gets from a bag of goods collected from the house compared, for example, with the same goods delivered to a charity shop, or with me selling the goods on eBay and giving them the money (the last option being more theoretical because if I could be bothered to flog it on eBay I'd probably be less altruistic about what I did with the money I raised!)