I'm building a local networking website (http://ptownnet.org) and really want/need to keep track of "volunteer hours." The idea is to create a barter-system and use volunteer hours as the medium of exchange. Housewifes trade hours to a carpenter or plumber, for example. The Housewife offers to tailor pants for a Member in exchange for a certain number of "hours"...and later she swaps banked hours to a plumber who, for an agreed number of hours, clears a drain-clog for her...or an older man need a wheelchair ramp and solicits the Hours Bank Committee for a volunteer job of building him a wheel-chair ramp at his home....a carpenter hears of the old mans needs and offers to do the job, agreeing to being paid with hours created by t he Committee...then he might trade some of his "hours" for something like a specific number of custom-made frozen meals from another stay-at-home Mom...who just happens to be able to save and freeze a single extra meal-setting as she makes the meals for her actual family!

The idea is to make the act of volunteering pay...in other than money!!!!

I'd like to see something where registered users can (in some kind of moderated fashion):

1. add and subtract hours from their "Hours-Bank" accounts;
2. other users may view a users total hours (+ or -) and
3. every action is noted and presented in the table-totals that are viewable by all users...so as to lessen the potential of gaming-the-system.

I'm open to Moderator options...

Being kinda new to Joomla...a carpenter by trade...and having scanned the extensions to no avail, I'm at a loss. I've invested a lot of time in searching the Extensions area for "man-hours" and "Volunteer hours" and "employee management" and stuff like that, but either there is no reference to what I want...or I get hundreds of options...that don't address my needs.

I'd sure appreciate any advice or leads to suitable Joomla software.

sepp This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Hi

Welcome to the site mate

That's certainly a good idea you have their! Not sure id be broadcasting this openly on internet forums like this, but I guess its to late now eh

What you need is a custom component created for you to do the specific job your after. Its highly unlikely that such a component already exists for Joomla.

This would involve creating a more detailed specification of exactly what you want this component to do then hiring a programmer familiar with Joomla to create it for you.

You have to create a pretty exhaustive specification so that the programmer knows exactly what you want and creates something with the functionality your happy with and not his interpretation of what he thinks you want. This will save you a lot of hassle in the long run.

I'm not sure where the best place to start is but there are sites out their that allow you to advertise jobs like this and programmers offer their services. You could try here http://www.joomlancers.com/index.php

I could create something like this and wouldn't mind the challenge but I'm far too busy right now with work for my degree as well as other projects.

As it is that's the best advice I can offer you right now.

Let us know how you get on....