EverAge Launches New Open Source Project

Today we are launching a new open source project to help non-profit organizations run live auctions. The project ‘The Open Auction’ is an excel spreadsheet, specifically designed to help you plan and execute your auction. It has been created with non-profit organizations in mind. Its only requirement is MS Excel, and best of all, it’s FREE!

The Open Auction consists of several worksheets; each one designed to manage a different part of the auction process. The system helps with the following areas:

• Manage vendors and their donations.
• Manages attendees and paddle numbers.
• Records bids on live auction items.
• Records bids on silent auction items.
• Manages raffle items, 50/50 draws, and cash donations.
• Generates invoices for checkout.
• Controls Expenses.
• Generates auction items lists and silent auction bid forms.
• Generates thank you letters with results from the auction.

The idea for The Open Auction came from a non-profit group called the Regional Residential Services Society (RRSS). This is a community based service for adults with intellectual disabilities. They host an annual auction to raise money for the residents. The group and its volunteers are incredibly hard working, and always managed to throw a great auction, but as a programmer, I couldn't help thinking that the process could use some help.

After discussing the scenario with my business partner, Cliff, we decided to build a tool that would make it easier for them to plan for and host the annual auction. The first question we had to answer is what platform to use. There were several criteria: it had to be dead simple, it must not be dependent on internet access or a server network, and the data had to be easily shared amongst the staff and volunteers.

Based on these criteria, we started to consider client based options. Our first thought was to create an Access DB application, but were concerned that not very many people would have Access already installed. We had recently done some work customizing Excel to generate financial reports that integrated with TM1 server, so started to consider what it would take to build the application as a pure excel spreadsheet.

After some prototyping, we felt confident that we could create forms to manage the data that would be presented to the user in the familiar excel spreadsheet format. All data manipulation would be carried out by VB code which would persist the data in a series of hidden worksheets. We feel the result is a powerful application that is lightweight, easy to use, portable, and has minimal technical prerequisites.

There has been a significant amount of work on this project. Over the past three years, we have assembled over 13,000 lines of VB code in 12 Class Modules, 21 Modules, 35 Excel Objects, and 1 Form. The result is a complex application that can be transported as easy as saving an excel spreadsheet. That's the beauty of the app.

We have prepared some video tutorials. To find out more about the app, here is an overview of the application.