Usage

Configuring your Space

To rename your hackerspace, configure the only available Site object in the Django admin interface. If you have more than one Site object, configure one to use the correct domain name, delete the others, and optionally let the developers know how it got there since Spiff should only ever have one.

Other properties are configurable through the SpaceConfig object in the Django admin UI:

site:Refers to the Django object. This shouldn’t be changed unless you’ve got a good reason to.
logo:URL that points to your space’s logo. It may be absolute, or relative to your Spiff URL.
openIcon:Used as part of the SpaceAPI to indicate a graphic to display if the space is open.
closedIcon:Same as the openIcon.
url:Your space’s website.
open:Determines if your space is currently open or closed. Also see Open Sensor, which provides programatic access to this.
lat and lon:Latitude and longitude
address:Your space’s physical location.
status:A free-form field that is shown in the SpaceAPI. For example, “Open to members only”, or “Closed due to inclement weather”.
openSensor:See Open Sensor.

Open Sensor

It is possible to configure Spiff to automatically handle opening/closing your space with the Sensors system, for whatever definition of “open” or “closed” you have. The associated sensor must be a boolean type. When it has a true value, the space is reported as open through the SpaceAPI. It is reported as closed for false values. Refer to the Sensors chapter for details.

Membership

Spiff provides a basic system for staff to manage a member database, self-service membership management, and accepting dues via Stripe.

Each member has a few basic fields that should be filled out:

  • Email
  • First Name
  • Last Name
  • Birthday
  • Profession

These fields are public to the general internet, except for hidden users.

Administrators can add extra fields such as phone number, mailing address, emergency contact information, etc. These extra fields have three flags available:

  • Required - The profile will not save and a user can’t register without this field being filled out. Examples: emergency contact information, digital signature proving they read the rules, preferred objective description of the color #33ff62.
  • Public - Other members can read the field, but not the entire internet. Members can edit their own public fields. Fields that are not public can still be read by those with the can_view_private_fields permission. Examples: IRC nickname, membership sponsors, or exact reasons for disliking ABBA.
  • Protected - Only those with the can_edit_protected_fields permission can view and edit the field. Members can read the value of their own protected fields, but can’t edit them. This is useful for things that members should know about themselves, but others shouldn’t know about others, and members shouldn’t be able to change. Examples: a key/RFID token ID number, a note proving that they signed a liability waiver, a third meta-item that points out this is the third item in the third list of lists of threes and thus three times as funny.

Ranks

Many spaces have a set of ranks, such as “Basic Membership”, “Board Member”, etc. Spiff allows you to model this via Spiff’s Ranks and Django’s builtin groups.

To create a new rank, such as “Basic Membership”, create a new Group object via the Django admin interface. This automatically creates a Rank object, which has several properties:

monthlyDues:How much it costs per month for this rank, in USD.
group:The Django group object this rank refers to. There shouldn’t be a need to ever change this.
isActiveMembership:
 If a member is in this rank, they are considered an active member. This property is used to determine if a user pays dues, and to show the list of active members.
isKeyholder:If a member is in this rank, they are considered a keyholder. This property is used by the SpaceAPI to list keymasters.

Each underlying Django group object can have a set of permissions attached to it, which grants all members of the group those permissions.

Those with the membership.can_change_member_rank permission may edit a user’s ranks by visiting the user’s profile page.

See also

Permissions

Membership Dues

Managing membership dues is fairly straightforward, and involves very little usage of the confusing Django administration interface: Simply configure the isActiveMembership and monthlyDues properties of your roles and forget about the admin interface.

A member’s profile page will list their recent due payments, along with an option to record a payment that was not handled by Spiff, such as cash or some other payment method.

Recording partial payments are supported. This is useful for instances such as a member paying $10 in cash and the last $40 via Stripe, or forgetting that dues are $35 and not $30.

To enable stripe, set your API key in local_settings.py:

::
STRIPE_KEY = “sk_test_foofoofoo”

Resources

In every hackerspace, theres a bunch of equipment sitting around that not everyone might know how to use or even what it is called. Spiff solves that problem.

You can create a Resource object in Spiff for each real-world resource. After it is created, metadata can be attached to it and edited by users with the correct permissions. Members can also keep track of their training on the site, along with their relative skill ranks.

Users require the inventory.certify permission to be able to add and remove certifications from members.

Skill ranking works on an honor system that requires users undergo a vetting process by other users:

  • Your hackerspace acquires a nice new lathe.
  • A member adds the lathe to the database, prints out the QR code and sticks it on the machine.
  • Another member who happens to be a master metalworker sees that there is a Lathe, scans the code (or visits the resource page) and clicks “I have used this!” to indicate that they have used a Lathe at some point in their life.
  • A second member (who is a total newbie to metalworking) also clicks “I have used this!”. Spiff says that both the newbie and the master are ranked at the same skill level, so they click “They are better than me”.
  • Spiff now indicates that the master is better trained at the lathe than the newbie and sorts them accordingly.

At no point can the newbie say that they are better than the master without the master explicitly promoting the newbie to their level. Additionally, the newbie can’t demote the master. Members are ranked relative to each other based on this feedback system.

Not all resources in a hackerspace are trainable! For instance, it makes no sense to say that someone is more skilled at using the classroom or meeting area. When creating a resource, you can specify if a resource can be trainable or not.

Events

Spiff also allows for tracking of events. Anyone with a proper permission can create an event (and later edit it). Members can easily RSVP for an event with a link on the event page. There is no special permission required to state that you are attending an event.

If an event requires the use of some resource (which could be a classroom, or maybe its a class on using the lathe), it is possible to reserve the use of a resource by adding it to the event. This reservation system is purely an advisory one at the moment. Nothing will stop someone from reserving an already reserved item, or physically blocking you from using it.

Events can have multiple organizers, who are able to edit an event’s description and reserve resources. Organizers may only be added or removed by the event creator.

Sensors

See Sensors for complete documentation.

Management Commands

There are a number of management commands available through manage.py.

list_members
Lists the email addresses of active members. At SYNHAK, we pipe the output of this through to mailman’s sync_members script to subscribe active members to the members only list.
stripe_sync
Currently useless. Will soon be used to support automatic billing and advanced invoicing through Stripe. It creates a Customer in stripe for each Member in Spiff.
permission_list
Lists all permissions in Spiff and Django.