Software package

Community office package

A community office site with a service directory and weekly timetable, bookable advice appointments, room hire, volunteer sign-up with shift lists, notices and events, a newsletter, a document library and an issue reporting form, ready to configure around your building and your week.

Custom build Concept demo

Get a quote for this package

Who it is for

Built for

A good fit

Community centres, neighbourhood hubs, residents' associations with a building or an office, parish and village offices and small charities that run sessions, advice and room hire from one or two buildings. Typically a manager, a receptionist or two, a volunteer coordinator and a board of trustees or committee members, with a volunteer pool from a dozen to a couple of hundred. Daily users are the office manager who keeps the directory and the rooms in order, reception staff who book appointments and answer the phone, the volunteer coordinator who recruits and rosters, partner advisers who run their own sessions, trustees who read the documents and the figures, and residents who want to know what is on, book an advice slot or hire a room.

Also worth knowing

It is less suited to organisations whose main work is casework, such as an advice charity needing a client case system, and to venues whose business is commercial event hire with catering and ticketing. Both are better served by their own packages or custom work.

The operational problem it solves

How it runs, step by step

The receptionist opens the office screen at nine.

The week view shows every session in the building by room and time, with partner-run sessions in their own colour, so when the first caller asks whether the benefits advice is on today she can see it is, that two of the six slots are free and that the adviser has confirmed.
She books the caller into the ten-thirty slot, takes the short intake form over the phone and the caller receives a text with the time and what to bring.
At ten a regular hirer rings to move the Thursday craft group to the small hall; the hire calendar shows the small hall is free, the regular booking is moved for that week only and the invoice line changes with it.

The volunteer coordinator is building the shift list for Saturday's community lunch.

She filters the register for volunteers who marked Saturdays and whose checks record is in date, sends the shift to eight of them, and by lunchtime five have accepted from their phones; the list fills from the waiting volunteers as replies come in.
A new volunteer who signed up through the site last night appears at the top of her inbox with the role they asked for.
In the afternoon a resident comes to the counter to report fly-tipping behind the garages; reception logs it with a pin on the map, forwards it to the council's reporting form, records the reference, and gives it to the resident on a slip.
At the end of the month the manager assembles the newsletter from the notices and events already entered, sends it to the email list and prints forty copies for the door.
Before the trustees' meeting she opens the summary: attendance per service, hire hours per room and volunteer hours per month, which is what the funder asked for.

Features

What the package does

The package ships as modules that mirror the office week: the information layer of services, timetable, notices and documents, the booking layer of advice appointments and room hire, the people layer of volunteers and shifts, and the outward layer of newsletter and issue reporting. Each module below lists what it does; the comparison table shows which package variant includes it.

Directory and reviews

Service directory and weekly timetableEach service lists opening times and eligibility notes, and a weekly timetable is generated from the same entries so it never needs retyping.

Content and editorial

Notices and events calendarStaff publish notices and events once and they appear on the calendar and the site for residents to see.

Documents and cases

Document libraryMinutes, policies and reports are stored in one library that trustees and residents can read.

Bookings and diary

Advice appointment bookingResidents book advice sessions against adviser availability, complete an intake form and receive a reminder before the appointment.

Scheduling

Room hire calendar and requestsAn availability calendar takes hire requests and regular weekly bookings, and the office can approve or move them.

Forms and requests

Issue reporting with location pinResidents or reception log an issue with a pin on the map, and the system keeps a record of where it was forwarded.

Messaging and notifications

Newsletter from notices and eventsThe manager assembles a newsletter from notices and events already entered, then sends it by email or prints it for the door.

Workflow and tasks

Reception week viewReception books, moves and cancels appointments and hire requests from the staff screens, working with the same data the public site shows.

Clients and records

Volunteer register and shiftsRecords volunteer roles, availability and checks-record status, and builds shift lists that volunteers accept or decline.

Reporting and insights

Attendance and trustee summariesAttendance is recorded per session and rolled up into monthly summaries for trustees and funders.

Accounts and permissions

Partner adviser access and hire paymentsPartner advisers see only their own sessions and bookings, and card payment links can collect hire charges and deposits.

Package variants compared

Website
Business Software

Which features each package variant includes
Feature	Website	Business Software
Service directory and weekly timetable	Included	Included
Notices and events calendar	Included	Included
Document library	Included	Included
Advice appointment booking	Included	Included
Room hire calendar and requests	Included	Included
Issue reporting with location pin	Included	Included
Newsletter from notices and events	Optional	Included
Reception week view	Not in this variant	Included
Volunteer register and shifts	Not in this variant	Optional
Attendance and trustee summaries	Not in this variant	Optional
Partner adviser access and hire payments	Not in this variant	Optional

Roles and permissions

Who does what

Office manager
- Maintain services, opening times, rooms and hire rules
- Approve or move hire requests and regular bookings
- Publish notices and events and assemble the newsletter
- See attendance, hire and volunteer summaries for trustees and funders
Receptionist
- Book, move and cancel advice appointments
- Take hire requests and check room availability
- Log issue reports with a location and record where they were forwarded
- Add walk-in attendance to a session
Volunteer coordinator
- Maintain the volunteer register, roles and checks-record status
- Create shifts for events and send them to matching volunteers
- See who accepted, declined or did not reply
- Record volunteer hours
Partner adviser
- Set their own availability and slot lengths for the sessions they run
- See their bookings and intake notes for the day
- Mark attendance and no-shows
Trustee
- Read minutes, policies and reports in the document library
- See the monthly summary of attendance, hire and volunteer hours
- Receive the newsletter and meeting papers
Resident
- See what is on this week and when the office is open
- Book an advice appointment and receive a reminder
- Request a room and see its availability
- Sign up to volunteer or to the newsletter

Example screen

Concept demo

Concept demo of a community office week view showing sessions by room, free advice appointment slots, pending room hire requests and a list of logged issue reports.

The office week view as reception sees it: sessions by room and time, partner-run sessions marked, free advice slots for today, hire requests waiting for approval and the issue reports logged this week.

Scope and options

What is included and what is extra

In the base package

Service directory with opening times, eligibility notes and a generated weekly timetable
Advice appointment booking with adviser availability, intake form and reminders
Room hire with availability calendar, hire requests and regular weekly bookings
Notices and events calendar
Document library for minutes, policies and reports
Issue reporting form with location pin and forwarding record
Newsletter assembled from notices and events, sent by email and printable

Common add-ons

Volunteer register with roles, availability, checks-record status and shift lists
Partner adviser access to their own sessions and bookings
Card payment links for room hire charges and deposits
Attendance recording per session with monthly summaries for trustees and funders
Second building with its own rooms and timetable

Needs custom work

Integration with a specific council or housing provider reporting system
Funder reporting in a prescribed format
Casework for an in-house advice service
Membership subscriptions for a residents' association with renewals

See the custom development service

Ownership, maintenance and pricing

After the build

Deployment and ownership

The package runs on hosting you control or on hosting we manage for you; the choice is made in the proposal and can change later. The organisation owns the code and its data in either case. The service directory, bookings, hire records, the volunteer register and every document can be exported at any time in standard formats, so a change of manager, committee or provider never leaves the office without its records.

Maintenance

Maintenance is optional and scoped separately from the setup. When taken, it covers security updates to the platform and its dependencies, monitoring of reminder and newsletter sends, backups, and a monthly window for small configuration changes such as a new service, a new room or a change to hire rules. Larger changes are quoted as change requests against the original scope.

Pricing model

Priced per proposal.

The package is sold as a one-off setup and configuration with optional monthly maintenance and hosting as separate recurring lines. The setup figure depends on the number of buildings and rooms, the add-ons selected, how many partners and advisers need their own access, the volume of volunteer and booking records migrated and whether you host it yourself. Your proposal states each line separately so recurring costs are never hidden in the setup.

Software package

Custom build Concept demo

Variants

Service directory with opening times, eligibility notes and a generated weekly timetable
Advice appointment booking with adviser availability, intake form and reminders
Room hire with availability calendar, hire requests and regular weekly bookings
Notices and events calendar

Priced per proposal. A written proposal is the only binding figure.

Get a quote for this package Prefer a fully custom build?

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

How are advice appointments booked?

Each advice session has an adviser, a day, slot lengths and a short intake form. Residents book online or reception books for them; the resident receives a confirmation and a reminder by text or email, and the adviser sees the day's list with intake notes. Walk-in sessions are shown on the timetable without booking.

Can regular groups keep their weekly slot?

Yes. A regular booking protects the room every week for the group and can be moved or cancelled for a single week without losing the series. One-off hire requests cannot be placed on top of a regular booking.

Does the volunteer register check people for us?

No. With the volunteer add-on the coordinator records the type of check, its date and a status against each volunteer, and shifts can be limited to volunteers whose status is in date. The checks themselves and the decision to accept a volunteer remain with the organisation.

Does the issue report go straight to the council?

The report is logged with a location and reception forwards it through the council or housing provider's own form, recording the date and reference against the report. Where a provider offers a connection that can receive reports directly, that is custom work listed above.

Can trustees see how many people use each service?

With the attendance add-on, reception or the adviser marks attendance per session and the monthly summary shows attendance per service, hire hours per room and volunteer hours. Without the add-on the summary covers bookings and hire only.

Is this a finished product I can see running?

Not yet. The readiness badge on this page shows the real state: the package is currently a custom build assembled from our bookings, forms, documents and messaging modules for each organisation, and the example screen is a labelled concept demo rather than a live site. Requirements outside the listed options go through custom community office development.

Get a quote for Community office package

Tell us about your locations, the people who will use it and the add-ons you need. We reply with a clear, competitive proposal.