Keeping track of your collections

[Loonerversity]

Ok, i have a mad sized collection of balloons. I want to do my yearly stock take.

Does anyone else keep their collection digitally? If so are there any good tools beside excel? I saw an app called Sortly, but not sure if it's good?

[t17forLife]

Re: Keeping track of your collections

I use an Excel spreadsheet with each column containing an attribute such as size or remaining quantity, with each row being an entry for a certain type or pack of balloon. I have it set up to calculate how many I have currently.

Most cataloging/inventory software I've seen costs a lot or doesn't work very well.

[OverTheTop]

Re: Keeping track of your collections

If you can give me a basic set of features you want, I could write a program specifically for tracking balloons.

[t17forLife]

Re: Keeping track of your collections

Sounds awesome! Do you include photos in yours too?

Any chance of sharing the format? Out of curiousity how bigs your collection!

I've got about 150 right now, mostly 9-12". Forum won't let me upload an Excel document so I can try to find a way to send it. And I don't currently include photos, as it's hard to do within Excel. Maybe a Microsoft Access database might be more useful for that.

[Seasider]

Re: Keeping track of your collections

I could do with an excel spreadsheet. I’ve just done my first ever collection stock check and have surprised myself with how many I’ve got( I shall post some pics on another thread!!) I agree with your idea of stock management though!!

[Bubble Boy :-P]

Re: Keeping track of your collections

I dunno why but when my balloons are categorized & organised i feel like my life & well being are straight & content if that makes sense?
But definitely one of my favorite & most relaxing pass times. I love going through my hordes of balloons & telling myself, " These aren't just anybody's balloons....they're MY balloons, lol

[Printlover23]

Re: Keeping track of your collections

Hey Seasider I have sent you a private message.

[OverTheTop]

Re: Keeping track of your collections

I'm still thinking of making a program for this, even if just for fun and practice. Would you guys want a website/web app, or a desktop program? I could also make an Android app, although I'm not able to publish to the Google play store so you'd need to manually download and install it if you wanted to use it.

[t17forLife]

Re: Keeping track of your collections

I'm still thinking of making a program for this, even if just for fun and practice. Would you guys want a website/web app, or a desktop program? I could also make an Android app, although I'm not able to publish to the Google play store so you'd need to manually download and install it if you wanted to use it.

If you actually want to put in all that work, that would be such a great thing for us looners!

I think that a web app would be the easiest to make (although I only know basic HTML and Javascript so I have no skills) and would be platform agnostic so long as it worked well on mobile devices. All you would have to do is figure out a way to store user's inventories. Maybe you could add a feature where everyone can see [anonymous] statistics about balloon quantities and preferences based on what everyone else is doing!

[OverTheTop]

Re: Keeping track of your collections

If you actually want to put in all that work, that would be such a great thing for us looners!

I think that a web app would be the easiest to make (although I only know basic HTML and Javascript so I have no skills) and would be platform agnostic so long as it worked well on mobile devices. All you would have to do is figure out a way to store user's inventories. Maybe you could add a feature where everyone can see [anonymous] statistics about balloon quantities and preferences based on what everyone else is doing!

I was thinking of just using a static site, all data would be stored on your device rather than on a server. I'll look into it more.

[t17forLife]

Re: Keeping track of your collections

I was thinking of just using a static site, all data would be stored on your device rather than on a server. I'll look into it more.

That's probably an easier option, so long as the process to retrieve and store the information was easy for the end user.

[OverTheTop]

Re: Keeping track of your collections

That's probably an easier option, so long as the process to retrieve and store the information was easy for the end user.

All the information would be stored in your browser, and there would be a button to export it.