NRP = Network Resource Planning: operational software for open value networks and other next-economy organizations. This tutorial explains the NRP person-and-organization model and shows how to set your organization up.
Setup Organization Plan Work Purchase Inputs Contribute Funds Coordinate Work Create Recipes Setup Resource Types Organizational setup is the best place to start setting up the NRP. You can of course also make changes as needed whenever you want. Organizational setup includes your network structure, people, other organizations inside and outside of the network - basically any people and organizations involved in the economic activity of the network, plus how they relate to each other. It defines the shape of your network. Organization setup fits into the NRP here... Distribute Income Exchange Resources Create Resources
Agents and Relationships An agent is a person or organization (loosely structured or formal) who can create or exchange value. All the people and organizations associated with the network will need an agent in the system - e.g. members, suppliers, customers, and the network(s) itself. All these agents will have associations with other agents. The types of associations will be specific to your network. The picture at the right shows a complicated agent setup just so you can see some possibilities. Most will be much simpler!
Shape of the Network It sometimes helps to visualize your network structure as concentric circles. Every network will have a different shape. Some possibilities to think about: ● Network of networks ● Network might have legal representatives to relate to the outside world ● Projects with subprojects ● Projects within a network or projects outside of a network ● No need for projects Note: Projects here are long running entities, more like a sub-network. For shorter goal oriented “projects”, you can use internal work orders in the system to bundle the work.
Context Agents Context Agents are a new concept. If NRP were ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), the main Context Agent would be The Enterprise, and child Context Agents might be departments or project teams. Or if NRP were a multi-company system, the Context Agents would be companies. But NRP is not for Enterprises, and we want to encourage deviations from business-as-usual forms of organization. So Context Agents are the organizations in a network where work is done, where processes live, and where value is created by groups of people. They may be formal or informal organizations, and will include the network(s) themselves. Context Agents are also the organizations for which NRP can do all of their accounting. (NRP does some accounting for individuals, but we assume that individuals will have full lives and NRP will provide only some of their accounting.)
Shape of the Network The agents in the inner circles are the context agents. There can be more than one ring of context agents. In the rings outside of the context agents are organizations and people who have associations with context agents, like members or customers.
Agent Types and Agent Association Types You will need to decide what basic types (groupings) of agents you have in your network, and define if each type represents context agents or not. You will also need to decide what types of agent associations are important for your network. The agent association types are roles that agents play in relationship to each other. You can define as many as you need of either one. There are no limits on which agents or types of agents that can have associations with other agents. As a common example, one agent can be both a supplier and a member of a network agent. The following slides show some examples. All of these are existing networks which operate within the current system. Mostly that means that they sell products into the same market as capitalist firms. The NRP organization model is designed to be flexible enough to operate in as much of an alternative (non-capitalist) situation as people can make happen. (And if it doesn’t, we’ll fix it.)
Agent Types and Agent Relationship Types Here is an example that has three networks, one of which is an umbrella group (parent) of the other two. This example has a lot of relationship types they are tracking specifically. Agent Types: ● Network ● Organization ● Individual Agent Relationship Types: ● Child ● Admin ● Harvester ● Trainer ● Harvesting Site ● Storage Site ● Drying Site ● Customer ● Supplier ● Advisor
Agent Types and Agent Association Types Here is an example that has one network, and a number of projects which are children of the network. It has a relatively simple set of agent associations. Agent Types: ● Network ● Organization ● Individual ● Project Agent Relationship Types: ● Child ● Supplier ● Coordinator ● Sponsor
Agent Types and Agent Association Types Here is an example that has one network, and a hierarchy of projects. It also has a legal organization that acts as an exchange firm for the network for sale and support of the products. It has another legal organization that acts as custodian, owner of the assets of the network, held in common. The legal entities are context agents but not children, so they are the same level as the network. Agent Types: ● Network ● Organization ● Individual ● Project Agent Relationship Types: ● Child ● Affiliate ● Supplier ● Customer ● Exchange Firm ● Custodian
Focus in a Network A note about hierarchy. The view on the right is created from clicking on one of the agents in the view on the left. In other words, in the organizational structure of the network, you can always have a view from any agent as the “center”. The center of the graph does not imply hierarchy or superiority or anything other than relationships. The center just means, what are you focusing on?
The Big Picture and Future Visions A bunch of people are working on ways to distribute person and organization data using Linked Open Data. Maybe you are a member of this NRP network that you are setting up, and a member of other networks too. It would be very good if you can be the same person, and have the same user credentials if you want, across those networks. And be in control of your own data, too. We want NRP to be part of that. And… what about being able to look across networks, say in your region you want to see networks, people, and organizations that are networked or could be networked if they knew each other were there. Linking Open Data cloud diagram 2014, by Max Schmachtenberg, Christian Bizer, Anja Jentzsch and Richard Cyganiak. http://lod-cloud. net/
Organization Setup The following slides give detailed instructions for organization setup within NRP, probably only of interest if you need to do it now. Agent Types and Agent Association Types must be set up by an administrator in the Admin part of the application. Agents and their Agent Associations can be set up by anyone with login credentials. User credentials must be set up by an administrator.
Organization Setup The system comes with a minimum set of agent types and agent association types, which can be changed or deleted. Select Admin from the dropdown on the right of the top navigation bar. Select Agent association types or Agent types from the list. Add, change, or delete as needed. Agents Types and Agent Relationship Types
Organization Setup Agents and Associations All types of agents can be created from the All Agents page, accessible from the Organization page. Select Create New Agent, and fill in the form. Then to create associations with any agent, select the agent from any list (All Agents or Organization page for example). On the agent’s page, select Maintain Associations. Add, change, and delete associations. Associations can be active, inactive, or potential at any point in time. Agent information can be changed from the agent page. You can review the agents and all their associations on the Organization page. You can see a list of all agents on the All Agents page. From an individual agent page, you can see all of its associations in list and graphic form.
Organization Setup To create a User, go to the individual Agent page. This can be accessed from the Organization page or the All Agents page. Select the Create User button, which will only appear if the agent has no user credentials. Once user credentials are created, you will have to notify the person yourself, the system does not do so at this time. User Credentials Notes: ● An agent is a person or organization. ● A user is a set of logon credentials. ● Users have to be associated with an agent, usually a person. ● Not all agents will have a user, only if they will need to log in to the system.
http://mikorizal.org/contact.html If you have any variations on organization structure that we did not cover, please let us know. We love new puzzles. Or if you have any questions or suggestions, we’d also love to hear from you.
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