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OpenBook Wiki

Welcome to the OpenBook documentation. OpenBook is a free, open-source budget transparency portal for municipalities. This wiki contains step-by-step guides for everyone involved in setting up and using OpenBook.

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Choose Your Guide

I am a Town Manager, Finance Director, or Select Board Member

→ Guide for Town Managers

Learn what OpenBook is, what it costs, what your team needs to do, and how to get started — no technical knowledge required.

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I am an IT staff member setting up the hosting

→ Guide for IT Departments

Step-by-step instructions for deploying OpenBook to a server or cloud hosting platform, setting up the database, connecting a domain, and handing off to finance staff.

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I am finance or admin staff managing the portal day-to-day

→ Guide for Finance Staff

How to use the admin panel: uploading budget data, adding tooltips and explanations, managing documents and links, and reviewing resident questions and capital requests.

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I am a department head or town employee submitting capital requests

→ Guide for Department Staff

How to register for the staff portal, submit capital expenditure requests, and track their status.

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I want to test OpenBook on my own computer before deploying

→ Local Testing Guide

Optional guide for IT staff or developers who want to run OpenBook locally before committing to a live server.

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About OpenBook

OpenBook is maintained by the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation. The source code is available at github.com/Allen-Lab-for-Democracy-Renovation/Open-Book.

Questions or issues can be reported on the GitHub Issues page.