Scout Rank Advancement Tracking

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brotherhall
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Scout Rank Advancement Tracking

#1

Post by brotherhall »

A system like Scouttrack.com where Cubs and Scouts can be tracked by achievements and ranks. Gives a report upon request before Pack meeting or Court of Honor. We used ScoutTrack and it works well, but it would be great to have a Church system that could move the records with the youth.
davesudweeks
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#2

Post by davesudweeks »

Our ward uses a different 3rd-party program (written in Access, I believe). Parents can view their son's progress online. The Scout office recently began requesting us to use their online database, but their history if loosing the data and then blaming the scout for not having everything needed has kept us in our own system for the time being.
lajackson
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#3

Post by lajackson »

davesudweeks wrote: The Scout office recently began requesting us to use their online database, but their history if loosing the data and then blaming the scout for not having everything needed has kept us in our own system for the time being.

Around here, we cannot purchase a rank advancement without entering it into the national Scout system. We print out two copies, one for the Scout office and one for the troop advancement book. We have been doing this for nearly 10 years.

When the Scout offices loses the paperwork, we ask them to go online and print it out again (or more often, we print it out for them).
davesudweeks
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#4

Post by davesudweeks »

lajackson wrote:Around here, we cannot purchase a rank advancement without entering it into the national Scout system. We print out two copies, one for the Scout office and one for the troop advancement book. We have been doing this for nearly 10 years.

When the Scout offices loses the paperwork, we ask them to go online and print it out again (or more often, we print it out for them).

Our experience has been that the Scout Office looses the paperwork before it is entered into their system. Until just a couple of months ago, our District would not permit anyone outside of the Scout office to access the national Scout system - we had to turn the paperwork in and trust them to enter it (which is why we had to purchase another system).
lajackson
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#5

Post by lajackson »

davesudweeks wrote:Our experience has been that the Scout Office looses the paperwork before it is entered into their system.

I think we are talking two different systems here. We have been using the system where awards are recorded and we print out the paperwork to purchase them at the Scout office.

I think you are talking about the system where they enter information into a different database that is eventually used to build the Eagle application. Unless they have changed recently, our Scout office does the latter at the very end of the trail, and does not keep up with it along the way.

I guess if they kept losing the paperwork, I would always keep a copy of anything I turned in. I understand your dilemma.
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nbflint
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#6

Post by nbflint »

brotherhall wrote:It would be great to have a Church system that could move the records with the youth.

I agree that there are some benefits to a central online advancement tracking system; I don't agree that the organization to build it is the church. While the church has close ties with BSA they are not inseparable; nor can a church produce system be authoritative on advancement. I would prefer to have the church devote its limited resources to projects that 3rd parties can not address, such as MLS Web and Online Home and Visiting Teaching. This application should be built and maintained by the BSA so that the records entered can be authoritative.


Edit/Disclaimer: I know that Return and Report offers a solution to Home and Visiting Teaching reporting and in no way meant to minimize that applications contributions :-)

davesudweeks
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#7

Post by davesudweeks »

nbflint wrote:I agree that there are some benefits to a central online advancement tracking system; I don't agree that the organization to build it is the church. While the church has close ties with BSA they are not inseparable; nor can a church produce system be authoritative on advancement.

Not to mention the fact that the church does not completely follow the BSA program for our YM program. The church uses large portions of the BSA program and it is certainly beneficial, but we don't have Tiger Cubs, for example.
bobcarleski
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#8

Post by bobcarleski »

lajackson wrote:the national Scout system.
What exactly is the national Scout system? Is it a web site? If so, what is the URL?
lajackson
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#9

Post by lajackson »

bobcarleski wrote:What exactly is the national Scout system? Is it a web site? If so, what is the URL?

The system I am referring to is the Internet Advancement site at scouting.org. Your local council gives your advancement chairman the information you need to use it. This is not the system the Scout office uses to enter an Eagle rank application.

The site is https://scoutnet.scouting.org/iadv/UI/home/default.aspx and there is a link on that page to a FAQ that is informative. If you go to scouting.org and search for Internet Advancement, you will also find a page with a complete description there.
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