I was just entering service and camping activities and came across several issues.
One related to the addition of Scouts/hours for Scouting for Food. There was a new field that the tool was making me enter - it indicated it needed to be a decimal number, but there is no indication of what that number equates to. I had selected the Scouting for Food option in one field when I input the information back in Nov/Dec, but there is now a 2nd field. Based on the error code, it looked like it might have ben 1b, but the field won’t let you enter that. I entered 1 just to get the system to accept the update - hopefully that didn’t screw anything else up.
I was also unable to enter a start and end time within a day (for instance, starting at 9 am and ending at 12 pm that day). The tool refused to accept it unless either the end day was later than the beginning day or if the event was marked as an all-day event.
Another issue is related to camping events. We sometimes have people who come just for the day. Therefore, they would be there 1 day and 0 nights. Apparently the tool no longer allows 0 as a valid number of nights for a camping activity. I also use this entry to track day trips that are outdoors but not overnight. So if this feature is not restored, I will have to find another way to track these kinds of events.
Something else that would be nice is a way to indicate whether a trip counts toward the Camping merit badge and/or Outdoor Achievement Awards. While I can enter this as a comment, there’s no easy way to run a report for those items. I’m currently having to track the information in a separate document. For instance, camping in a cabin is a camping trip, but doesn’t count toward Camping merit badge.
If you select “Scouting for Food”, then there is a new field that asks for the amount of food (lbs). It must be a positive number with a maximum of 2 decimals. For example: 50.75 pounds would be acceptable.
I just tested entering 0 nights of camping, and I was unable to repeat your error. I don’t know what kind of day trips you are trying to track, but you can use the calendar and attendance for that purpose.
What some units do is add something in the title to indicate tents / cabins / etc. For example:
Summer Camp 2024 [tents]
Then in the “Campout Details”, you can enter more details, such as: “Slept in tents provided by Camp ABC.” When you print the Scout’s Activity Log, the campout details are included on the report in the notes section.
Good to know about Scouting for Food, but you might want to consider making the description a little more obvious - like “amount of food collected.” I’m not really sure what to enter, either. We split our Scouting for Food service into 2 pieces - one event for flyer distribution and one for food collection. It’s making me enter an amount for both. This is also a little problematic in that we have a combined unit (B and G troops), but we do the Scouting for Food together. So we’ll have to split our food collection information into 2 different amounts. I assume this is separate from the reporting we already had to do to our council.
I was entering cabin camping for 49 people - it didn’t take the entry until everyone showed at least 1 for the camping nights - it wouldn’t accept it if anyone had 0. I didn’t try going to 1 and back down to 0. I don’t know if the number of people mattered. I never had a problem with this before, so I believe this is a new issue.
I’ll look at the attendance reports again, but I don’t remember it being easy to get the information I needed for determining if Scouts completed 2nd and 1st Class attendance requirements (1a). I was using the camping activity log, but with 0 nights camping to keep them in the same place.
I already put information in to denote what kind of camping it is, but I can’t run a report that only shows the proper number of nights that qualify for Camping merit badge (or Outdoor Achievement Award) unless I make those trips 0 nights of camping. Otherwise, I have to go into the report and manually eliminate all the trips that don’t count. I’ve ended up keeping separate spreadsheets, requiring entering information into multiple places to get the info I need for the various rank requirements, awards, and merit badges. This is probably too big of an ask, but it is something I think would make the advancement coordinator’s job easier.
To be honest, this is really the scouts’ advancement, so they should be tracking this stuff. There should only need to be verification on the scouter side, which can readily be done (if needed) by looking at their logs (assuming sufficient detail is included in the description). With regard to Camping MB (and similar issues for Hiking MB, etc), the scouts can list the nights they think are qualifying in the comments on the requirement (for example). Going a step further, Camping MB is more than just 20 nights. To really track Camping MB “camping requirements” completion, it would need to track how many are long-term and how many are short-term (Req. 9a), as well as tracking the Req. 9b activity portions.
Honestly, it’s not really feasible to track the details of every merit badge requirement based on some sort of loggable-activity programmatically. Also, while this is just my opinion, I think it shouldn’t be done that way, since the scout should be having these discussions with their MBC, not just relying on the software.
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If every single Scout entered every trip and service activity in separately, which then required a leader to approve every single one individually, I think it would probably drive the leaders crazy - unless, perhaps, you have a very small troop. Being able to enter troop events makes everyone’s life easier. It also ensures that the information is documented. We’ve had Scouts transfer into our troop from other troops where no documentation was kept for camping (whether in their handbooks or online), even though the Scouts were awarded items like the Camping MB. Both Scouts and leaders can run activity reports - it would be nice if it could be clear that certain trips count (or not). But perhaps the expectation is to only enter trips that qualify as “true” camping.
I never said Scouts aren’t having discussions with their merit badge counselors (or other leaders). I do think the software is a tool and as such should be helpful for both Scouts and leaders.
Do you trust every Scout to know if what they’ve done counts for the various requirements? Would the Scouts even know what information to enter into the tool to log trips, etc, in a way that makes it clear? If there were fields that could be checked, it would help ensure the proper information was documented. The requirements for a lot of these things (rank and Camping MB among them) are rather complicated, so most Scouts need help understanding whether things count or not. I believe our job is to act as mentors and help support advancement - including helping determine what activities count where. That means that we need to know what it is they’ve done.
@JanetHammond - have to love the gatekeepers who would not trust scouts to understand things or do them properly so an adult has to do it for them.
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Wow. What a comment. There is no gatekeeping going on in our troop - quite the opposite. I will not be engaging in this thread anymore since people seem to assume the worst possible motives for everything I put here.
