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(May 6, 2019)
There is an issue with the Quick Entry for Cub Scout Cyber Chip (both for grade 1-3 and grades 4-5 versions).
Unlike other Quick Entry instances, the list of Scouts to select for updating includes Scouts that have already earned the award for the year. Selecting these Scouts in Quick Entry that have already completed the reqs and earned the award, and applying the selected updates overwrites the previously entered dates, and changes the date earned for the Cyber Chip award (if award completion is driven by requirement completions vs. the award being marked complete directly).
This should not be how this functions. The Scouts that have earned the award should be greyed out in the Quick Entry selection list (as is seen on other advancement instances of the Quick Entry page). At the very least, there should be an “are you sure?” prompt or additional verbiage in the “NOTE” just below the “Save” button stating that applying the Quick Entry changes may overwrite any data for those that have already earned.
I believe this issue exists for other awards as well (I’ve only confirmed it also is an issue on Summertime Activity Pin), however given the Cyber Chip award is a key requirement for rank, I would think getting this functionality correct would be important. Thankfully, the bug currently does not go so far as to change the date for rank earned (as a result of the award date change for the rank requirement) that I have seen in my testing.
I hate the CC - that being said - It is functioning as SB needs it too as the exact same award is earned multiple times. It is a little messy, but it is much cleaner than having multiple instances of the same award for the same scout
Respectfully, you are mistaken. The exact same award is not earned multiple times. It is recharged via a different activity in subsequent years within the age range when applicable.
From https://www.scouting.org/training/youth-protection/cyber-chip/grades-1-3/ : All Cyber Chips will expire annually. Each Scout will need to “recharge” the chip by going back to the Netsmartz Recharge area. This space will hold new information, news, and a place for the Scout to recommit to net safety and netiquette.
Netsmartz recharge area is found here: NetSmartz Home
Nevertheless, users shouldn’t have to find out that their Quick Entry is overwriting dates the hard way. As I stated, even some text in the NOTE would be better than nothing.
The problem with Cyber Chip is the way the BSA implemented it and unfortunately, Scoutbook is stuck with poor implementation.
Nothing says that a Scout MUST earn or recharge Cyber Chip each year. The requirement is “Earn Cyber Chip for your grade.” A Wolf could earn CC at the end of the Scout year and have it cover the Bear year as well because NetSmartz says a Cyber Chip is good for 1 year.
This would have been clearer if the BSA had written the requirement to say “While working on Bear rank, earn or recharge Cyber Chip for your grade.”
The other issue is ScoutNET only has 4 slots for Cyber Chip, one for each grade division. There is no provision in other BSA systems for recording anything more than the original Cyber Chip. Since Scouts do need to earn Cyber Chip more than once and Scoutbook has no way of knowing if the Scout earned it again or it was an error in checking the Scouts name, it can’t make a decision on recording or ignoring the entry.
Ed,
I get that what you posted is the wording of the current rank requirement “earn Cyber Chip for your age”, but the text I pasted above is the requirement for Cyber Chip, which clearly states it needs to be recharged each year within the Grade 1-3, and Grade 4-5 groups (for CS). This recharge is done by watching one single video at netsmarts, that is separate from the other requirements needed to earn the Cyber Chip for your age.
The way I read the rank requirement is: “Go do what the Cyber Chip reqs say to do for your age.”
Your point about the timing of the recharge is valid, and if you can get away with only having to do that recharge video once instead of twice, awesome. What you posted does confirm my assertion that this same award is NOT earned multiple times, and if that’s the reason for Quick Entry doing what it does, that should be fixed.
All this aside, the point of my post is that the system allows for the Quick Entry page to overwrite data with zero warning or expectation of such overwrite. This is generally (as I see it) a bad idea… more so when the award in question already has crazy date ranges in play… and doubly so in that it is an award with no possible report tied to it now for Den Admins to track on any sort of easy basis.
Short of fixing the functionality, I again ask that some text simply be added to the NOTE near the SAVE button indicating that the Quick Entry might update some dates for those that have already completed reqs or earned the award, and that the user should be certain before hitting that big red button.
