Welcome! This forum has a treasure trove of great info – Scouters helping Scouters! Just a heads up, though - all content, information, and opinions shared on this forum are those of the author, not the BSA.
I’m a long time TM user (since 1999) and have done council level TM training events (way prior to the whole SB thing), my current unit has been using TM since inception in 2007. I did give SB close look a couple years ago and our unit opted to stayed with TM and moved to TMweb2.0. It was a clear & easy choice. In form and function, TM is hands down better using SB. It simply works.
If you’ve read 10 topics on this forum you probably have read 8 dealing with SB problems. I do understand the frustrating part with this forum, I also find it frustrating with this forum & the volume of SB “discussions”.
TM user here, just made executive decision to move to SB. Been double entering TM/SB for a year (pain!). Much prefer TM, but new crop of young scout parents are more SB savvy and I’m moving on in a few years.
Before we made the official switch, can a TM user elaborate on the reports? Specifically, which reports are the most useful from TM? The Reports have been my main concern about making the switch.
We primarily use TM for Roster, Advancement, & Leadership Records. I am the Adv Chair.
Also, has anyone who has made the switch from TM to SB considered their old “data”? Did you just dump it (as in trash) or did you save it in some manner in case it is needed in future?
As an ASM & former SM I think the some of the most common TM reports are the Unit Roster, Activity Calendar, Individual History, Advancement Reports. Because of the flexibility and maturity of the TM Reports I do runs a variety of advancement related reports like the Target First Class or Partial MB reports, especially when trying to plan for an upcoming event or campout. Individual Activity Participation is another useful report for verifying requirements. The OA reports are also helpful when the elections come around. I think I’ve run just about every report in TM for one reason or another. TM Reports makes it easy to drill down into the data and get good trusted results.
We opened up TM to scouts and parents a couple years ago with TMweb2.0. Now parents can see their scouts info directly in Troopmaster. The TMweb also allows multiple users to be working in TM at the same time with out conflict, which is a big plus over the older TM desktop version. We do not double entry in to SB.
Second the question RE backing up TM data to some form of offline archive.
Our male troop was on TM but since converted to SB with formation of a girls troop and me transitioning to UAC for both troops.
Have no plans to switchback, but I’d like to keep the old data for reference in case we need to check data or lookup former scouts.
To above comments, there have been a lot SB discussions of late, and most are either multiple accounts or permissions - both appear to be symptoms of recharter cycle that is worse this year than last 2 years.
Over 3 years, I’d say my experience with SB & IA2 has been good. There are many report options available and ability to customize.
