The Message center is useless right now. Can we get a way to track emails that we send or that are sent within scoutbook
thanks
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This has been requested frequently before. I think that the BSA rejected the idea due to overhead reasons (e.g. every message would need to be logged somehow, which would take up storage space).
One workaround I’ve seen used is to add a unit email address (e.g troop###@emailProvider.com) that is copied on all outgoing messages. It has to be a policy thing that would be enforced, though, and it would likely never reach 100% penetration just through simple error if nothing else.
A potential approach to this idea that might minimize overhead for BSA servers/storage would be for BSA-IT to add a toggle to automatically log emails sent through Scoutbook via a designated external email address. Scoutbook Unit Admins could designate an email address for this “logging”. Changes to the logging email settings (toggle on, toggle off, change email address) would notify Unit Key 3, K3D, and unit Admins. It would likely require user interaction at the “logging” email address to accept the “subscription”.
I think that would add the overhead of having to create the code to automatically copy someone on all messages sent, as well as adding one additional email address to the messaging system. I don’t know that it adds much in the way of storage to the BSA’s systems (up to one email address for every unit, minimal compared to the number of scouts/parents/leaders’ emails already in there). It will probably have a certain amount of transient load as units activate the new feature, and I suspect the load would decay as it makes higher penetration, eventually settling to just new units and then the occasional changes as units change their logging target emails intermittently.
That seems “Dilbert easy”, at least on first glance to a non-programmer. SUAC, has BSA-IT looked at this sort of idea before and kicked it back? Are there ways we as users could improve it to make it more attractive for implementation?
Scoutlander lets the admin define one email recipient that’s copied on any messages going out through the system. That seemed to work pretty transparently.
It seems to be a very simple addition as well. They already have the code for the “one time” invite.
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I agree. It seems odd to have an inbox, but I guess you can get a message from a council admin. That seems to be odd to not use email as well and just eliminate that feature.
I agree and argued against the implementation but there were some council’s that wanted the ability to track which leaders actually read the message. With regular e-mail there is no reliable way to do this.
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