Our Troop’s former software tracked and calculated the time in a position of responsibility for each rank. Does ScoutBook do this? If so, I must be missing how to pull up this report. Any help would be appreciated.
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Go to a scouts page and look at the Scout’s Leadership you can see it there
You can also go to Roster > bottom Print Roster > and use the Roster Builder > Select Show Position then Show Tenure to only show current positions
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That is very helpful! I didn’t realize you could go that deep into the roster. I guess what I am really looking for is a report that shows the Scout has completed the necessary 4 months for Star Rank, 6 months for Life, etc. Is there a report for that?
SB does not report that in the same way as other platforms do - simply because (as a Scoutmaster myself) - the requirements basically say “serve actively in your troop” - just because a scout has the time it does not mean the scout has done the job.
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In addition, I expect the Scout to know when time in position is sufficient to meet the requirement and come to the Scoutmaster or designated leader and request signoff. It is not leader’s responsibility to chase down Scouts and say “You have completed the position of responsibility requirement, let me sign your handbook.”
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Although true that they must participate actively and should be paying attention themselves it is still nice to have an “at a glance” type of option to see if a scout has technically fulfilled the time requirement. Four to six months for a young scout is a long time. I have a hard time keeping track of the time, I don’t know that them asking, or being able to easily look themselves is inappropriate. Of course then the leader should verify that they actually did the job for that amount of time but I don’t see how a better “at a glance” type of option would be inappropriate. I really hope this is something Scoutbook leaders take a look at to make this application even better.
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No need to lose the automation, though. Like other parts of Scoutbook, one could have it turn green at 4 months or 6 and require approval to turn blue.
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Now as far as what I read in the requirements it is not specifically x months continuous nor consecutive days but rather x months served in any POR…in any combination
If you look at the Scout’s leadership page (and he can do this himself), it is very easy visually to see the number of days since he was assigned to position. (As well as the starting date.) So the scout may need to do the math (if he’s been a patrol leader 170 days, but perhaps some of that was while he was First Class, and now he is a Star tracking towards Life …)
Changing colors would be nice, @Matt.Johnson, but to the point of @DonovanMcNeil, simply being in the position may not meet the requirement of serving actively. (This is hopefully not the case with Patrol Leaders, but quite possibly true with the Scribe, Librarian, etc).
In fact, if you hover over the specific position (what I circled in green), it will display the duration of that position in the rank in which it was held.
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Just be careful: some positions of responsibility do not count for purposes of rank advancement (most patrol positions except for Patrol Leader; Bugler only counts for Star and Life, but not Eagle, etc.).
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True, but it seems like that has to be on the SM/ASM/scout to know what does and doesn’t count at any given rank. We generally discuss that with the scouts at their BoR so they have some sense of what positions they could use for their next rank advancement requirements.
If you hover over any given position, it will show how many days are associated with that position, not just the total number of days. For example, in the scout I posted above, hovering over Instructor shows he has 154 days at Second Class. Hovering over Asst. Patrol Leader only shows 112 days at Second Class. For Instructor and APL at First Class, he has 36 days each.
Right, I’m just pointing it out for other people who might be reading this thread.
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yes scoutbook does have the capabilities to track leadership for rank
If you look at the dashboard there is a great report that handles this for you called Next Rank. Show you everything you need
Scott,
Next Rank is a report you saved. It is only available to you.
Sorry about that. It’s a simple report that can be created in the report builder.
Scott
I know you are just a messenger but I feel like this is a very tired excuse. Of course as leaders we need to be checking to see that they actually “served actively in your troop”. Just like all items in Scoutbook a leader should be approving and ensuring they met their requirements. The other platforms would fill in the date for you for when the scout “technically” met that requirement but I could go in and change the date if I felt like that scout needed to put more time in. Most scouts do participate actively, at least I would hope the Troop SPL and other leaders are ensuring that this is happening and it is the exception when they are not! Like poster MatthewJohnson said, have it turn green with the date then have it need approval by a leader. I don’t have time to go in that deep into Scoutbook and look back and calculate each scouts time, and we probably have less scouts than others. There is no reason Scoutbook can’t make this easier. I have scouts coming to me all the time asking when they will have met their requirement. (No not all my parents are using Scoutbook yet, it is a work in progress). So it ends up falling on me to try to answer that question. Overall I really like Scoutbook but I feel like the excuses for not making it better are tiring. I get that it isn’t an instant fix, but I would like to know that it is something that will be considered/worked on instead of having ideas discounted with tired excuses.
I would throw the question back at the Scout. If the Scout came to me and said “When have I completed my 6 month POR requirement for life?” I would ask the Scout “When did you start the POR? Do YOU feel you have been active for the required 6 months?” If the Scout can’t answer the when question, there is a problem that Scoutbook can’t solve. The Scout is responsible for tracking tenure, not the leaders. Yes, the leader should be able to validate the dates, but the Scout should know when the tenure started.
If the Scout feels he/she has been active (and the time is correct) but you feel the Scout needed to do more, why was it allowed to get to the 4 or 6 months without a discussion? As leaders we should be helping the Scouts achieve their goals. If a Scout in a POR is not performing satisfactorily, the leaders should be having discussions with the Scout along the way to find out why. Just as you would not want to find out from your boss at your annual performance review that you were not doing the job expected, a Scout should not have to wait until the end of the tenure to find out performance was not acceptable.
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