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.
The report builder still limits the requirement descriptions when viewing, exporting to CSV or PDF. I have searched the forum to see if this had been previously reported, and in fact there have been multiple topics created for this same issue going back to 2019 all of which say, “It has been reported to the developers.” Why does it take over 8 years to get a report working correctly?
Similar to one of the previous topics, I had hoped that this would replace my similar Excel report, so I don’t have to maintain records in two places. I use this to help plan future den meetings, coordinate visitors, and let parents know what they need to work on at home.
The fact that we can’t get a complete report out of a database after a bug was reported 8 years ago is a perfect example of why so many people complain about using scoutbook.
There are no plans to put the whole requirement descriptions on the Report Builder reports. These reports are designed to fit in limited space, not to be a replacement for handbooks or the requirement pages in Scoutbook Plus.
Thank you for your honest response. However, if that is the case, then the report option needs to be renamed to indicate the actual functionality, like “Show Truncated Requirement Descriptions”, or eliminated completely. This will avoid any future confusion and additional topics created on the subject.
However, I do want to point out that replacing the handbooks or the requirement pages in Scoutbook Plus, or the requirement pages on the adventure websites is not the intention.
The purpose of this request would be to provide an easy reference for parents while also providing a useful planning tool for den leaders. None of the places you mention provide the ability to see all the requirements in one convenient location. The guiding principle of the 2024 Cub Scout program update was “to ensure that it is fun, simple, and easy.” It is incredibly helpful to give parents a single place to see everything their child has incomplete as Anthony noted in this episode of Cub Chat Live when talking about the lessons learned from the Den leader experience. Additionally in this edition, Cub Chat live, they noted that “Many requirements in the updated Cub Scout program are designed to be completed at home!” If the intention is to have parents complete these requirements, we need to make them as easy as possible to find and complete. Telling the parents to go to multiple locations in the handbook to see the wording of the specific requirement and to follow the QR code, for example activities are not easy or simple.
The example report attached below I created to make it easy for parents to understand what needed to be completed, while providing hyperlinks to the online resource pages. Imagine how much easier this would be to understand if the entire requirement description was listed.
Additionally, this would be a great resource for den leaders to evaluate all the requirements and determine which pair well with the activities they have planned on the calendar. There are many spreadsheets floating around the internet to do this specific task.
Now I understand that some requirements, especially for Merit Badges, may be very long, and could create a long description. But this has been solved by countless websites. So before just throwing this idea aside, as it seems to have been done for the last 8 years. I ask that you look back at the guiding principle of the 2024 Cub Scout program update “to ensure that it is fun, simple and easy.”
Just to be clear, the people making the decisions as to what does and doesn’t get done are not the SUAC volunteers like Ed. Rather, it is the folks at Scouting America national who direct the developers (neither of whom are on these forums) on what to do. If the SUAC has been told something won’t be done, they are not in a position to move the needle on that. If you believe that it should be changed, the only remaining approach is to write up the argument in favor, and ask your council professional staff to champion the change with national.
@Nick - interesting that you mention merit badge requirement being long. The report you are looking at is used at ALL scouting levels so for me to run that report with the full req descriptions at the troop or crew level would not be desirable and that would be based on your request to put the full descriptions in. See how you are helping yourself but not others.
@CharleyHamilton I appreciate you educating me on the process to implement change. I knew this was the place to report bugs, so I assumed that the SUAC had some ability to direct development.
@edavignon I would still make a note that there is a bug with the report builder because the setting does not work as indicated. If there is no intention on providing the entire description, then the bug is that the setting is named incorrectly and should be “Show Partial Requirement Description.” Thanks to @CharleyHamilton I know the process to attempt to make change.
@Stephen_Hornak Addressing your point that I am only helping myself and not others, insulting in the context of Scouting. As we teach the youth, one of the 3 points of the Scout Oath is duty to others. I’m not the only one that has this opinion as it has been reported multiple times in multiple threads, most of which you have continually been a firm opponent, which is fine. I wouldn’t have brought up Merit Badges if I was thinking about them. The idea of having an easy report you can give a parent, applies even more to scouts. Additionally, this is an optional setting within the report builder, as shown in the image below.
You have the option of running the report with or without the descriptions. So, for people like yourself who do not wish to see the full requirements, you can uncheck the setting “Show Requirement Descriptions”. This will generate a report that provides only the requirement numbers, shown below. This option provides users the ability to create the reports they need.
As the image below shows, the current option to “Show Requirement Description” does not actually show the requirement descriptions. It only shows a partial description and will occasionally add “Check out this” to the front with a link that is sometimes broken. This is the reason my last post suggested renaming the setting to indicate the actual functionality.
