Director of Scoutbook - Update
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Director of Scoutbook - Update
Good morning. Allow me to introduce myself and grant me some time for an opening coda. I will endeavor to make it worth your time.
My name is Bob Scott and I work at the National Service Center, yup, National. I'm also a COR, founding committee member of a Venturing crew and Wood Badge Buffalo. For the past four years I have been blessed to work with Scouters across the country to develop and launch the new Cub Scout program, always following two simple guideposts – More Fun for Boys and Simpler for Leaders. I, and the entire team, hope your Cub Scouts are beginning to experience the great adventure of the new program.
During my time in this role I gained increased understanding and respect for the work that Scouters throughout the country do for the youth of America. And with that, if I may be so direct, came the realization that there is no Scouting going on in the National Office and BSA must focus on making the leader’s life easier so they can deliver quality programming. From this perspective, as Cub Scout Experience Manager, I became an early advocate for ScoutBook. Shawn Jackson and his Automation Tools team “get it” and have developed a remarkably good unit management tool that is already serving unit leaders in a positive manner. You know about the purchase. I will say no more on that other than it was a strategic recognition by BSA of the importance of the unit leader.
So fast forward to Monday two weeks ago. I came in to do some Cub Scouting and was asked by senior management to take a new role as director of Scoutbook! I am extraordinarily excited to have the opportunity to work full time to realize the vision of Scoutbook and with your help, take it to a new level of service.
So let's get to it, shall we? I’ve read the forums. I’ve met with Shawn. I’ve talked with many users, so I think I have a good handle on the situation – pace of development on ScoutBook has slowed, its implementation of certain program changes has been incomplete, recently introduced functionality has bugs, etc. I get it. The community has appropriately asked “what’s going on?” So here’s my first promise to you - I will always offer the straight scoop, as I see it and as I know it at the moment. The quid quo pro I will request is to recognize that things change, some times we don't know what we don't know but we will always do our best for Scouting.
So,since acquisition BSA has been:
- Adding resources behind the scenes (8 full time developers, QA and UI resources), moving the site to the cloud (Amazon Web Services) so we can better scale to the increase in users we see currently and anticipate in the future. The number of users is up over 33% in the past 4 months. Thank you for your confidence and support! The site is now in a beta test in the new environment – you will hear more about this over the next several weeks.
- Evaluating the inner workings of the site and identifying and executing opportunities to enhance the site’s performance thru changes in database design, more streamlined internal functionality (code for the techies) and faster, industry current tools.
- Listening to the Scoutbook user community about what it wants Scoutbook to become. Since purchase, over 4000 of you have participated in online surveys about potential enhancements and additional features and functionality that do not exist today. Many of these enhancements require real-time integration with existing BSA resources. This is complicated but the right direction to go. Project teams are already beginning to map the way forward on priorities which will be discussed in future blogs.
- Listening some more. Every bug, issue and suggestion has been logged, cataloged, discussed and prioritized.
So, now what should you expect from Scoutbook over the near term?
1. Continued efforts to improve performance of Scoutbook thru database and query design. Improvements in this area will be continuous and will be noticed by to all users as implemented.
2. A focus on completing the transition from the current production environment to the new, scalable, cloud-based one.
a. The site is up and running in this environment and testing has begun by Shawn and the Automation Tools team
b. Over the next weeks we will be inviting more and more users into this environment and encouraging them to tell the community about their experiences
c. All work done in the beta enviroment is saved to the same database being used now, no loss of data
As our beta users identify bugs and issues, I will be prioritizing work on them based on the following considerations: does it threaten the site's operations, does it diminish the user's experience or functionality, is it something we would just like to do, or can fixing it be defered until after transition. Every day in this process is a new day - we learn new things, encounter unknows and solve new problems so it is difficult at this time for me to commit to date certain when we will come out of this transition.
There are two things I can commit to during this period, however. 1) During this time period only critical bugs identified during testing will be addressed, there will be no enhancement activity. This is the only way, however difficult to "get to the other side". And, 2) I will update you weekly, at least, on our progress during the week and my thoughts on the future.
Everyone on the Scoutbook team understands how critical it is that we get back to the main thing – serving unit leaders so they can deliver great program to America’s youth. The future is bright for Scouting and Scoutbook and I look forward to your patience through this transition and to your continued participation in building the future we all want to see.
I'll close with a thank you for listening, thank you for supporting Scoutbook, thank you for everything you do for the youth of America and finally, a quote I try to live by, taken from from my email signature:
Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind. Always.
--Unknown--
I look forward to your comments and suggestions. Good night for now.
Thank you for communicating.
All, thanks for the support and feedback.
=> Varsity Tracking
https://www.scoutbook.com/mobile/forums/varsity-scouting/7862/varsity-tracking/
=> Venturing Program
https://www.scoutbook.com/mobile/forums/venturing/723/venturing-program/
*UPDATE*
I guess BB Code isn't supported here like it is in the forums;(
**UPDATE**
(Post edited to remove BB Code.)
Your plan sounds great to me. I'm looking forward to the changes and am willing to help in any way I can.
Ed,
Participant PTC Week 6 Leading the Cub Scout Adventure Program
Your candid words are refreshing to read and I look forward to your continued weekly updates! Like many others, I discovered Scoutbook by accident, well before the BSA's acquisition, and immediately knew it was exactly what our pack needed. We can all appreciate your team's upcoming challenges as Scoutbook's transition to the cloud continues. However, I do have two questions:
(1) You mentioned above that "...only critical bugs identified during testing will be addressed...." Is that to say that ONLY issues experienced in AND affecting the functionality of the new 'Cloud-Beta' will be corrected?
(2) Has any thought been given to posting the prioritized list of bugs, issues, and suggestions that you mentioned above? It would be great to be able to help refine this list and add additional details while the Scoutbook Team's attention is focus elsewhere. I also think seeing the list will help soothe any remaining fears or anxiety still being felt by the Scoutbook community.
Thanks in advance!
-Bob Cain
I would like to add that it is particularly refreshing to see you here in the Forum as YOU rather than as a non-descript "Scout Book" User. There are times for the "Scout Book" User as well, of course. However, I think you will quickly find that there is already a COMMUNITY of folks here on Scoutbook that work tirelessly to take care of this Community. I think we will all appreciate seeing you here among the faithful as a real entity.
(I do think though that perhaps a nice "patch" or "emblem" that instantly identifies you for those that do not know you are a member of the "official" Scoutbook Team would be nice. Or, perhaps, just the addition of "Scoutbook Director" under your photo in the Forums maybe. But something like that should not be hard to do.)
Again, welcome aboard, Captain!
I recently (few days now) sent a email to info@scoutbook, could you look into that and see that it is responded to?
Also, EXTREMELY HAPPY that you are on board now, needless to say things were getting a little too tense on the forums!
This is a wonderful breath of fresh air!!!
Welcome !!!
Like many others have said before me "You cannot over communicate"
Thank you for this. We understand that there are growing pains when going from a niche market with the best product around to eventually trying to serve all the millions of scouts and scouters out there as the officially sanctioned product for tracking scout advancement. I appreciate that you are pausing new feature rollout while you are fixing what is there. I'm aware that as 1 of 4,000 survey takers and even more so as 1 of 300,000 users that my needs are not the only ones you must be concerned with. I hope (and honestly believe) that someone at Scoutbook HQ is reading all the comments on the forums, even the thousand or so new feature requests on the calendar thread. I just hate being subscribed to that forum and seeing the same dozen topics brought up as frequently as they are. It seems like as soon as a request rolls off to a "previous page," it gets asked for again. I echo the request from Bob Cain above to provide that list as a sticky thread or something similar. Maybe you just need to wipe that thread out and start fresh. I don't think the frustration at the lack of response is limited to that thread, but it's the one I notice most. Having said that, I know the calendar function, while huge, may not be the most important thing you're working on. I know it's still in Beta, but it's been around a while that people are expecting it to get better.
I assume you're benchmarking your competition. I know we are. When I joined our pack leadership team, we were using PackMaster and only the Advancement Chair had access. I was looking around at alternatives, compared 3 or 4, and settled on CubTrails. Literally an hour before I was going to buy the annual subscription, I stumbled on ScoutBook and absolutely loved it. Mr. Jackson's product was top notch! While the grinding of shifting gears to SB is still fresh in my committee's ears (a whole year later!), our SB experience has been fantastic up until the last month or so. I've started looking again and would encourage you to look at TroopTrack. They do so many things so well. They're not as visually pleasing as SB, but they have tremendous functionality. I want to stay with SB for a lot of reasons when my pack subscription is up next month, but without marked improvement I'm really on the fence. The unfortunate timing of the nice Scouting Mag article on SB and Mr Jackson saying how responsive he is to the forums when two months have elapsed since the last official post in more than one request board on those forums notwithstanding, I really do believe SB is a great product. I want to stay, but I and my pack need some of these things fixed to make that happen.
We welcome your candidness and regular updates.
Yours in Scouting,
Doug
When I formed our new troop 2 years ago, I looked long at hard at the options available. I had experienced Packmaster and as an IT professional I realized it was not heading in the right direction, so I didn't want to go down the Troopmaster path. I discovered Scoutbook, signed on, and we haven't looked back. I've promoted Scoutbook at University of Scouting, Roundtables and to numerous other leaders and units. I explained to them that we weren't sold so much on the actual functionality of Scoutbook as we were the POTENTIAL that Scoutbook has to simplify and improve the Scouting experience. Are there issues? Sure... Growing pains? Absolutely, just as you've outlined. There are even some features that I disagree with, but if it's one thing I've learned in my years of Scouting is that TOGETHER we are making a difference. And together WE (Leaders, Scouts and the Scoutbook Team) can make this the best tool for Scouting. I've been very impressed by the overall civility among the forum users - sure, some of us are upset at the items you outline above, but there are many of us out here that UNDERSTAND the struggles you're going thru and fully support you. We're waiting patiently, excitedly for more to come. You have a VERY VALUEABLE RESOURCE here in the forums - dedicated, caring leaders that want this to succeed. I encourage you and your team to take advantage of us. Perhaps a survey/ranking that all SB users could take part in to help you prioritize your work for the future. Whatever you need, we are here to help.
Yours in Scouting,
Tim Trantham
Eagle/NESA 1977, WB 2012
I'm also interested in the nature of the "no Scouting going on in the National Office." comment.
I am thrilled to hear from YOU, not a generic Scoutbook account in the forums. Colors and rebranding seemed to be the focus this Summer instead of real fixes and features. Rolling out features to a top hands meeting before even discussing them in detail to the user base is not the way forward. After more than a decade as a unit leader (and lots of District and Council hats), I have little trust in the "official" BSA IT team. You will have all of our patience and support, but to keep it you need to communicate with us regularly and often. Don't commit to things that you can't deliver, but discuss your decision making process with us. Who knows, as the users of the software we may even have some good ideas about where progress should happen.
Good luck. At least for now you still have our support! I want this product to be GREAT.
Would 't take it long to become so again.
Oh, regarding "Listening some more. Every bug, issue and suggestion has been logged, cataloged, discussed and prioritized." Sharing those priorities would be a fabulous first step.
@Bob Cain - thanks I will look into Varsity and Venturing. Can't comment further at this point.
@Aaron Weissman - We are still grooming the backlog and understanding which are production bugs versus enhancements. When we sort that out we can look at gaining more feedback on priorities.
@DeWayne Pratt and @Doug Moore - Don't misunderstand me and my comment that there is no Scouting going on at the National Office. The staff here works professionally and hard to serve local councils and units and to develop programs and processes that support the mission and aims of Boy Scouts of America. But, Scouting happens in den, pack, troop, crew, team and ship meetings around the country and around family gatherings everywhere, not in Irving. Make sense?
@Scott Fisher - love your suggestion of a patch or persona. I talked to Shawn about it who reminded me that I froze the code so "no". :)
Hoisted on my own petard. Look it up.
I too am glad to hear about some National representation coming to the head of Scoutbook. Shawn is a great leader, parent, web developer, and scouter himself, but this thing that he created (which is very awesome in my mind by the way) has grown, and with growth comes changes. I think having a CEO/COO/CIO arrangement will benefit the growing community of users. We are a new convert from ScoutTrack, and we already have nearly 95% buy in from parents connecting to their scouts and using Scoutbook for daily interaction. I believe it made our on-boarding process that much easier in the last month, as we have nearly doubled the size of our Pack (unrelated, I know, but still good news!)
Please keep us posted of new developments, tell us what you're working on and what you're postponing, and let us know when we're going to get new information. Keep up the good work gentlemen!
I think that sums it up!
Seriously? You think I have to look up "Hoisted on my own petard"? I have been a General Manager of hotels for over 15 years. THAT has bitten ME many times! I can be my own worst enemy. Heh.
As for that "Frozen Code" -- just have someone in the BSA Graphics dept make a nice impromptu Scoutbook Director patch and upload it as your profile pic. Heh! No coding required.
As for the "No Scouting in the National Service Center" -- there are some really nice Scout Camping set-ups over in the museum though. (I just couldn't get any of those "Scouts" to tell me how much fun they were having. Do they come alive at night like the museum in the movies??)"
Thanks again, for the candid update!
@Craig M. Thanks for the kind words.
When I launched Scoutbook in Aug 2012 I tried hard to create the foundation of what I believed was the next generation unit advancement tool. While I did not get even 50% of my original vision complete, I'm happy with where we are today and where we are going.
With almost 450,000 users, Scoutbook is much bigger than a small team from Fort Collins can handle. I know Bob Scott is the right person to take Scoutbook to the next level. The BSA is very serious about Scoutbook so hold on and try to be patient while we get through this upgrade process.
I am excited the BSA has included me as we work together on building Scoutbook into something great. Believe me the entire team is hard at work and listening to your feedback. We will do a better job of replying to the forum posts. The future is bright for Scoutbook!
Thanks for all you do for your Scouts!
Thank you for joining the discussion. Knowing you and Bob are actively working on Scoutbook, planning for the future and communicating with the users will make us more confident in the future.
Scoutbook is a great product and I look forward to the future enhancements.
Michael
Pack 130 Geneva Switzerland
YIS
Rich
@Shawn Jackson - When do you get gold shoulder loops? ;-)
Shawn, thanks for Scoutbook - for all your growing pains, you've still got an awesome product. I appreciate your vision.
Do what you gotta do to fix it. Let us know how we can help.
As my own suggestion, when evaluating and defining bugs, critical issues and enhancements, please be sure to take into consideration items currently in Scoutbook that are just wrong or outdated. For example, the additional Cub Scout awards (STEM, Outdoor Activity Award, etc.) "work" so are not bugs, but still reflect the old Cub Scout program requirements. A Tiger Den is still labeled as a a "Tiger Cub Den" with an old "Tiger Cub" insignia graphic. The list goes on.
While the enhancements and migrations continue, I hope attention is given to bad information. I'll take "slow and correct" over "fast but wrong" any day.
Finally, let me say in our pack we LOVE the Cub Scout program. Thank you for all the work you and your team have put into it.
Thank you, and good luck!
So glad to see you are a part of the Scoutbook team!
Participant PTC Week 6 Leading the Cub Scout Adventure Program
Would love to see this replace IA and the crappy my.scouting.org website. Hate both of them.
Thank you for taking the time for the well versed update.
I think many of us grew greatly concerned over the past view months. Please keep in mind that we as users and leaders want to help out as much as you let us. The surveys were a great idea.
Thanks for the renewed hope and good luck!
https://www.scoutbook.com/mobile/forums/cub-scouting/36828/how-to-enter-the-webelos-ii-group-or-arrow-of-light/?Search=arrow+of+light+den&Page=1
I'm looking forward to the webcast today (even if I can't watch live). Here's to more information, and signs of progress, updates, and new features.
@Ken Morgan - I should not probably be practicing Cub Scouts since my license has expired but, leveraging my last four years ... Arrow of Light is a rank, just like Wolf or Bear (see by laws and regulations). As such, while boys working on their Arrow of Light as a den have traditionally been referred to Webelos 2 or Webelos, it is equally appropriate to refer to that group at the Arrow of Light den.
Another way to differentiate the Webelos 1 from Webelos 2 dens is to append a description after the den number. For example, my council has Lions. Since Scoutbook's support for Lions is limited to entering 5 year old boys into the system, I create a Tiger den for them but give them a den number like 1 Lion instead of just 1. The same could be done for Webelos.
I only found this post after going into the forums to complain about how the site had gone down hill due to poor speed and lack of communication. I am quite sure that there are many others who didn't bother to try to search forums and are just complaining to other people that the site is broken and the staff unresponsive.
Putting up sort of status/notice element to ensure that everybody knows what is going on with the site/service will go a long way in cutting down on user dissatisfaction and support requests as the site matures.
Cons... Delays in answers to info@scoutbook.cm sometimes weeks not even days. There are many concerns I emailed
how will these lists be updated regarding add ons and drops.these changes can be ongoing and tenuous to maintain. best of the holiday season, thank you Gene.
Thank you in advance for your time.
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