Director of Scoutbook - 3/29/2016
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Director of Scoutbook - 3/29/2016
MAJOR UPDATES TO CUB SCOUT RANKS AND AWARDS RELEASED!
Today, the Scoutbook team will be releasing changes to the following:
- How Webelos and Arrow of Light elective adventures are applied
- Updating the Cub Scout World Conservation Award to the 2015 requirements
- Quick Entry updates for 2015 Webelos and Arrow of Light requirements
APPLYING ELECTIVE ADVENTURES TO WEBELOS AND ARROW OF LIGHT RANKS
As many of you know, Scoutbook has been applying Webelos and Arrow of Light elective adventures to Requirement 3 of those ranks in a manner inconsistent with the program design. Later today we will release a major fix to how elective adventures are implemented in these ranks. Just so everyone is on the same page, the following outlines how Scoutbook will manage this situation. This process has been vetted by the Cub Scout program specialists at the National Council and is fully reflective of the program policies and practices.
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The Basics – the designed behavior of Scoutbook will cause:
- The first two elective adventures earned (approved/recorded, by order of date) to be applied to Webelos rank Requirement 3, satisfying that requirement.
- The 3rd - 5th elective adventures earned will to be applied to Arrow of Light rank Requirement 3, satisfying that requirement.
- Adventure Electives 6+ to show on the boy's advancement profile page but are not to be applied to either rank, since Requirement 3 is satisfied.
- If a new elective adventure is awarded/recorded with a completion date earlier than others previously earned, the order of application to the ranks will change to match the order in which the adventures were earned.
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The Exceptions – what happens if:
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A boy joins Cub Scouts as a fifth grader and will not be working on Webelos.
- Go to the boy's Edit Profile page and change the “Working towards:” slider to Arrow of Light.
- The first three adventure electives earned after the date the slider is moved will be applied to Arrow of Light Requirement 3.
- Subsequent electives earned will be treated as in 1d
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A boy begins working on his Webelos rank, completes some electives but does not earn the Webelos rank.
- The first two adventure electives earned will remain associated with the Webelos rank as they were used to satisfy Requirement 3 for that rank.
- The process described in 1c-d will be followed – 3rd – 5th electives earned will be applied to Arrow of Light, additional elective adventures will be shown on the boy's profile page.
- If the boy has earned less than 2 elective adventures, the you can use the process described in 2a to assure that new adventure electives are applied to Arrow of Light.
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A boy joins Cub Scouts as a fifth grader and will not be working on Webelos.
A caution on using the Webelos/Arrow of Light Slider – The default position of this slider is “Webelos”. The vast majority of boys will advance thru Webelos and Arrow of Light without any need of adjusting the slider position.
Heed the caution.
On a slightly unrelated topic, we have seen the following question frequently: May a boy who did not earn Webelos, use the Webelos REQUIRED adventures to satisfy Requirement 3 of Arrow of Light. The answer is NO – in no rank in Scouting may requirements completed for one rank be used to satisfy the requirements of another rank.
WORLD CONSERVATION AWARD UPDATED!
The 2015 requirements for the Cub Scout World Conservation Award are up with this release!! Check them out – they show up last in the alphabetized list of awards under a Scout’s Awards page. All adventures required to complete the World Conservation Award are hot linked – completing them on the adventure pages will update the World Conservation Award and updating an adventure will update the Scout’s status throughout the site.
ADDED 2015 WEBELOS AND ARROW OF LIGHT TO RANK QUICK ENTRY
Previously the 2015 requirements for Webelos and Arrow of Light were not available via Quick Entry. A toggle has been added to that function to allow cycling between 2010 and 2015 versions of rank requirements. Happy Scouting!
On the rank quick entry, it looks like that has been updated for all ranks, not just Webelos and Arrow of Light. So it's now much easier to credit the parent's pamphlet to multiple scouts.
Thank you again!
Will "hot linking" be expanding soon? (i.e. National Outdoor Awards on the Boy Scout side)
Any word or idea on when the print pocket certs will be updated for Cub Scout Adventures?
(Apparently?) minor bug: It appears that the WCA percentages are not reflecting the completion percentages for the linked adventures (i.e. requirements 1-4). Does this indicate that the award is not yet fully reflecting the status of the linked adventures, and that's why Chris is having the issue he appears to be describing (i.e. Scouts who have completed most of the requirements, but are not yet showing)?
What if you have an Arrow of Light Scout, who was under the 2010 program last year, but opted to go through the 2015 program this year?
Note: There is no "Working Towards" slider, and his 2015 Elective Adventure is not being counted towards his AoL rank.
Scoutbook does not support all the transition options, though (using old Activity Badges toward Webelos Electives). In those cases you'll have to continue to track him manually and just mark AoL as complete.
If you are not seeing any progress on this award and your Scouts have completed some of the requirements then this should work.
FYI I am the Wolf Den Leader and we are working on this award. All my Scouts have completed Paws on the Path and the requirements for Wolf this year. This process might not be the best way to do it but it worked for me.
You will need to adjust the award for other dens but this process will work to basically link an individual Scout and in essence tell Scoutbook that he is working on the World Conservation Award.
Go to a Scout's page and then scroll down to his Awards and click on it.
Scroll down to Word Conservation Award and click on it.
Click on the Earn Paws on the Path box
Click on the Completed Bar
Click on Save
Scoutbook will then see that the Scout is working on the Award
The hot linking does work, but apparently it kicks in when something changes. So this first update doesn't seem like it's going through the records applying all the links. But once something changes it will refresh the award and be up to date for the scout.
Any news on the Nova and SuperNova updates? We have at least two Cubs about to get SuperNova and it would be great to have it the system correctly.
"Questions about priorities - more detail later but headlines and order for program are:
Apply elective adventures appropriately between Webelos and Arrow of Light
Cub Scout World Conservation Award - update to 2015 requirements
Boy Scout Merit Badges - update multiple requirement changes across roughly 12 merit badges
Cub Scout NOVA Awards - update to the 2015 requirements "
Based on this list, I would expect to see Boy Scout merit badge requirements updates next.
Yes, I have been following along and understand their list of priorities, I am looking for an estimated time that it might be done, nothing more.
Our (let's call him a 2010 Webelos II Scout) is in a "Webelos Den" with all 2015 Webelos AoL Scouts, and his advancement is set to the 2015 Webelos AoL program. The advancement tracking does not seem to be following the 2015 AoL requirements for him and there is no switch to change him over to the new program. The 2010 Webelos II Scout started this year with his Webelos Rank earned under 2010 requirements and a clean slate (starting over) with the 2015 AoL requirements. Since this Scout is of a singular unique situation, and his Den Leader is is Father, it looks like they will be manually managing his AoL completion under the 2015 requirements.
Note: They decided, as a family, to run the 2015 program since he was the only Scout that transitioned over from 4th to 5th grade. The remaining Scouts in the den are new to Scouting this year.
So the scout earned Webelos under the 2010 Requirements and has been earning AoL under the 2015 Requirements. Got that.
Your statement, " there is no switch to change him over to the new program," what does that mean? Since Webelos has been earned, the "Toggle" in the Edit Profile page that this Blog post describes should NOT be there, however on his AoL advancement page there SHOULD BE a switch to change AoL to the 2015 requirements. Is that not there?
Now, if it is there and it is changed to 2015, AND he is in a den with all the other Webelos II scouts set to 2015, what do you see there? I would expect to see the 2015 AoL adventure requirements, and the elective adventures below that. I just tested this and was able to set AoL to 2015 with Webelos earned under 2010.
Now the one problem I can see now is given the new change that was described above, the first two elective adventures SHOULD apply to AoL, but won't because the toggle isn't/can't be set to AoL. This is a situation where the previous bug would have benefited you.
What I would do in this situation, and I acknowledge is not ideal, is track AoL 2015 as best you can (and offline as needed). when everything is complete mark AoL as complete and award the rank.
There were many transition options, but none of them (other than just finishing AoL under the 2010 requirements) were implemented in Scoutbook. In two months there literally won't be any Webelos II scout in this situation anymore and never will be again.
When entering Planned Advancement when setting up a Meeting the old requirements for World Conservation Award (wolf) still appear.
The Webelos I & II dens recently participated in a Webelos Overnighter and made significant progress towards the Earth Rocks elective. The Webelos II boys had never earned this so they are using it towards AoL; Webelos I are using it towards Webelos badge. If the Adventures were available in the Pack Quick Link, I'd have access to the whole pack and could include the Webelos II when I enter the Webelos I data.
Alternatively, how about an option to allow the Webelos den leaders to access each others dens at the same time, like one big combined Webelos den? As I type this, I'm thinking I'll list each of us in each others' den as an assistant Den leader. If this works, I'll smile. But I still think not listing the Adventures from the Pack's Quick Entry page is a bug.
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