Note: the following examples all assume that you're working at the Troop level, but the process is the same for Beaver Scouts, Cub Scouts or Venturer Scouts.
Note: the following examples all assume that you're working at the Troop level, but the process is the same for Beaver Scouts, Cub Scouts or Explorer Scouts.
You can then enter all the pertinent data for the youth, e.g., name, patrol, role, the date they joined your Troop, etc.
Before hitting "Save", you can optionally give the youth a Login to access their own records, and optionally do a bulk initialization of their badge records.
You can always modify the youth's details at a later date by clicking on "Account" | "Scouts" and then drilling-down on a particular youth.
If you'd like to give your youth (or their parents) the ability to access their own records, you can also check the "Create a Login for this Scout". This will then let you enter an email address, and a password. You can generate a random password for this login by clicking the "Randomize" Button.
Of course, you'll probably want to tell the youth how to sign in, so you'll notice that there is a "Send a welcome message" option... here you can customize a message that will be sent to the youth when their login is created.
When the youth does sign in, they'll only be able to see their own records, and will only be able to bookmark requirements or mark them as "ready to test". As a leader, you'll be able to see (before the meeting) which youths have reqirements that need to be tested by going to "Troop Reports" | "Read to Test"
Hint: The welcome message will be sent out from "no-reply@scoutstracker.ca", until you authorize your email. Once you are authorized, the welcome emails will appear to come from your email. It is strongly recommended that you authorize your email because if the youth replies to your welcome message (which they frequently do), you will receive the reply instead of the "no-reply" address. Authorization is simple, and only involves clicking on a link in an email that you'll receive when you click the "Authorize" button. This proves that you are indeed the owner of your email address.
Entering historical data for the youth is easy when you click on "In Bulk Initialization"... this will let you quickly click off the individual requirements or entire badges that the youth has already completed.
You'll note that when you click on some requirements, it bring up a little dialog that prompts you to enter a number. This is because some requirements stipulate that the activity be completed a specific number of times (e.g., the nights spent camping). ScoutsTracker automatically keeps track of these tallies, and marks the requirement as complete when the criterion has been satisfied.
In Bulk Initialization only marks the badge as complete... completed badges still have to be marked as having been awarded to the youth, but this is easy to do in bulk from the "Troop Reports" | "Ready to Award" report.
Hint: When you do "In Bulk Initialization" all the requirements are marked as having been completed on the day you do the initialization. If you want more precise historical records, you can at a later time go through the youth's records and update the date on which each requirement or badge was completed.
Tracking badge records is only half of what ScoutsTracker does. The other half is the track events. Moreover, ScoutsTracker blends the two tasks to make record-keeping as simple as possible.
An event can be created a couple of ways, but the easiest is to click on the "Schedule" link in the sidebar, and then click on one of the calendar days.
You'll then be asked to choose what labels you want to give to your new event (e.g., is it a meeting, or a camp, or a community serivce project?). Events can have multiple labels, e.g., you can an event that is both a camp and hike, or you can do an environmental project during a meeting.
Some labels have durations associated with them (e.g., nights for camps, hours for community service). Additionally, some labels have attributes that further characterize the event (e.g., whether a night away is a lightweight camp). Some of these attributes depend on the level of the Program.
Once you've picked the appropriate labels, you can add more information about the event (name, description, leader's notes, etc.)
You can also optionally configure signup and payment, and specify the related requirements.
Hint: The event Description and Leader's Notes can be fully formatted by using a wiki-like formatting syntax. Click on the "formatting tips" links to see how this can be done.
You can then click on the "Options" link to set whether you want the youths to sign up for the event, and if so, whether there is a deadline for the signup.
Similarly, you can also specify the per-youth cost of the event. If you specify a deposit, then you must also specify a deadline for sign up.
Upon clicking "Signups" to return to the previous page, you'll note that you now have a table that shows whether each youth has signed up and/or paid. You can additionally say that some youths are not eligible (e.g., for a linking event that is only open to your senior Scouts).
When you specify that an event can be signed up for, each youth will have the event added to a list of "My Signups" (if they are eligible to attend), and they can then quickly indicate whether they will attend or not.
You can record payment, either of the deposit (if applicable) and the full amount. There are some Troop reports that show who has paid for what, and what each youth owes. The individual youth can also check their "My Balance" report to see what is outstanding.
You generally run events to help the youths progress through the Program. As a result, there are usually badge requirements that you hope to satsify during the event.
You can identify these related requirements, by clicking on the "Related Requirements" link. You can then drill down on the appropriate badge, and select which requirements will be addressed. If you don't recall which badge a particular requirement is in, you can enter some text (e.g., "fire") to filter down the list of choices.
Note: ScoutsTracker does NOT automatically mark all your related requirements as complete after an event has occurred. Generally, this would be the wrong thing to do do as there are invariably exceptions to the rule. Instead the event is simply flagged as needing to be "finalized", which is explained in the next section "updating records after an event".
You can record which youths attended by editing the event (e.g., drill down on the event from the Schedule's calendar, and then click the "Edit" button), and then clicking on "Attendees". This provides a pick list from which you can select the youth and/or leaders. If you enabled event signups, then the list of attendees is conveniently initialized based on who signed up and/or paid.
Sometimes, a youth cannot attend in the same way as the others in the Troop. For example, a youth with a broken leg might not be able to participate in the four-hour hike, or a youth who is also involved in sports may have to leave the camp one night early to participate in a tournament. ScoutsTracker can accommodate these changes... just click on the "override" link for any youth in the Attendee list, and you can alter that youth's participation.
Once you've recorded (and saved) the attendance, you'll want to click the "Update Records" button under the Related Requirements section. This will present you with a table of all the youths who atttended, and all the related badge requirements. You can mark everything as complete for all the youths, with a just single click of the "All" button in the upper left corner. Or you can individually mark or unmark entire rows or columns, or individual cells. When you are satisfied, click the "Save" button.
If the requirement is a tally (e.g., do 5 nights of camping), the youths' individual tallies are shown. And when you click on a tally requirement cell, you'll notice that it shows how much the tally will be updated by.
When you are satisified, you can changed the "Finalized" toggle to clear the alert icon. However, the alert icon will automatically re-appear if you ever change the event participants and/or related requirements.
However, you can rest assured that you can always revisit the "Update Records" table, without worring that the youths will be granted double credit for their partipation, because each database update is flagged with the event identifier.
Obviously, each youth and leader can see the Troop schedule when they sign in.
Additionally, you can publish your calendar to your Troop website (no sign-in required). To do this, click on "Account" | "Advanced" | "Embedding" and select the options you want for your embedded calendar, and then copy the HTML fragment that is shown.
You can also share your calendar with other sections using ScoutsTracker (e.g., to create a combined Group calendar). This will require that you share your section key with a leader in the other section. You can get your section key by clicking on "Account" | "Advanced" | "Section Keys" and then copying the value under "Your Account". Similarly, if you get the section key from another ScoutsTracker account, you can add it to the "Other Accounts" section of "Account" | "Advanced" | "Section Keys". After you do so, you'll be able to toggle the other sections events on or off when viewing your calendar.
You can also add your Troop calendar to your favourite calendar app (e.g., Outlook, Google Calendar, iCal). There is a button to do so below the calendar. Note: Google Calendar only refreshes subscriptions every 6 to 24 hours, so if you make a change to an event, and then check your Google Calendar, don't be surprised if it doesn't show up right away!
Finally, you can share a particular event with other individuals... if you drill down to an event, you'll notice a "Share" event in the right-hand tab. This will give you a couple of options to email or embed a link to your event.