Hi Everybody,
First a reminder: be nice. This conversation is getting close to the edge of what I am comfortable allowing on our forums. Remember what a boy scout is.
Second: TroopTrack already supports the AOL “Rank”. What this conversation is referring to is not “rank” at all. It is the level (or type) of the den. To avoid confusion, please refer to it as level rather than rank.
Third, I will explain my objections to this idea. I am going to highlight key points.
In the BSA there are specific den types (i.e. Bear Dens, Wolf Dens, Webelos Dens, etc.). Membership in these dens indicates the types of awards a boy can work on. According to BSA, a boy who is in a Webelos den can work on the Webelos Rank and the AOL Rank. This is currently supported by TroopTrack.
When you change the level of a den, you aren’t changing its “rank”. You are specifying what type of den it is. For many levels, this maps directly to a single specific rank (Bear Den -> Bear Rank). For Webelos, this maps to two ranks: Webelos and AOL.
There is no such thing as an AOL den. I totally understand that many packs separate their webelos into two dens based on the fact that some of them are working on the Webelos Rank and some of them are working on the AOL Rank. Not everyone does this, and that’s an important thing to remember. Many packs leave their webelos together regardless of what they are working on.
As Melissa mentioned, the awards that are available to be worked on are set by the type of den you are in. Every award is assigned to a level, and it’s important to note that TT currently only supports assigning an award to a single level.
Let’s just say that I decided to implement this idea. Based on the important points I’ve highlighted above, I would have to do the following:
- Modify awards to support assignment to multiple levels
- Add a Webelos (AOL Only) level and associate all AOL awards to it.
- Add a Webelos (Webelos Only) level and associate all Webelos non-AOL awards to it.
Item #3 is necessary because many packs don’t separate their boys this way and will want to be able to continue having the boys mixed in the same den.
I estimate this change will cost me about $5000 to implement, and I expect it will increase the likelihood of a new customer becoming confused and possibly losing interest in purchasing TT. Anytime someone is asking for a change with that kind of financial impact, we push back a little bit, just to see how important the change really is.
~ Dave, TroopTrack CEO