Every year we need to figure out who is eligible for the Order of the Arrow. The requirements are very static so it seems like there would be an easy way to extract that list from TroopTrack. From what I’ve seen, the data’s there but it requires a lot of digging to ensure that a Scout has enough camping nights. For example, only one long-term campout can apply so you’ve got to drill down to see if any of the nights violate that. Seems like there would be a canned report that returns the scouts who satisfy this list of requirements (from http://www.oa-bsa.org/pages/content/membership-and-induction):
Not currently in the OA
Have rank of First Class or above
Has 15 nights camping in the two years prior to the specified date (allow the user to specify a date since the election is likely going to be at a future date)
Only 5 nights of a long-term camping experience can be used in that calculation. The other 10 nights must come from short-term campouts (at most 3-nights each).
Is there such a report that exists somewhere that I’m not seeing it? If not, is this something that can be made available to Troops and Teams? Maybe the report can also include qualifying adults as well since the camping requirements are the same.
This would be immensely helpful. Currently dumped all camping nights into excel for 35 scouts, and waded through it that way. I submitted this previously under the old ticketing system Ticket #13783
It is amazing to me that an OA Eligibility Report is STILL not in TroopTrack, not withstanding the fact that a ticket #13783 was submitted months ago. This was a standard report in TroopMaster, and one necessary for all units. I hope this is resolved
Since Camping nights are entered into the system, the natural outputs should be 1) nights for the Camping MB and 2) OA camping nights.
I am currently launching TT for a Pack and waiting to see how it goes before launching for the Troop. These reports would help win the move to TT for the Troop.
We absolutely agree that this would be a fantastic offering. This is one we’ve been meaning to work on for a while now. Unfortunately, we had to put the breaks on this one.
Want to know how to stop development on a feature or put it down low on the development list? Someone called our office demanding this feature and yelled at an employee and made this employee cry. This kind of behavior is unacceptable in any setting, but there are a few things that really bother us about this. 1) You can’t say you hold any scouting value and act this way. 2) We aren’t just sitting around and playing, we are working. We want to be able to develop every feature you request, but it comes down to time, money, and priority. 3) You are asking for something. If your parents taught you anything, it’s that throwing a fit will get you nothing, just ask nicely.
Bottom line: Yes, we will develop this feature (I promise), but we are all pretty peeved about this situation so it won’t be immediate. I’m really sorry to everyone who could really use this report, who uphold scouting values, and who have been nothing but a delight to serve. You deserve this feature. We are here to serve and make this experience better and easier (as long as you don’t make the bosses mad).
Best wishes, and I hope we can get this going soon.
Ive been using TT, for a troop of about 65 scouts, since the new year, possibly a bit longer.
While TT has some nice modern features, I find much of the data static and reporting capability very lacking.
Ive also not been impressed all that much with support. Having used Troopmaster for years as Cubmaster and Scoutmaster, I am starting to wish the unit had stayed with it. Having to download several CVS files and manipulate the data myself with TT is NOT what I had expected.
There is no ad hoc capability to create custom reports on the all fields, nor is there a capability to add custom fields. The 'customizatio’n appears to be selecting very limited reports or fields that have been pre-determined, and not all that useful
When evaluating alternate solutions, check out reporting capabilities matching TroopMaster. My 2 cents worth.
My comments are from the perspective of heavy data use. From a parent or scout perspective, its ok.
@mlsully2002 Although I totally understand your frustration at ONE member’s behavior, I am really surprised by your response to the situation. As a vendor of a product that we pay for, there is an expectation by all of us of professionalism on your part. This means that sometimes you need to roll with the punches, and think of your service to your broader paying customers. An old adage that still holds true today is that “The customer is ALWAYS right”. This, may I say, childish & passive/aggressive response is not something I would expect in the business world.
Also, the attitude of punish everyone for the “sin” of one, I last experienced in the Military, and this is not the place for this kind of response. As for the Scout Law…I would expect you to be Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Cheerful and may I say Brave?
I trust you put this experience behind you quickly, and get back to delivering the expected service to your PAYING customers who are Loyal, Friendly, Courteous, Kind & (normally) Cheerful
I have been asked to develop an OA report and have been kind of dreading it because I knew this was a weakness of TroopTrack over what we just left (TroopMaster). When I found this post in the community I was kind of excited to think that an improvement was coming. To see that I am being punished because of the sins of another is really disappointing. I just don’t think this is a correct way to handle this. The issue should be prioritized by need and importance Deal with that customer separately. Freeze their account. Let them know that their behavior is unacceptable individually and not push the whole for the actions of the one.
Thank you for your passionate response, @roscoevm. Unfortunately, I’m not the decision maker here. I only wanted to make sure everyone knew that this type of behavior is unacceptable. We aren’t Walmart and in the software world, the customer is not always right. If we implemented every little feature that everyone wanted in the exact way they wanted it, we would be broke, and TroopTrack would be unusable.
My point is, we get several requests that only apply to that user or that specific troop and they might think it’s handy or familiar, but we have no evidence that it would be widely used and accepted. People act like their thing is the biggest thing in the world, but we can’t drop everything for something specific. That being said, this is not one of those cases. the OA report is something that would be AWESOME to have and we see evidence that it would be widely used.
I appreciate what you are saying though and I will request that this item be pushed back up in priority. Right now we have some BIG upgrades planned and we have run into some delays, so we might be able to pick up other features like this one while we try to sort everything else out.
Thank you @mlsully2002. I am in the IT field too (Applications/Solutions management)…and fully get that sometimes you need to make hard choices about what gets pushed forward, however this is based on priorities, resource availability and return (bang for the buck)…I Appreciate you getting this report buck up there in the queue, as it will be a HUGE time saver…if you talk about bang for your buck…It takes me about an hour to sift through the data dump to come up with something I can use…so multiply that by (say 100 users - only you will know how many Boy Scout Troops you have registered…thats 6000 minutes saved!).
Anyway, thank you for your candor and look forward to saving that hour every year!
This kind of report should be part and parcel of a product like this. Punishing EVERY troop out there because one user called and complained is not what I would expect. Please get this feature into the system, as it will save time for all BSA Troops moving forward.
The customer is not always right. I would absolutely support throwing out an abusive customer. By allowing it, you’re encouraging the bad behavior while also showing employees you don’t value them. Good businesses will value their employees over short-term profits.
The saying, “cutting off the nose to spite the face” seems more appropriate here. Are you sure you want to hand over that much control? You’re letting someone who does not share your core values make business decisions for you.
I understand you’re angry. That customer was completely in the wrong. One possible course of action would have been firing the customer. Instead, you’ve chosen to punish all of your customers for a single customer’s actions.
It may be in your company’s best interest to reconsider how you handle these situations going forward. Problem customers are always going to exist. Punishing the good customers because of the actions of your bad customers doesn’t seem productive to me.
I suggest creating a company policy on how you’ll handle employee abuse and similar situations.
This helps with consistency, shows employees you value them, and reduces knee-jerk reactions like this.
Thus far I am impressed with TroopTrack and look forward to the upcoming Android App, the simplicity of information access, communication, and calendar for the Scouts and Parents. That being said, being able to run an OA Eligibility Report is actually a big deal for me (Scoutmaster, father of 8, 12 hour rotating swing shift employee, my time is super valuable kinda guy). As for the Camping Merit Badge, the argument could be made that the Scout working on the badge should keep track of his own nights. We all know how that works. I am sure you have folks in the office that use (test) your competitions software, IE TroopMaster, so you have a good idea about what it can and can’t do. There are little things like tracking National Outdoor Award progress, OA Eligibility, etc that are very handy for those of us in the Trenches. From my perspective, the only reason we are migrating to TroopTrack is to satisfy the curiosity of Scout Parents. In closing, what good are tracking Nights Camped if we can’t use the Data for important things like OA Eligibility Reports, Camping MB, NOA Camping Progress, etc without spending hours sifting through the data? Thanks for all your effort. Laromie Boyd, Scoutmaster, Troop 5 Jasper, TN.
+1 on the linked data comment. Trying to fill out National Outdoor Awards, OA eligibility, and anything else that requires access to data from somewhere just doesn’t appear to be there in TroopTrack. While TroopMaster has it’s own drawbacks, this is one area where it excels. If a scout earns the Camping MB, it updates there, plus is automatically applied to the next appropriate rank, AND the National Outdoor Awards section.
Please give us this type of updating, as currently it took me a couple of hours to process the data to update NOA info for a handful of scouts.
In October, we switched over to using Troop Tracker. Our troop was using the Troop Master Software and that software contained a nice report for Order of the Arrow Candidates (requirements: 15 camping nights in the last 2 years and 1st Class Rank) for the current election and also another Report of all scouts who were past Order of the Arrow members.
I would love to see two reports like this in Troop Tracker, would really make our job easier when we are looking for eligible candidates for Order of Arrow Elections that happen yearly.
