Auditing and Reconciling Advancement Records

[John-in-KC]

Need some help.

 

Short version: I have the BSA 4403 pdf file. Bloody thing is locked from direct input using Word (or like the IRS, typing data in on the form itself).

 

Sooo... does anyone out there have a home-made shell of a 4403 in MS-Office format? If so, either tell me here, and I'll hit you in private message, or hit me in private message, please.

 

Long version...

 

(Per a private message with BobWhite, the hits that are fair on Council's are annotated, as are the hits that are fair on our unit):

 

Among my other jobs, I'm the advancement coordinator for my Troop. I'm in the process of checking what ScoutNet has on file for our young men against what the unit has in Troopmaster.

 

Surprise of surprises (not): They don't agree.

 

- There is data, SUBMITTED ON ADVANCEMENT REPORTS, that Council failed to post! In particular, one boy, who is just about ready for his Eagle BOR, is missing his advancements to Life, 1st Cl, 2d Cl, Tenderfoot, Scout, as well as one Eagle required and three regular merit badges!!!

 

- There is data, SUBMITTED ON ADVANCEMENT REPORTS, that the data entry clerk fat fingered (ScoutNet date to Life for one boy is one month (6 v 7) earlier than the date on the report, and one mon before he got the last Eagle required MB he needed to actually go to his SM conference and BOR) (oh yes, the last MB and the advancement are on the same advancement report).

 

- There are advancment reports that slipped by me.

 

- There is DATA, SUBMITTED ON ADVANCMENT REPORTS, that show one boy missing a merit badge he earned, and ScoutNet data showing a merit badge he didn't earn AND WE DIDN'T REPORT. ... since it's my own son, I know he didn't earn the mb Not only that, I have our MB card files as source documents!

 

- Finally, from our Troops' first year of existence, there are plenty of camp earned merit badges where ScoutNet and the Advancment Reports agree, but two predecessors back advancment coordinator input a bad date into troopmaster.

 

LESSONS LEARNED:

 

1) Ask your professional, at least every couple of years, to dump off what ScoutNet has on your unit. Crosscheck and reconcile unit records against Council records.

 

Also, as you get used to the option to submit in electrons form for direct posting to ScoutNet, start using it. I'll be learning this option over the next few weeks.

 

John(This message has been edited by John-in-KC)(This message has been edited by John-in-KC)

[Bob White]

GIGO

 

GIGO is a computer term for "Garbage in-Garbage out". It is used as as explanation of what causes many problems in retrieving accurate data. The right data was never put in. In scouting that can happen due to many reasons. The majority of which is the responsibility of the unit level volunteers.

 

Remember that the only way the council can mess it up is if the person entering the data makes a mistake. But for that to happen they first have to get the data from the unit, and that doesn't always happen. Then they have to have been given the right data, and that doesn't always happen.

 

We have 50 plus scouts in the troop and we find mistakes in our own records, imagine our council registrar having to track data, not on 50 scouts, but nearly 11,000 scouts.

 

John makes a good point that you should confirm the records on a regular basis. But let's not have the impression that the problems he is discovering were caused just by the council staff.(This message has been edited by Bob White)

[John-in-KC]

While the immediate nned is to see if someone has a 4403 in WORD format!!!....

 

The work of advancement, which the Scouts should never see, is a shared responsibility.

 

Program Leaders (Cubs: DLs/CM)(Boys:SM)(Ven:Adv) share responsibility with advancement coordinator for unit level data entry and production of reports for Council.

 

Council has responsibility to accurately enter the data. Seems to me the best way for the long haul is for units to send ScoutNet compatible electrons to Council.

 

Unit have responsibility to double back around, check what's entered, and make sure mistakes get fixed.

 

Otherwise, you have the train wreck a'comin I described above: Eagle candidate whom the unit thinks is ready, and ScoutNet says isn't ready.

 

John

[Bob White]

"Council has responsibility to accurately enter the data."

 

I hope you are not meaning to imply that the council employee or volunteer purposely tried to mess up the data entry?

 

Or that you expect them to make zero mistakes? After all, no one is expecting that of the units.

 

ScoutNet uses simple Excel spreadsheets for its record storage. That means that it can import comma delineated files. Talk to you registrar to see if it is possible to organize your data stream to match their columns so that your records can up imported.

 

Your right it is a shared responsibility let's make sure to accept the share of mistakes as readily.

 

As far as the form why not just build a word template that dupicates the form?

[John-in-KC]

Rest purged. Not worth my time to urinate and defecate in public.

 

THE NEED IS STILL HERE: HELP!!! DOES ANYONE HAVE A WORD BASED VERSION OF THE ADVANCEMENT REPORT??? If I have to, I'll build one independently, but I'm a lazy cuss, and using other people's work is always useful

 

John(This message has been edited by John-in-KC)

[EagleInKY]

John, I was able to save one out of Troopmaster in .rtf format. It doesn't match it exactly, but it's something to go off of. Send me a PM with your e-mail address and I'll send it to you.

[packsaddle]

John-in-KC, This is a long-standing problem that we've noticed as well. Mistakes during data entry do occur but, as our annual audits show, council records seem to evolve even after the data have been corrected. Boys' records become transposed, lost completely, birthdates and advancements change.

 

We go through a painstaking audit to reconcile these records well before every eagle BOR or at least once per year. However, I have noticed that the troop, at least, seems to be able to keep these records intact and accurate. This means that approximately each year, we use our records to recreate and correct the council records. We accept this as routine.

[Fat Old Guy]

In this world of advanced computer systems that allow you to do everything on-line from ording cheese to doing your taxes, one would think that it would be possible for unit advancement chairs to submit advancement reports on-line.

 

My council has something like 75 gazillion Scouts. I can't imagine the work load that all of those advancement reports creates for the staff.

 

[John-in-KC]

packsaddle write,

 

"We go through a painstaking audit to reconcile these records well before every eagle BOR or at least once per year. However, I have noticed that the troop, at least, seems to be able to keep these records intact and accurate. This means that approximately each year, we use our records to recreate and correct the council records. We accept this as routine."

 

AMEN. It's part of the learning curve. I will do this annually at recharter time going forward.

 

FOG, wrote:

 

"In this world of advanced computer systems that allow you to do everything on-line from ording cheese to doing your taxes, one would think that it would be possible for unit advancement chairs to submit advancement reports on-line."

 

I've told my SM and VCA that they don't just do hardcopy advancement reports anymore: I will give them a ScoutNet compatible floppy of the advancment report along with the hardcopy

 

FINALLY, TO EagleInKY, A PUBLIC THANK YOU!!!! (he shouts) Private message enroute to you.

 

John

[Eagle74]

John, if EagleInKY's form doesn't work out for you, try hooking up with someone in your locale that has the full version of Adobe Acrobat. The pdf form you have can be modified with Acrobat to become a fill-in form. (Or for that matter, the form you have can be scanned and built into a fill-in form using Acrobat) For someone familiar with the software it won't take very long.

[John-in-KC]

I wanted to thank John (Eagle in KY) for his support: That saved council my atrocious printing!! It's worked like a charm, cutting and pasting from one work product into the report!. Thanks again!

 

I also wanted to close this thread out. Overall, about a man-week of evenings went into the records audit.

 

I have a total of Four Advancement reports ready for program leaders signatures, then they go down to council:

- One is for the next Eagle up... his crew advisor is spending quality time with the young man checking the app. I've given them an updated Troopmaster individual history as well as an amended advancement report.

 

- One covers all the missing items. Doesn't matter whether the troop gave inaccurate data or the employee keybanged errors. The information is missing from ScoutNet, and its a unit responsibility to make sure Council gets the data to add in.

 

- One report covers the changes. I went back to the merit badge cards here (we retain the Scout and the unit copy as a business practice).

 

- The last report covers the deletions, where the Scout never earned the item, we never reported it, but shazaam, it was there. Again, not important how it got there, but really important that we get the data right for the current boys and the future.

 

From now on, at recharter time, I'm going to ask for a ScoutNet advancement dump.(This message has been edited by John-in-KC)

[scoutldr]

FOG has the right idea. Here's the concept: following each BOR, the advancement chair logs in to the unit's folder on Scoutnet and enters the advancement info. It will not accept any entries that do not match, e.g., unregistered scout, wrong name (Bobby vice Robert), logic errors (advancement to rank if previous ranks are not entered; not enough time between ranks, Lifesaving MB if Swimming not already entered, etc). Prior to COH, advancement chair goes to scout shop to purchase awards...registrar pulls up current report (awards entered, but not yet purchased), and only those awards are sold. Records are duplicated in at least two locations, unit and Council. In this age of technology, there's absolutely no reason to be doing this repeated work with stubby pencils.

 

Perhaps Oracle Corp would like to take some of their profits and donate the code for this project???

[EagleInKY]

Glad it worked for you John.