eTrailToEagle Blog

2010 Rank Requirement Changes

Nathan Anderson — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 18:04:00 GMT

Effective on January 1, 2010, the centennial edition of the Boy Scout Handbook will come with several rank requirement changes. Below are the changes according to the National Scout Boy Scouts of America Website:

Tenderfoot

A Scout must teach another person how to tie a square knot using the EDGE model (explain, demonstrate, guide, and enable). He must also be able to discuss four specific examples of how he lived the points of the Scout Law in his daily life.

Second Class

A Scout must discuss the principles of Leave No Trace and explain the factors to consider when choosing a patrol site and where to pitch a tent.
He must explain what respect is due the flag of the United States.
He must again discuss four examples of how he lived four different points of the Scout Law in his daily life.
He must earn an amount of money agreed upon by the Scout and his parents and save at least 50 percent of it.

First Class

An additional requirement to the 10 separate troop/patrol activities states he must demonstrate the principles of Leave No Trace on these outings.
He must discuss four more examples of how he lived the remaining four points of the Scout Law in his daily life.

Life

A Scout must use the EDGE model to teach a younger Scout a specified skill.

Star, Life, and Eagle

Troop Webmaster and Leave No Trace trainer are two new leadership positions.

Source: http://www.scouting.org/scoutsource/BoyScouts/AdvancementandAwards/2010RankUpdates.aspx

eTrailToEagle will be updated with these new rank requirements on January 1, 2010.

Getting Parents Involved in Scouting

Nathan Anderson — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 17:08:00 GMT

Getting parents involved in your scouting program makes a huge difference. We can't stress that enough!

Please note that as you create accounts for parents on eTrailToEagle.com, you must assign their son(s) to them or the parent will not be able to track the progress of their son(s). To learn how to do this, please follow the instructions on this page:

http://connect.etrailtoeagle.com/blogs/etrail/archive/2009/01/26/linking-a-parent-with-their-son.aspx

If you have any questions on this feature, please let us know.

eTrailToEagle.com Support

New Report: Ward Directory

Nathan Anderson — Fri, 15 May 2009 00:04:00 GMT

Today we released a Ward Directory report. This will allow you to print a report with your Ward's contact information. We will be providing various options with the report, but for now, it is a general listing of young men, parents and leaders. To access this report, do the following:

Login to eTrailToEagle.com
Click on Duty to God Tracking
Click on Reports
Select Ward Reports
Select Ward Directory and click on Run

If you have ideas on how to improve the report, please let us know and we will work to improve it.

New Feature: Renaming Patrols

Nathan Anderson — Wed, 13 May 2009 14:45:00 GMT

We just released a new feature that allows you to rename your existing Patrols. Thanks to all those users that send us their suggestions. To access this feature do the following:

Login to eTrailToEagle.com
Click on Scout Tracking
Click on Patrols (from the menu on the left)

Here you can add new patrols, delete a patrol and even rename a patrol. Please note that you will not be able to delete a Patrol unless the Patrol is empty.

If you have any questions on how to use the Patrol section of the site, please let us know by click the Contact Us option at the top of the page.

Activity Module Updated

Nathan Anderson — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 17:52:00 GMT

We have redesigned how our Scout Activty Module works. Troops use this feature to track all of the different activities that they are involved in. Many Troops use it as a Calendar by entering in all of their activities. Some of the specific activities you can track are:

Campouts
Hikes
Service Projects
Meetings
etc.

How many times have you asked, "Does Billy have enough service hours?" or Does Billy have enough camping nights? Stop asking and start tracking. If you track these types of activities on our system, the Individual Reports will show you the total number of nights, miles and hours for these activity types for each scout.

Another feature we just finished allows you to record adults as attendees to all of these events. Before you could only select Scouts as attendees.

We have also included a new report that shows all events based on a date range. You can use this report to show upcoming events and use it like a Calendar.

We appreciate everyone's feedback thus far. Look for more improvements to come over the next few days.

Troop Directory Report

Nathan Anderson — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 06:04:00 GMT

Today we release a Troop Directory report. This will allow you to print a report with your Troop's contact information. We will be providing various options with the report, but for now, it is a general listing grouped by Patrol. To access this report, do the following:

Login to eTrailToEagle.com
Click on Scout Tracking
Click on Reports
Select Unit Reports
Select Troop Directory and click on Run

If you have ideas on how to improve the report, please let us know and we will work to improve it.

Transferring Records

admin — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 22:13:03 GMT

Has your Ward split or reorganized? Has your troop recently split or reorganized? Have you had a young man move to or from another unit?

If so, we can save you a lot of time. We can easily transfer records between units and wards as long as they both are using eTrailToEagle.com. If they aren’t using our site yet, encourage them to sign up today.

To make this transfer happen, please send us information on what exactly you need transferred. Please list names of the youth, parents and leaders that need to be moved. You will also need to have written permission (e-mail) from the other Unit before we continue with the transfer.

Once we have this information, we can do the transfer. If you have any questions, please contact us by clicking on the Contact Us link at the top of the page.

Our blog has moved...

Nathan Anderson — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 21:16:00 GMT

We have moved our blog to a new location. Our blog is now part of eTrail Connect. Please update your bookmarks as needed:

New Location:
http://connect.etrailtoeagle.com/blogs/etrail

New RSS Feed:
http://connect.etrailtoeagle.com/blogs/etrail/rss.aspx

eTrail Connect is a new collaborative site that we are creating that allows you to share ideas and information related to Scouting and the LDS Duty to God program. That's right, we want you to contribute. If you have helpful ideas, activities, games, camping locations, spreadsheets, documents, photos, etc. We want to hear about it. eTrail Connect will have places to share this information with the scouting community.

If you are interested is helping us with this site, please let us know.

Thanks,

eTrail Connect Team
http://connect.etrailtoeagle.com
support@etrailtoeagle.com

Scout Report Subscriptions Easier With New Update

Nathan Anderson — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 03:08:00 GMT

We have just released a new update to the Report Subscriptions feature in our Scout tracking module. The Report Subscriptions feature automatically sends reports based on a schedule you select. We have modified this feature to allow you to easily pick the e-mail addresses of leaders and parents you have in the system. This will save you time and also allow you to be more accurate.

Automate the delivery of reports to parents and leaders.

We also fixed a problem where our report delivery system was having troubles sending some reports. We completely redesigned our report engine and now you will see that each report is delivered on the schedule you select. We are sending out thousands of reports to our users each week. If you aren’t taking advantage of this feature, you should start today. To start using this feature, do the following:

Login to eTrailToEagle.com
Click on Scout Tracking
Click on Report Subscriptions
Click Create to start a new subscription

Tip: Double check and make sure that you have the correct e-mail address for each parent and leader. Many reports do not get delivered because the e-mail address was entered into the system incorrectly.

Feedback: We know that many of you use this feature. We would like to get your feedback on how the report subscriptions feature has helped you in your efforts to track the progress in your unit. Also, do you find that the parents would prefer a report e-mailed to them, or do they prefer to login and view the progress at any time?

Automatic Report Problem

Nathan Anderson — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 22:06:00 GMT

Many of you have commented that reports didn’t get delivered this morning. We have looked into this problem and found the root cause. Our server is getting too overloaded. This week we will be upgrading to a new dedicated server with a well established hosting provider. This new server will give us room to grow and handle the load as we continue to grow.

The good news is that we are growing at a very rapid rate. We appreciate everyone that uses the site. Please know that we are committed to supporting and enhancing the site. Please look for a lot of changes coming over the next few weeks.

Many of you have asked how you can help. The best way to help is to continue to use the site, refer others to the site, and provide ideas on ways to enhance and make the site easier to use.

Thanks for your support and your patience!

Roles and Permissions

Nathan Anderson — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 04:07:00 GMT

One of our goals here at eTrailToEagle.com is to make tracking easy. In an effort to make things easier, we have modified how permissions are assigned. For our Scout tracking module, you have 4 options for permissions when you are creating an adult account. These options include:

Scout Leader - full access to make changes and create accounts
Scout Leader Read Only - can view information, but can’t make changes
Scout Parent - full access to make changes to son(s) record
Scout Parent Read Only - can view son(s) information, but can’t make changes

The same permissions are available for our Duty to God tracking module.

A new change is that an account can only be a member of one role at a time. Before, we allowed an account to be a member of a leader role and a parent role. This was causing a lot of confusion so we decided to simplify. We have also updated the pages that list all leaders and parents and made it easier to work with. You will now see a complete list of all leaders and parents. If a leader or parent doesn’t have a role, they will show up red in the list. Please note that a leader will not be able to access anything if they do not belong to a role.

We are interested in your feedback on these changes. Let us know if you think it makes it easier to create and manage leader and parent accounts.

Updated Quorum Detail Report

Nathan Anderson — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 05:52:00 GMT

We have made a change to our Quorum Detail report. We have added short descriptions to the report so you can easily see what the requirements are. See the sample report below:

To run this report, click on Duty to God tracking. Then click on Reports. Then run the Quorum Detail report.

Linking a parent with their son

Nathan Anderson — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 05:54:00 GMT

When you create an account for a Parent, do not forget to assign the parent to a son. If you forget this step, the parent will not see the records for their son(s).

To link a parent to their son(s) please do the following:

From Duty to God Module

Click on Ward Leaders link
Click on Assign YM to Parent
Click on Parent’s name and then select Young Man’s name from the list
Click on Assign to Selected Parent

From Scout Tracking Module

Click on Parents and Leaders link
Click on Assign Scout to Parent
Click on Parent’s name and then select Scout’s name from the list
Click on Assign to Selected Parent

Rapid Growth

Nathan Anderson — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 04:30:00 GMT

We continue to grow rapidly. Our Duty to God module is now supporting over 4100 Wards. We are excited about the growth and popularity of our site.

Each day we receive a lot of e-mail from many of you. We are trying to answer each one and address the questions you have. Many of you are submitting ideas for improvements and we are gathering all of those ideas together and trying to implement a roadmap with timelines for these changes.

Coming soon we will be rolling out a new design of our website. The site design will have a more professional look with easier navigation.

We will also be rolling out a new Calendar feature with the Scout module. Your activities will show up in the calendar. You will be able to easily edit and make changes to your activities directly from the calendar. The calendar will also support the iCal format so you can see the calendar events from your favorite calendar application.

We appreciate your support of eTrailToEagle.com and look forward to working with you on improving the site.

Questions about Activities

Nathan Anderson — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 04:12:00 GMT

As questions arise about the use of our site, we will post both the question and the answer here.

The following questions were asked:

How do I add start and ending times into the activities?
How do I change an activity type? I would like to edit the activity type to add words such as cycling or merit badge.

Answer from eTrail:

Right now you cannot enter start and stop times. However, in about two weeks, we are updating how we track activities. We are integrating a calendar function with this. You will then be able to add start and stop times. Using the calendar makes it a lot easier to work with all of the activities.
To change the activity type
1. Click on Activities from the main menu
2. Click on the Activity Summary tab
3. Locate the activity you want to modify and click the edit button
4. Now you can modify the Activity details.