National's Training Validation Site

[agdparker]

Has anyone tried using the training validation functionality on myscouting.org? I've been trying to get some information out of it and I have to say I do not understand how it's querying their training database.

As an example, if I search by my first and last name, city and state, it finds nothing. If I search by my BSA ID, it finds all of my training and shows my name correctly. Since I can't see a city or state, I'm not sure what's in National's database. I know for sure that my address at council is correct because I can print the unit roster out of the online advancement system and it shows it correctly.

While I have most of the BSA ID's, I wanted to see if there were perhaps multiple entries for some of our leaders that needed to be merged. I was using the other filter fields besides BSA ID and they only sporadically return data when I would expect it.

Hoping someone knows how to twist the site's arm to be nice and give me the data!

[smtroop168]

Scoutnet has many issues and this is one of them.

Bring on the new Silver Buffalo winner Bill Gates and get his bubbas to fix it.

[RWSmith]

Last time I used it (about a month ago), you had two search options:

• First, you may search for an individual record by BSA Member ID, or by MyScouting "Username", which could be anything.
  
• Or, you may do a batch search by various parameters... i.e., Last Name and Council, etc.

User-friendly? No way. Workable? Yeah, esp. once you figure out how to do an effective batch search.

[agdparker]

It's not even a question of user friendliness. It plain doesn't work. As I mentioned, putting in data that should return results doesn't work consistently, if at all. I wouldn't mind if it had some trick to it, but just not working isn't helpful.

[kwildman]

i use the BSA ID numbers. You have them for everyone on your roster that comes with your charter. If the training doesnt match up with what the leader says then it is their burden to correct it. Multiple BSA ID numbers typically only occur when an adult leader lets his membership lapse and then rejoins later. the new system isnt perfect but it does make verifying training for the units much much easier.

[smtroop168]

I just used it and it worked fine.

[agdparker]

I agree using the ID's seems to work the most consistently. I try to use those where possible, but as I mentioned we suspect multiple registrations for some of them.

smtroop168, how did you run the query? As I mentioned, using the ID seems to work most consistently. Using the other filters (first/last name, city, etc) seems to be inconsistent in the results that are returned.

[smtroop168]

I did it every way you can. By ID only, Membership # only, email only, last name w/ city, last name w/city and state. Worked he same each time.

[agdparker]

Interesting. I'm not sure what's going on then.

[Fred Johnson]

Hmmm.... I think things have improved lately. I've found inconsistent results since the training validation feature was released. Now, I get 74 training records whether I search by BSA ID; lastname and city; or email address. Much better. Not sure if I should trust it yet though.

[kwildman]

i think it more a case of GIGO. GIGO - garbage in garbage out. The data is only as accurate and good as each council enters it.

[WVBeaver05]

It's not even a question of user friendliness. It plain doesn't work. As I mentioned, putting in data that should return results doesn't work consistently, if at all. I wouldn't mind if it had some trick to it, but just not working isn't helpful.

I have the same experience that you do.

The results are very inconsistent. I have reported it, with no results (and I mean NO RESULTS).

As mentioned, Member number seems to be the best. UserName seems to work too. The other searches are unpredictable. Sometimes VERY unpredictable.

As a computer professional, ANYTIME a computer system behaves unpredicably there is a problem and you must be suspect of all results.

YiS

[bnelso]

The training validation looks at ScoutNET records. The key to use is Member ID. It is the most reliable to find a ScoutNET record.

As long as the same member ID is in your myscouting profile, your e-Learning training will go into ScoutNET (normally takes about 2 hours to record.)

As for what it takes to be considered trained, the folks at national have put up some pretty good guides last week. They are on the right at: http://www.scouting.org/training

What you see with Training Validation is what is in ScoutNET under that member ID. If stuff isn't showing up, it means it isn't in ScoutNET under that member ID>

[RWSmith]

Uh, two things to remember:

1. You can "register" as a user on MyScouting; take training (e.g., YPT); and, it will be recorded. However, it will not be "linked" to a BSA Member ID number until he/she adds it to his/her MyScouting account profile.
   
2. So, not only can a MyScouting account have no BSA Member ID number, a MyScouting user account may also have more than one BSA Member ID number associated with his/her account, or not.

As noted earlier... GI -> GO.

[bnelso]

Uh, two things to remember:

1. You can "register" as a user on MyScouting; take training (e.g., YPT); and, it will be recorded. However, it will not be "linked" to a BSA Member ID number until he/she adds it to his/her MyScouting account profile.
   
2. So, not only can a MyScouting account have no BSA Member ID number, a MyScouting user account may also have more than one BSA Member ID number associated with his/her account, or not.

As noted earlier... GI -> GO.

As far as I know, the training validation doesn't look at myscouting records. It only looks at ScoutNET records. You can't be in ScoutNET without a membership number. Everyone gets a number.

[WVBeaver05]

What you see with Training Validation is what is in ScoutNET under that member ID. If stuff isn't showing up, it means it isn't in ScoutNET under that member ID>

Probably correct. I have not had a problem with what shows up. It is the search to find someone that is unpredictable.

YiS

[WVBeaver05]

Uh, two things to remember:

1. You can "register" as a user on MyScouting; take training (e.g., YPT); and, it will be recorded. However, it will not be "linked" to a BSA Member ID number until he/she adds it to his/her MyScouting account profile.
   
2. So, not only can a MyScouting account have no BSA Member ID number, a MyScouting user account may also have more than one BSA Member ID number associated with his/her account, or not.

As noted earlier... GI -> GO.

As far as I know, the training validation doesn't look at myscouting records. It only looks at ScoutNET records. You can't be in ScoutNET without a membership number. Everyone gets a number.

Training validation does look at MyScouting. Here is the experiment that I performed last year. (It was actually to see how this would work for new leaders.)

Told Son to register and take Youth Protection.
Few minutes later he asked for his member number.
Told him to register without it.
He did and then took the training.
I searched for him by his MyScouting username (other searches didn't work).
Found him and his YPT record.
Told him to update his profile with his member number.
He did.
Searched again (within less than 5 min) and found not only his YPT but TLT from a few years before.
Searched again by member number and got the same records (I wish I had searched by member number before, but I didn't think of it - wasn't part of what I was testing).

So, clearly, the Training validation picked up his YPT from somewhere before it was linked to his member number. Not sure the details of how it does it are important, but it does.

YiS

[bnelso]

I'll ask around on Monday and see what answers I get

[bnelso]

OK, here is what I found out about the training validation site:

What comes back varies depending on how you query:

If the MyScouting account profile has a member ID in the profile, the data returned is the data that is in the ScoutNET (PAS) record for that ID. In this case it is one and the same because they update the ScoutNET member ID with the courses completed in E-Learning, plus it will display courses entered in ScoutNET.

If the MyScouting account profile has no member ID in the profile, the data returned is the data for E-Learning course completion for the account user name. This will be limited to courses completed online for the user name and none of these courses will have been updated to a ScoutNET record.

[WVBeaver05]

OK, here is what I found out about the training validation site:

What comes back varies depending on how you query:

If the MyScouting account profile has a member ID in the profile, the data returned is the data that is in the ScoutNET (PAS) record for that ID. In this case it is one and the same because they update the ScoutNET member ID with the courses completed in E-Learning, plus it will display courses entered in ScoutNET.

If the MyScouting account profile has no member ID in the profile, the data returned is the data for E-Learning course completion for the account user name. This will be limited to courses completed online for the user name and none of these courses will have been updated to a ScoutNET record.

Yep. I agree with that.

Still leaves the question of why in the world the search is so unpredictable? I would say that they should either fix it or eliminate it. I would be OK with search only working when you know either the member number or the MyScouting ID (if you don't know one of those, why are you searching?).

YiS