SOAR Customers,
We are pleased to announce that the new version of the SOAR Roster feature is available on your unit website !
New Roster Feature
For full details on the capabilities of the Roster release see our new Feature Guide for the Unit Roster at www.soarol.com/guides/UnitRoster.pdf. This contains all the details you want !
This release removes a lot of restrictions that the old Roster feature had
- No limit on number of Scouts or Adults in a Family
- Scouts belong to a primary Den/Patrol
- Adults can now belong to the Den/Patrol directly
- Scouts can belong to many Groups (the old “non Den/Patrol” option)
- Adults can belong to many Groups
- No limit on number of Den/Patrol Leaders
It also improves usability of the Roster feature for Administrators
- Change Den, Patrol, and Group assignments for all members from a single screen
- Change Leadership Positions for all members from a single screen
- Change Website Permissions for all members from a single screen
- Delete multiple Dens, Patrols, Groups at a single time
- Add and Edit an entire family at the same time
We have also added the following new functionality
- Inactive members – keep a record of past unit members
- Separate fields for First Name, Nickname, Middle, Last Name, and Suffix
- Option to display Nickname instead of First Name
- Per email address delivery choices for Email Lists and EBlast
- Groups can not only have Scouts and Adults as members, they can auto generate Email Lists
- The ability to store all sorts of new data
- Extended personal data – BSA ID, Birthday, Driver’s License
- BSA Medical Form dates
- Medical Information – Emergency Contacts, Insurance, Doctor, Medications, Allergies
- Free form notes section
- 4 custom fields you can label and use any way you want
- The ability to decided what sections of the above information you want/don’t want to use in your Roster
- A whole new shared account ‘roster’ and ‘Manage Roster’ permission so you can give permission to Roster managers without giving them full Administrative rights
- Permissions system for what member categories can view different Roster information
- TroopMaster Import includes Alt Tab information (say what!) and other fields we can now store
To Be Completed
While running through the conversion of old Roster data into the new Roster feature, we found three conditions that we need to double check we are handling properly. These affect the following features of your SOAR website. We have disabled these features temporarily until we can get a little sleep and be of sound mind to complete the double check.
- Roster Export
- TroopMaster Import
- Roster Check
The good news is that you should have plenty to read up on and lots of new features/options to play with while we complete that. We will send a separate email when we reactive these features.
Impacts
- Email – While your SOAR website was not available during the conversion process this morning, email delivery was not affected.
- EBlast – For those who have automatic EBlasts on Wednesday, it went out about 3 hours later than normal.
What’s Next?
After you start reviewing the new Roster feature, you will start to see a lot of possibilities. Not only is there a whole lot of new features and usability improvements, the base for future advanced features is now available.
For the next few months, we are going to be responding the common requests for Roster “tweaks” as well as trying to fit in some of the other smaller request that have been on the ToDo list for too long.
We will also be starting the planning for an Advancement Tracking feature.
What do I need to do?
- Read the new Unit Roster feature guide at Admin/Online Help/Feature Guides.
- Get familiar with how the new Roster works and what options are available to you.
- Double check your Roster at Admin/Members/Manage and Menu/Pack Roster and Troop Roster.
- The one “not perfect” conversion of data was City, State, and Zipcode. These used to be stored in a single field. Splitting them into 3 separate fields may not be perfect if you did not that fields completely filled out.
- Start looking at the new Roster options and determine what you would like turn on first
