Virtual Enrollment Party

Andrea Traeger posted a comment, dreaming about what a web-based system could do... expanding the horizons of just data entry. It's pretty interesting, and I decided it deserved a public response, because some of you may be thinking some of the same things. My response is going to sound like I'm raining on a parade, but that's not true. In part because of the reorganization, we're taking a closer look at our processes, looking for places to streamline and automate. We're certainly looking at how technology can help us with our work. However, although much of the technology exists for accomplishing many of these tasks, it's not cheap. And presently, there's nothing that would accomplish ALL of our data management needs, although some come pretty close. So, here are some of my thoughts from when I did the research on web-based enrolllment. Bear in mind that most of the things in Andrea's email will happen someday, and we'll probably not even remember when it wasn't that way!!

Most everything in the list can happen at some point in the future -- FOR A COST. There's no free lunch with these web-based products--for example, moving to an on-line entry system costs a sizable upfront investment, then an on-going fee of $2 per registration (for fairs, for conferences, for anything). We either have to add that to a participant fee (we're going to charge kids to apply for scholarships & awards???) or find a way to cough it up ourselves. For state conference, that's $2000. For State Fair, it's going to be over $10,000, which is not chump change!!

The fee payment thing is tough, because some counties pay 4-H fees, some counties have kids pay it, some have donors or clubs, some charge more than $20, and some split fees. And those are just the ones I know about! Add into that the fact that ISU doesn't let us all collect money over the internet--the 4-H Foundation can because they're not really ISU. Even if we overcome that hurdle, credit cards are also not free. The recipient of the money pays a fee for the "convenience" of using credit cards--usually in the range of 1-2% of the sale. Somebody has to come up with that money as well...

Another concern for us is preserving the link between counties and youth/parents/volunteers. Even when young people can enroll on-line, it's going to require a county person to go in and "approve" that enrollment before it becomes active. As far as volunteer background checks, the DCIA requires us to have a "real" signature on forms that give us permission to perform those, not a digital signature. Our feeling is that with new volunteers, we'd certainly like them to have been to the county office to visit about opportunities, and then fill out those forms, etc.

FSQA will continue to plague us, not because we're so in love with the database, but because of some of our commodity group partners. The "age" thing will always be an issue!! I'd like to find a way to integrate that into the enrollment process, however. It won't be right away, but it'll be a goal.

For the short term, the enrollment system would do everything that Blue Ribbon does, which is considerable, truthfully. It will do some things better, a few maybe not so quite well, some differently, and will do some new things as well. The one I'm looking at is more "customizable"--meaning that I can set it up to record those vol. trainings in a more logical way, and counties can also customize what they want to record (beyond the four checkboxes in BR). Features will be integrated as they become available and affordable.

I guess my main deal is going to be getting a replacement system on the ground and running... then we'll play with new stuff!! Job security is a valuable commodity in these economic times...