Virtual Enrollment Party

Good thing I mentioned that there is lots more that I think, or think I know, than what I really KNOW. But, thanks to you, now I KNOW something new.

I did not know that Cougar Mountain was totally web-based. When I got the tidbit about the internet changing, I was reassured that since Cougar Mountain has to continue to exist, so that's the same as Blue Ribbon. Not necessarily.

HOWEVER, with a dandy little program named VPN, available thru ISU, you CAN access any of the ISUE servers from any computer. That's how I do it at home. I can see/access the S drive, the X drive, and the web server. Speed is dependent on your internet provider speed. That will be one option for continuing Blue Ribbon on the X drive, unless there's something else in the works that I'm not privy to.

Sue reminded me that the counties were also offered the option of having a "local server", meaning a shared drive located in your office, presumably not connected to ISU. That would be another option for relocating your own Blue Ribbon data, but it still means you have to send backups. Should speed up the access time, will allow multiple users, but doesn't give me access like I have now.

The big deal will be switching to a new program, which will be totally web-based, meaning that you can use it from anywhere. That access is even more important now than it was in the beginning of the search.

Jill was the first one to volunteer to try whatever new system we get, which I think is admirable, but cause for concern about her mental stability... nonetheless, it's in ink, Jill. No backing out now. I still just have to find the money!!

Keep responding. Some comments I'll post, and others, like this one, I'll just answer as a batch with a new posting.

Posted by Becky at 11:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I had an excellent question from Alison in Cerro Gordo last week, and decided to post it for the rest of you as well. Sometimes it's good to remember that there are always people doing this for the first time, and some stuff may not look as logical as it could!!

"We had leader training last night and I went in today to put in my leaders who attended. But, the leader training from last year was still on there? Does it stay on from year to year? Also both fall and spring were on as 2008? Do I code both trainings from this year as 2009?"

The answer is that everything is working the way that it should. We decided to make the leader training into an activity code specifically so it would not disappear with year-end processing. And, by using a different year with the code, you can use the same codes (LT1R and LT2R) year after year--saving creating new codes every year. Using this system gives us a historical record (well, it will someday) of the leader's annual training.

And, yes Alison has it right about the year. Even though the fall training is technically held during 2008, it's a training for the 2009 4-H program year, so both fall and spring will be entered as 2009.

If everybody out there does this the same way, then I can get some meaningful lists and reports of leaders who have attended training, which is very important to our Volunteer Development POW committee. If some of you get creative, then I'm going to have big problems getting at the data that we need... so it's important that we're all on the same page!!

Will this be handled the same way in a new enrollment program? Probably not. I have the opportunity to influence how the new program will handle this information, and I want it to be pretty darn simple and fool-proof. BUT I want it to return not only lists of leaders who HAVE attended training, but also those who HAVE NOT. That's the tricky part!!

As always, keep those questions coming, and please feel free to comment back on the blog!

Posted by Becky at 08:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I got an excellent question from a newcomer today, Janel in Webster County. She had (intelligently) duplicated a new member's record for their mom, who's a new leader. Saved herself typing in a whole bunch of info a second time. However, it also brought the member's school code into the record, and it's virtually impossible to delete a school code once it's in there. What to do?

Here's a quick fix that will serve you well as you enroll kids and leaders. Go to your File menu, and choose School Codes. Add a new record, and leave both fields blank, then Save. What will happen is that the next time you use the pull-down school menu on a record, there will be a blank link at the top, enabling you to have that field empty.
View image of School Codes screen

THANKS, Janel, for the GREAT question--and inspiring a new blog post! For the rest of you, even though you've noticed I've been a big lax on this blog, it's about to get busy again. I want to finish up with my series of State Fair questions, and then start on some new conversations...

Thanks for "listening"!

Posted by Becky at 10:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've had several questions in the past couple of weeks, all related to project codes, and most related to this year's winner of the "We Should Have Thought About that Twice" Award--Horseless Horse.

Horseless Horse has been project 1214. REAL Horse Level 1 was project 1211. The problem was that although that was Level 1, the project literature we use for the project has "Level 2" in its title, & Level 1 of that curriculum is Horseless Horse. That seemed to be too confusing, so a decision was made (and nobody asked me) to re-number and re-name all the horse projects, assigning current numbers to different projects. That's where the problem came in.

How does this affect your enrollment process? Well, it's giving us a great opportunity to know who has installed the project and lit file updates. If you are trying to enter a project enrollment for 1210 (Horseless Horse) and it's telling you it's an invalid code, it's because you haven't done those updates. They are available on the BR Updates webpage, along with instructions for downloading/installing.

A few key facts: Installing now will NOT affect any enrollments you already have done. There were many price changes in the literature, so if you DON'T install them, not only will you have the Horseless Horse Issue, but also your lit orders will not add up the same in BR as they do on the web order form. You only have to do this installation ONCE, regardless of how many computers are loaded with Blue Ribbon. And, finally, you should not log in as Administrator when you do this.

Posted by Becky at 09:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As you're entering new young people into the Blue Ribbon program, you may find that your drop-down menu with the schools listed either isn't complete, or is TOO complete!! You can't type directly into that list from the member screen, but you can edit it. Enrollment time is the best time to do this, because you're going to be looking at each member's record anyway, so if you delete a school (spelling, probably) that was assigned to a kid, you can just assign a new one when you re-enroll him/her.

Under your File menu, you SHOULD find an option for School Codes. When you choose that, you'll see the screen shown below. You can type in the fields, add new records, and delete duplicate records (caused by spelling the same school name two different ways).

Posted by Becky at 02:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

While you're entering your new enrollments and re-enrollments, it's a really good time to do some clean-up on some of your files. This first post is about club files, but there will be more posted in the next couple of weeks.

Go to the File menu and Choose Club/Unit Codes. Look at the following things for each club:

Does this club still exist? If not, it's time to delete the record. If you get an error message about members in the club, you can find them in the Club Member Query and get rid of those memberships.

The integration codes--I believe that nearly every one should be marked as "mixed community" because so few communities any more are not integrated. Then look at Integrated Group--if there is one member of that club who is anything other than Non-Hispanic White, then that box should also be checked.

The primary leader contact--is this still correct information? Sometimes when leaders change, we might forget to change the club record.

Delivery mode--FFA groups are "not a youth group unit". So are any groups comprised entirely of adults. Clover Kids could be "after school club", or "special interest" or even possibly "school aged child care". Project clubs that actually meet (horse clubs, etc) could be either "community club" or "special interest" depending on how often and regularly they meet, and whether they have officers, a checking account, and/or other aspects that you would expect in a community club.

Date organized--if you have the information about this stored somewhere, but not in Blue Ribbon, you might want to consider putting it in here just for easy access. It's quicker to look it up in Blue Ribbon than to dig through filing cabinets!

Checkboxes--same thing as date organized. If you want to start tracking any of those, now is a great time to get the information entered into the program.

Many of the clean-up tasks will be very quick--especially after the first year that you go in and start organizing!!

Posted by Becky at 11:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)