Virtual Enrollment Party

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 had a question from MaryAnn in Webster County, and it caused me to re-think what I THOUGHT was true. Turns out I was wrong--how amazing is that?

The question dealt with the disability field on the member record. I've encouraged you to use that to record info that would be useful info for leaders & others to know, not just limiting it to identified disabilities. I thought that info did not print on any reports unless you asked for a disability report format.

However, what we found is that the info DOES print on the "complete report" format as well. And it prints whether or not the Disability checkbox is marked. The info in the text box prints next to a header of "special needs". I guess it makes sense that the info would be included on the "complete report", but in some cases, you may not want that viewed.

If it's sensitive info that you do not want in print, but do want on the youth's record, we only have one option at the present time: When you print the report, you will need to locate the page with that young person's information, white-out the section, and run it through your copy machine. No, that is not ideal, or techno-savvy, or anything else. It's just all we've got right now. Someday, there may be another solution, but not now.

Posted by Becky at 09:52 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)

This posting was inspired by a combination of questions--from Sue in Howard Co. and by Joy in Warren. Although it's too late for those of you who have done your year-end processing, it involves getting some summaries from your group enrollments. These reports would be the kind of thing that you would print and save along with the complete group enrollment file report. They can be used for stakeholders reports or annual review documents, and for a Civil Rights Audit.

The ES237 report is, in truth, not very meaningful. (But VERY necessary!!) Youth are counted and grouped in ways that do not yield the kinds of information that we'd like at a local level. There are no numbers for specific programs (Sue's question), and no ethnic numbers by delivery mode (Joy's concern).

However, under the Reports menu, Statistical Reports option, the third choice (Volunteer/Youth Group Statisticals) will give you some nice summaries of the short-term programs that happened in your county. Below is a screen print of the parameters window.

Printing this report would give you the total numbers for each program that you presented, which is certainly more valuable information than you'll find looking at your ES237!

Some stat reports are appropriate to be done at the state level, but others, like these, are only possible to be done at the county level. Be sure that you don't overlook the the Statistical Reports option when you're printing summaries of both your member enrollment AND your group enrollments at the end of the year!

Posted by Becky at 02:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I got a great question today about adding the LT1R activity code to leader records after they attend a training session. In Adair county, they recorded those training sessions last year as well, so Donna's question was whether she should use LT3 this year, since the leaders already had LT1R from LAST year.

You're going to use LT1R and LT2R every year for the first two training sessions that your leaders attend--and it's based on the first one that the individual attends, not the first one you offer. So one person may have LT1R for a September event, and another might have LT1R for a November event. The only thing that changes on the activity tab is that you'd record a different year... for instance, the trainings that occur this fall would have an activity year of 2008 (which is how we name the 4-H year, by the year in which the stat report will be submitted).

The person in question would have LT1R and LT2R linked to the 2007 activity year (last year) and now would have an additional LT1R linked to this year (2008), for a total of 3 activities listed on that tab.

Don't forget that you also must complete a Training Log entry (under the ES237 menu) for each of those leader trainings that you hold in your county. For more information about the process for recording Leader Training, go to the BR HelpSheets page and you'll find one under the "Working with Records" section entitled "Recording Volunteer Leader Training".

Posted by Becky at 02:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Here's another one of those great questions, this time from Nancy in Van Buren:

"I did a report to get a list of 4-H members e-mail addresses. I have five members who are showing up twice. I clicked on Category—Members, Report Type—Complete, Report Style—E-mail List, and Record Status—New and Return.

Why do I get these five members on there twice? The only thing I’ve noticed is their parents are divorced so there are two households."

I couldn't have answered this question nearly as quickly if Nancy hadn't asked it in such a great way--all the information I needed about the report, as well (and this is the key) as the information about what the "problems" had in common.

The answer is that this is a "feature". Since these kids have two households, both households are going to be listed on the report, so that both emails can show up. This is different than the phone list, which only lists the "first" parent phone number for each youth. "First" in this case means the parent record with the lowest ID number. So there you have it--it's not a bug, it's a feature. By the way, that's the Golden Rule of Programmers...

Posted by Becky at 10:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)