Volunteer Software Development Team - New Cadet Portal

As I said, this is a discussion regarding CP. If you wanna talk tablets take it to a new topic.

My thanks to @mikellee for holding the fort!

I wonā€™t be posting anything meaningful for a little while. Our son arrived yesterday morning at a healthy 8 pounds 11 ounces. Baby and mum both doing well :+1:

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And I have to add - itā€™s a good job the lad takes after his mother and not his father :slight_smile:

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I think youā€™re proposing a solution there to a problem that doesnā€™t exist.

A list of names isnā€™t priviledged information (as as suggested above, an online sign-up sheet showing other cadets signing up is no different to a paper version)

Cadets may also want to know if their mates are going before they sign up too.
As staff, I like to know which other staff are going so I can avoid the real bottom-feeders.

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@incubus

And I thought I was the only one who sometimes skipped events due attendance by throbbing oxygen thieves.

Sadly not always possible!

@james_elliott
Congrats on baby 2!

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Finally got round to watch the video, apologies I was basing the comments on assumptions from discussions on the thread.

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Twoā€™s always more fun than one ā€¦ all the best.

A sign up sheet is at the squadron which is where we should be doing Air Cadet admin. I have no choice any way as for around 7/8 years Iā€™ve not been able to log in at work, so 20 minutes wandering through deleting and doing emails and other bits and thatā€™s it per night. I could spend more time, but choose not to, just means planning what needs to be done.

There seems to be a moan about doing too much admin, yet because this and everything is online people seem to be prepared to do it as they can sit doing it in the office, at lunch, down the pub, out for meal, but the way to actually reduce this is not do it away from the squadron.

Speak for yourself, Iā€™d much rather do my admin at home where itā€™s warm and comfy and the coffee is good, and spend my time at the squadron actually doing stuff with the cadets.

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I hate the nights I get stuck in the office. Iā€™m not there because I like Admin, soā€¦

Also, I find thereā€™s more distractions at the unit than at home. Naturally that wonā€™t be the case for everyone.

Online Admin and data access allows the flexibility to do it anywhere, anytime. And yes, thereā€™s been times where Iā€™ve not been able to do something, because I accidentally left the required info at the squadron.

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It may have been covered, but a question was raised in watching the videoā€¦

Is there going to be the ability at Wing/Region Level to select attendees? And to notify those both successful and unsuccessful?

Where events require down-select, for example over-subscribed training/shooting/fieldcraft eventsā€¦
How does the organiser ensure cadets clicking ā€œI want to goā€ donā€™t just blinking well turn up?

I recently got burned with a cadet dump and run at the gates of a military establishment ā€œready for my courseā€. His squadron had not placed a bid and therefore his name was not at the gate itself, a bed had not been arranged, and a space on the course wasnā€™t assured (first aid ratios). He was lucky that, as usual, we had had a male of the correct age group on that exact course call in sick. (I swear the day I purposefully overbook is the day everyone turns up! Iā€™m just not brave enough to try).

I see the ability for cadets to view proper training courses personally to be a huge boon. There are certainly Squadrons we all know that donā€™t pass on these opportunities to their cadets. This should maximise access to all.

But I also want to minimise the above situation, where a cadet clicks ā€œapplyā€ and immediately assumes theyā€™re going.

Hi there,

We are focusing on Sqn and Multi-Sqn events to begin with in MVP which caters for the majority of local level events. This will include being able confirm a place to a cadet or tell them they do not have a place or put them on the reserve list.

The next step after that is to look at selections from Sqn, to Wg, to Region, to Corps and back down to the individual cadets selected - which sounds like what you are referring to.

Cheers

James

This function of staff confirming a space to a cadet is vital.

Will this be actioned by staff through SMS via new functionality?

Thanks for clearing it up for me!
In the meantime Iā€™ll keep running my stuff the old fashioned way: admin orders and a whole ton of application emails :smiley:
Shame, the advertising ability of that route is limited and I hope the cadet portal will sort it

Yep :+1:

As we keep saying, MVP is Minimum Viable Product i.e. version 0.1ā€¦future versions will include selections up and down as well as the ability to advertise from the top down through an announcements tool (we havenā€™t figured out who would be empowered to advertise anything across the Corps/Regions/Wings yet).

This looks great. Will it be available to CCF (with the relevant changes to training programme etc.)?

No, unfortunately not due to the CCFs reliance on Westminster. Cadet Portal is part of the Bader SMS infrastructure and I briefed Wg Cdr CCF on this in September face to face.

Thatā€™s a shame, especially as our unit uses SMS for everything (even though itā€™s a bit of duplication of information) but I understand not everyone does. Good luck with it though, I think itā€™s a great idea.