Will do now.
Didnt see it before.
Ta
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What I voted forâŚalmost acts as a challenge for the cadet to see how scout like they can turn it
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For those of you with a Bader account, we have issued information on the release schedule for ACTO 10, SMS v5 and Cadet Portal at Sign in to your account 
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Will Santa be bringing it to all Sqns at xmas?
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SMS v5 will be available to you alongside the publication of ACTO 10 - the last piece being Cadet Portal. The Beta will go for as long as it takes - if it goes well, we can begin deployment, if not, we will have to fix things and do stuff before we deploy 
classic IT answerâŚ
I hope itâs with us in 2019 after all the hype!
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Again, I would rather beta for longer and get it right than rush and push something out that doesnât work. I am sure everyone would be very quick to criticise if we did the latter.
I am confident in the software side and I am hoping the infrastructure will cope with the added pressure of tens of thousands of extra usersâŚ
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I donât think any of us are in doubt over your approach bucking the trend for the better.
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In fairness, I agree about getting it right first time.
But all the chat has been about 2019. If the plan is now delivery to Sqns in 2020 I think this should be Commâd out. Certainly my expectation from everything thus far is that we would have it on unit by end of 2019.
That is still the goal but it all depends on how the Beta goes and whether the Bader team are ready to push it out. It is a complex thing to deploy and we are going to have to create 35,000 new accounts and then make sure the process for new account creation works on SMS for all future accounts.
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Been a little while so thought it was time for a quick update:
ACTO 10, SMS v5 Events and Cadet Portal e-learning courses
The courses are now basically complete but we are waiting on the provider to fix an issue with the way the courses are accessed. We were aiming for a release of the courses to the Ultilearn production site on 31 Aug but we have been delayed because of this technical issue.
Further information available at: https://rafac.sharepoint.com/sites/BADERHub/SitePages/Bader-Training-Course-Delay.aspx
Cadet Portal
Cadet Portal itself is more or less finished. However, we have revisited the Training Dashboard and we are taking a new approach which is mostly complete and this wonât impact the project Beta start date which will be two weeks after the deployment of SMS v5 - so if SMS deploys on 25 Sep, we will release to Beta on 9 Oct. Apologies, I needed to make that correction to manage expectations.
The cadets accounts will no longer be generated manually by a human during Beta and then the tranche releases across the rest of the Corps. The process is now fully automated which is a good thing as it means we are not relying on one individual to create/delete accounts. For those of you who can remember the Ultilearn deployment, that was done manually and we want to avoid repeating the same mistakes again.
We are currently working on the text message and email side of notifications. We ideally want to ship to tranche 1 with this functionality working e.g. if event = cancelled, cadet is sent an email and a text message to inform them in addition to an in-app notification. This is a pretty meaty project and the guys are making great progress and we starting doing some functionality testing on that today. We are having to essentially build an API that interfaces between SMS/Cadet Portal and the service provider (Government Notify service - see here https://www.notifications.service.gov.uk/).
The My Brassard piece is there in its initial form and cadets will able to see their badges in the right place, access the dress regs that tell them the measurements and view the measurements visually. We have future plans for this area but we are happy with it for the initial release.
Loads of bug fixes and tidying up going on as well and we have had some great testing conducted by other CFAVs outside of my team which has been incredibly valuable.
The Cadet Portal deployment strategy and plan can be found at https://rafac.sharepoint.com/sites/cadetportal/SitePages/Cadet-Portal-Deployment-Strategy.aspx.
SMS
SMS development is going really well and we are so close to being finished. The deployment date is between 11-25 Sep 19 and we are going to hit that (fingers crossed). Cadet Portal Beta and the subsequent deployment cannot start until SMS is in place.
The final version of ACTO 10 has been approved and is ready to go along with an IBN. These will be released shortly before the release of SMS v5.
Couple of samples of new functionality:
SMS notifications: https://rafac.sharepoint.com/sites/smsportal/SitePages/In-App-Notifications.aspx
Personal settings: https://rafac.sharepoint.com/sites/smsportal/SitePages/Personnal-Settings.aspx
Bader Conference
The Bader Conference is this weekend at Cranwell and we will be demonstrating SMS/Cadet Portal etc. Comdt is providing the opening address and other speakers include SO1 Policy & Plans and RCN covering ACTO 10 and the new IT Strategy which is being launched shortly.
So, its full steam ahead!
Slight edit above to the beta release dates
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Why release the IBN which says the mandatory course for ACTO 10 is now available and must be done by all when it isnât even on Ultilearn?
Yes, thatâs a fair comment. If we werenât having a technical issue with the course (due to the external provider), the course would be available.
Patience is a virtue!
This is just been published which is well worth a read:
https://rafac.sharepoint.com/sites/smsportal/SitePages/Introducing-Event-Approvals.aspx
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How is road marching a high risk to life activity? Genuine question.
But this does look brilliant well done
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Depends on the traffic
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It is if the road is the M4.
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Great question. Essentially, because the Command Board has decided that it is although I appreciate the actual risk relating to road marching is low. Personally, I think it is historic because it used to sit under the purview of an Adventure Training event therefore requires authorisation by an SME.
Let me engage with the Road Marching Officer and SO1 Plans & Policy and I will come back to you with a better answer - I am sat in the Bader Conference with SO1 now so I will see if I can get his opinion for you
To be honest I can see how it can be if the correct precautions were not taken.
Our local wing train on country roads with no pavement that are relatively quiet BUT they are NSL rated roads with lots of winding bends every now and again they get boy racers, or car rallies driving through the area. I have witnesses cars being rolled and going into fields on the road.
If they didnât take appropriate additional precautions such as:
1 minibus out ahead with signage and hazard lights
1 minibus about 200mts behind the marchers
signage placed at junctions
I could see a car causing a very nasty accident.
In this case a second set of eyes reviewing the RA would be beneficial I would think.
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Donât worry, I hate road marching and would willingly see it dropped as an activity. Donât do anything to make it easier on my behalf
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