What is Scoutnet certified and how would I get that?

[BartHumphries]

Regarding programs that interface with the online advancement tool, what is Scoutnet certified and how would I get a program that I wrote to become such?

[UCEagle72]

Guess I would start here: http://www.scouting.org/sitecore/content/Licensing.aspx

 

I think this is more about Licensing than 'certification'.

[Basementdweller]

I am guessing a whole bunch of money is involved.

[nldscout]

You just know that if national is involved then money is going to be required.

[BartHumphries]

Thanks, UCEagle72. I was just looking around at the advancement tools that interface with the official online advancement tool and it seemed that most of these programs had been created back in the 90's or something, maybe with Access '97 or something. Some of the free "programs" are just really massive Excel sheets. It seems that I could make a better looking, faster acting, more responsive program, but I'd need to know how to interface with the online advancement tool, what sort of API I'd have to code in.

 

If they want to charge me money to sell the program, then I'm perfectly fine with just giving it away after I finish it, if that'll reduce the amount I'm charged, but I haven't been able to find anything public on what API they have going (i.e. what sort of coding rules I have to follow to interface with their program). I think some of the current costs for advancement tracking tools are a little outrageous -- $60/year? Come on, this isn't Microsoft Office we're talking about here. I know I can do better than what's already out there for cheaper.

 

Anyway, I went to that site and filled out the form, requesting to be contacted, so we'll see what National has to say about this. I'm sort of half skeptical, thinking that perhaps it was the guys who created Scoutnet who then went and created the more popular advancement tools (or maybe the other way around. the guys who created those tools getting together to create Scoutnet), so that maybe there isn't a public API, just insider knowledge, which would also explain why the online advancement tool is so bad, almost necessitating a 3rd party advancement tool. We'll see.

 

Here's a bit of a tracking database that I created back in 2006 with Access '97 -- I can do better now:

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a66/bubbajoe12345/classsubform.jpg

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a66/bubbajoe12345/classcontrols.jpg

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a66/bubbajoe12345/nongreycells.jpg

[bnelon44]

Interfacing with Internet Advancement is with CSV files, not APIs.

 

When the system is upgraded (which may be a year or two) it is suppose to have APIs.

[BartHumphries]

An API is a ruleset -- if connection is made with CSV's, then the API should say to use comma separated fields.

[Oak Tree]

Right - there are going to be two parts to the API. There's the format of the data, and there is the nature of the call ("interfacing"). What does one do with the CSV file? Email it? Ftp it? Transfer it via http? Open a socket to some particular port? What type of acknowledgement do you get back that the transfer was successful? There has to be some specification on how to do the transfer. And then there's all the detail on what the data itself should look like. I wonder if they have some type of automated certification test that you could use to validate whether your software is working correctly.

 

Have you heard anything back?

 

I got the impression that they weren't too eager to certify more programs - not too much upside for them.

 

It might be easy to figure out if you just capture one transfer log.