LodgeMaster ESB API Integration - YPT

Inspiration

Three of us are from larger lodges and have first hand experience with the complications of manually auditing our Lodge records. It has not been feasible for our lodges to keep accurate records of YPT certifications. Our dedicated youth and adult leadership are occupied with critical member record maintenance and event management tasks.

We ensure that all adult members are registered Scouters, which verify they were YPT certified at the time of unit recharter, however, some members YPT certification may have expired since recharter.

What it does

Verifies every 18+ member's YPT record stored within the National Scouting database.

Process Outline

1. Load all adult members from a given council using the ESB API (Get members by organizationGuids)
2. Load additional member information using the ESB API required for matching National and LodgeMaster records (using personGuids obtained in the previous step)
3. Load all adult members from LodgeMaster using the LodgeMaster API
4. Attempt to match each adult OA member record with his record in the National database
5. Update each adult's record in OALM with his most recent YPT completion date

How we built it

Utilizing the ESB API provided by BSA National and the prototype LodgeMaster API provided by the LodgeMaster team. As the LodgeMaster API has yet to be implemented, we are unable to create a solution at this time. We have included Java code implementing the basic functionality for our proposed solution.

Challenges we ran into

• The current LodgeMaster API prototype does not include functionality to update the database, only the capability to retrieve data using GET HTTP requests
• Limitations of the ESB API make matching OALM member records with National member records difficult (namely, one cannot get the full birth date of members)

After the LodgeMaster API is completed, further development will be possible and will allow us to discuss possible solutions with the National BSA IT staff.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We believe the idea itself will be incredibly important to the future of data validation within LodgeMaster. This idea can be applied to any member data that National BSA and LodgeMaster both collect.

We are proud of the National IT staff's recognition and support for our proposed solution. Vijay and Ronnie were very helpful explaining both the current system and continued migration to a single national database.

What we learned

We learned about the ESB API that already exists for the National membership database. Before this event, many of us were aware that this was in a "long-term" plan. However, we were not aware it would be available to the OA for the development of novel cross database integration solutions.

What's next for LodgeMaster ESB API Integration - YPT

Once the API tools are finalized, our solution can be finalized and integrated with the production LodgeMaster and BSA databases.

Timeline:

1. Check YPT records for all 18+ OA members and update the OALM lodge databases to reflect this information
2. Replace the existing Lodge Membership Audit tool with a solution which would directly compare information from the National and LodgeMaster databases, then update LodgeMaster records with members' current BSA registration status
3. Develop a synchronization solution similar to the current setup between ScoutNET and the databases backing the ESB API

Built With

• esb-(new-"scoutnet")-api
• java
• lodgemaster-api