Scouting Leads: How to manage your scouting operation

The scouting lead handles working out who at an event is available for scouting assignments, setting up scouting pairs, generating the match scouting schedule, and generally overseeing that assignments are getting done.

Check out how to customize your Pit and Match scouting forms. You can look at examples of form definitions in the archive (including forms for this year); these can be used as-is, or as a starting point for further customization.

• You can run through the processes of Scoutradioz using a past event as a 'training' event - see how to use a past event as a training event

• Well before a competition, the scouting lead should double-check with team management that the member list is up to date (including which ‘subteams’ each member is assigned to, as some subteams exclude the subteam members from “scouting pairs” [i.e., pit scouting assignments])
• Shortly before a competition, make sure to update the “current event” to the next competition

• Identify who is present at the event vs. who is not attending
• Set up ‘scouting pairs’ for pit scouting assignments
  1. Clear all scouting groups if needed
  2. Set up new 'pairs' with 1, 2, or 3 people per “pair” (scouts in a group will have their own assignments but will also see their partners' assignments, so they can work together)
  3. Click 'Assign teams to pit scouting groups'

When the match schedule is released, set up the match schedule rotation for the first ‘block’ of matches (a ‘block’ is all the matches up to a “break” [usually lunch, or the end of matches until the next day, etc.]) Note: Optionally, you instruct the app to skip breaks and just assign all the matches for the rest of the event.

• All the scouts who are in ‘scouting pairs’ will be included, plus you can include additional logged in accounts (can be anyone; other team members, team alumni, parents/caregivers, scouts from other teams, etc., etc.)
  • Try to avoid including the scouting lead in the rotation! They need to be focusing on reminding folks their assignments are coming up, checking to make sure things are getting done, occasionally filling in if someone is missing, etc. But they can be included in the rotation if needed.
• Match “blocks”: The app ‘lines up’ all the assignees by years and subgroup seniority [lowest to highest], picks off the first six in line, and randomly assigns them to robots for the next N matches. Then those six go to the back of the line and the app picks off the next six, etc.
• What this means is…
  • If you have only 6 assignees then they’ll be doing every match with no breaks. This is generally not ideal! Maybe have one or two people on standby to cover for folks who need short breaks?
  • If you have 12 assignees total, they’ll be doing N matches on, then N matches off, loop. Or if you have more than 12 assignees, they might occasionally get 2xN matches off. A suggested “N” is 5.
  • If you have 9 to 11 assignees, they will occasionally do 2xN matches on before getting N matches off. A suggested “N” is 3.

• The scouting lead can look at the “one-off” pit scouting dashboard to see which teams still need to be scouted. And at the bottom of the list, if you click “Refresh with team photos” you can see which teams don’t have photos yet [or which photos might need to be retaken]
• During qualifying matches, keep an eye on the “one-off” match scouting dashboard after each match - each time you refresh you’ll see which matches have been submitted (the buttons get grayed out). Once the app gets a “match updated” message from The Blue Alliance the match will ‘fall off’ the dashboard.
  • If it doesn’t seem to be getting automatically updated, the scouting lead can try to force a match update by going to the “Matches (FIRST data)” page & clicking ‘Update’ for the specific match [repeat until the results get filled in]
• If needed, the scouting lead can swap **out** a currently assigned scout (for pit assignments or for match assignments) and in their place swap in a member who is currently not in the assignment list.

There are several tools in Scoutradioz to help the scouting lead monitor how well the scouts are doing their work - checking in on what text is being written (and is visible to others who click into SR to look at the data!), are scouts doing their assignments (or getting them covered), and so forth. Go into the “Scouting audit” section to access the following:

• Audit trail for match scouting - for the overall event for all matches so far, this is a quick “at a glance” view of whether scouts have completed their assignments (green “Y”), had an assignment covered by someone else (yellow “C”), or if an assignment was missed (red “N”)
• Comments audit - shows all “other notes” comments from matches, grouped by scouter. Scan this to see in case someone wrote something which might need to be edited or deleted
• Per-match audit - by match, shows who the assigned scouter was and who did the scouting (whether it was the original scout or someone covering)
• Photos upload audit - same as the comments, scan to make sure no one has uploaded anything which needs to be edited
• [work in progress] Scouter accuracy audit - this attempts to identify which (if any) scouts are less accurate than others. 'SPR' is estimating how much error each scout is introducing on average per match. Lower SPR is better! Can help find a scout who is having trouble, can also highlight if someone happens to be turning in bogus data. [not that anyone would do that, but the scouting lead can remind the scouts that the data audit exists so no one would be tempted to fill in bogus data]