OA LodgeMaster Users,

The OA LodgeMaster team is very excited to announce the immediate release of Version 4! The system has been completely rewritten from the ground up. The LodgeMaster team has spent the last three years developing this version which has incorporated more than 100 user requested enhancements - over 1/3 of all open user enhancement requests! The enhancements include making the application faster and compatible with any modern browser including mobile phones, making managing your lodge structure easier and giving you more granular permissions over users, and allowing searching, accessing, and reporting on your data simpler in members, events, and units.

Removing the need for Silverlight has allowed us to build the new lodge client with mobile functionality in mind. This allows you to use LodgeMaster anytime, anywhere, from your smartphone or tablet. Another new feature in the next version of LodgeMaster is single sign-on with ArrowID. Users will no longer need to maintain separate user accounts for LodgeMaster, NOAERS, and other Order of the Arrow systems.

When accessing the system for the first time, users will need to link their old OALM 3 account to their ArrowID. Directions on how to do this can be found here. You will only need to do this once. If you do not have an ArrowID you can create one here.

You can access the new Lodge Client by going to https://lodgemaster.oa-bsa.org. While there is an offline client available in LodgeMaster 4, we strongly encourage users to use the online Lodge Client when possible. We have developed the offline client for use at events where you do not have internet access. If your Lodge Master account has offline access you can use your ArrowID username and password to login offline. If you currently have the old offline client installed, you must uninstall the old Lodge Client before installing the new Lodge Client. Directions for uninstalling can be found here.

A couple important notes on offline: first, all user management task must be done in the online client. This includes inviting users, editing permissions, and deactivating user account. Email management has also been moved to the online client only - composing, editing, and approval must be done in the online Lodge Client.

If you are trying to login, and are having problems, please contact your lodge administrator. The LodgeMaster team cannot create accounts or reset passwords for users. We can only create and or reset passwords for the one or two official lodge administrators. If you are unsure who your lodge administrator is, check with your lodge adviser or council Scout Executive. If you are a lodge administrator, and need help logging in, or managing lodge users accounts, please submit a ticket. And we will get back to you as soon as possible.

We know that there will be a lot of questions as you begin to use the new Lodge Client due to the large number of changes. To help address these questions, we will be scheduling a series of webinars in the next couple weeks. The webinars will guide you through using the new client and address the most common questions we receive. We will then schedule regular webinars to answer questions and help users to better understand the functionality of the Lodge Client.

Our development team has worked hard to eliminate as many bugs as possible in the next version of the Lodge Client. As you use the new system you may find bugs that were missed by our development team and beta test group. We ask that you submit this through the LodgeMaster Support Center. As bugs come in, we will work to fix them as quickly as possible. We will be pushing regular updates to the online Lodge Client fixing the bugs that have been found. Updates to the offline Lodge Client will be published less frequently and announced to the mailing list.

The Finance and Inventory modules will be available in the coming months but until then you can access them on the old platform which will be available later this week. The LodgeMaster team will continue to support any lodge who uses these modules.

As always, if you have questions or problems, please check out the new version 4.0 documentation or submit a request online (https://docs.oa-bsa.org/display/OALMLC). Our support team will work through submitted tickets as quickly as possible.

We are extremely excited for the next version of the Lodge Client! The LodgeMaster team is made up entirely of volunteers, donating their time to the project. We would like to thank everyone for their support of the project and the development of the next version of LodgeMaster.

Yours in Brotherhood,

The OA LodgeMaster Team

Chadd Blanchard, Project Lead

Michael Card, Project Adviser

Robert Anstett, Development Lead

Mike Gaffney, Support Lead