Electronic Log Books anyone?

[McG]

Just wondering if anyone has come across a replacement for the good old log books?

I've have seen some places that have automated logs by having make-shift Excel documents to track all logs.  Pretty redundant though as the Duty O insisted on having a computer log as well as a working log book.  Uhhhhh O-kay.

I saw the BG do this in Afghanistan at one point in time.  There was only the electronic log, but it was printed and signed at the end of each DO shift.  The workstation which maintained the log saved constantly and was one of the few connected to a UPS (so it always worked through the frequent power failures).  I  think E-Logs are the way to go, but MS Excel is not the right platform.  As logs are supposed to serve a legal purpose, they should not be easily (and un-noticably) changed at some point during the duty shift.

In 1997 I received a "Commanders Commendation" for a "log book" that I created.

It was based in MS Access, and although changes could be made to the log entries - those changes were "logged" by the software.

There is an MS access log that is used by the Army staff college in Kingston.  It allows multiple users access at one time (so multiple call-signs in the same Ops centre could share a common log), tracks changes, is not too user-friendly and is a little buggy.  Despite the problems, it is a good concept and I am sure someone could make an effective program for operational use.

 

[PuckChaser]

There is an MS access log that is used by the Army staff college in Kingston.  It allows multiple users access at one time (so multiple call-signs in the same Ops centre could share a common log), tracks changes, is not too user-friendly and is a little buggy.  Despite the problems, it is a good concept and I am sure someone could make an effective program for operational use.

That might be the War Logger from the LCSS project. Does it have a lot of spelling mistakes and french/english translation issues?

If I can figure out how to open War Logger v2.2, I think I'm going to try to fix their bugs and resubmit to them. The program has a huge potential, and is pretty secure using password access for multiple users with the ability to set access restrictions.