At F3Pittsburgh, we use the homegrown tool PAXminer to enter our backblasts post beatdown. PAXminer is used in conjunction with Slack to get the backblasts entered but to also parse them into a database, where reports and dashboards can be generated. PAXminer expects that the backblast be written with the following format. There is no wiggle room here, so if a field is not correct, PAXminer will not take the backblast.
Format/Template:
Backblast! <<Give your beatdown a creative name>>
Date: <<Day, MM/DD/YY>>
AO: <<AO Slack Name, like #ao_the_playground>>
PAX: <<Tag every PAX in attendance with @NAME>>
FNGs: <<Total # of FNGs. Number only, no text>>
Q: <<Tag Q and co-Q if applicable with @NAME. Q first, then Co-Q second>>
Total: <<Total # including Q, PAX, and FNGs. Number only, no text>>
Conditions: <<How was the morning? Get colorful>>
Warm-Up:Exercise 1
· Exercise 2
· …
The Thang:
· Describe your BD.
Mary:
· Exercise 1
· Exercise 2
· …
Announcements:
· Announcement 1
· Announcement 2
· …
Count-o-Rama
Name-O-Rama
Q took us out in… <prayer? poem? meditation? Silence? His why? …>
Things to Note with this Template:
- Backblast field, make sure the first word of the message is Backblast with NO SPACES before it.
- Date field, the format is pretty flexible, you can use 05/05/2021 or Wednesday, May 5, 2021. If entering on your phone, make sure your phone doesn’t turn this into a telephone# hyperlink like seems to happen. sometimes… if the date turns blue, your phone made it a hyperlink and it will break.
- AO field, use the channel name if possible like #ao_wet_willy.
- PAX field, make sure they’re tagged/blue. If not on Slack, just list their F3 name.
- FNGs field, the expected data is a number, so if there are 2 FNGs make sure you put “2”.
- Advanced: Beaker added the ability to add the FNG names by adding a comma and then the names formatted the following way number, name1, name2, etc. The important thing is that you have the number there.
- Example: FNGs: 2, fng1, fng2
- It is very important to have the Backblast, Date, AO, PAX, FNGs, Q, and Total fields populated correctly so that our metrics can be computed.
- Get creative with the rest of the template! Make it fun and keep the mumble chatter hot in the BB!
- Replace all text contained within the brackets << >> in the template.