About
The Medal Recommendation Aid performs a series of automated validation checks to help ensure recommendations comply with the 7th Cavalry Awards and Decorations regulations. These checks are intended to reduce common formatting and submission errors before a recommendation is submitted for review.
The application validates format requirements only. It does not evaluate the quality of a narrative, accuracy, or the merit of an award recommendation. Authors remain solely responsible for ensuring that every recommendation accurately reflects the recipient's actions and complies with all applicable regulations.
General Validation
The following checks are performed for every recommendation:
- Required fields have been completed.
- Applicable date fields form a valid period and do not extend into the future.
- Operation, map, and narrative fields remain within supported length limits.
- Invalid BBCode characters that may interfere with forum formatting are prevented.
- Recommendation text is safely processed before generation.
Operation Medal Validation
In addition to the general validation checks, Operation Medal recommendations verify that:
- Every selected recipient exists within the current roster.
- Duplicate recipients are not included.
- Recommendations contain between one and twenty recipients.
- Recommendations with multiple recipients display a manual reminder to verify that the same action and unchanged citation apply to everyone selected.
- The selected medal is recognized by the application.
- The selected Action Scope is valid for the chosen medal.
- The selected Action Character is valid for the chosen medal.
- The narrative meets the minimum sentence requirement established by the regulation.
- The generated recommendation contains the required opening and closing statements for the selected medal.
Unit Award Validation
In addition to the general validation checks, Unit Award recommendations verify that:
- Every selected recipient exists within the current roster.
- Duplicate recipients are not included.
- The minimum recipient requirement for a Unit Award has been satisfied.
- Individual recipient names are not referenced within the citation narrative.
- The generated recommendation contains the required opening and closing statements for the selected award.
Service Award Validation
Service Medal and Service Unit Award recommendations also verify that:
- Every selected recipient exists within the current roster.
- Duplicate recipients are not included.
- Service Medal recommendations contain between one and twenty recipients.
- Service Unit Award recommendations satisfy the minimum recipient requirement and cannot exceed the eligible roster.
- Organization and billet fields provide optional roster-derived suggestions while remaining fully editable for historical assignments and unlisted organizations.
- Month, year, and award-specific choices match their reference options.
- Service periods are complete, chronological, and do not end in the future.
- All user-entered fields remain within their supported length limits.
- The required award template contains no unresolved placeholders.
Privacy
Recommendation generation is performed entirely within your web browser.
Narrative content is not transmitted to the server during recommendation generation. The application only retrieves reference information required to build recommendations, such as award definitions and roster data.
Final Review
Passing all validation checks indicates that the recommendation satisfies the application's automated validation rules.
It does not guarantee approval by Battalion or Regimental Staff. Every recommendation should be carefully reviewed for accuracy, completeness, professionalism, and compliance with the 7th Cavalry Awards and Decorations regulation before submission.
Version History & Release Notes
Version 0.10.0 — Cloudflare Staging and System Information
- Connected the Cloudflare staging application to the live S1 roster through a secured Apps Script bridge.
- Expanded System Info to report all Operation and Service award catalogs.
- Added platform, connectivity, privacy, local-storage, and timezone-aware status details.
Version 0.9.8 — Service Period Layout Alignment
- Grouped Service Medal start and end dates into a dedicated two-row date-range block.
- Fixed the order as Start Month/Start Year followed by End Month/End Year.
- Preserved the same sequence when the date controls stack on narrow screens.
Version 0.9.7 — Joint Service Commendation Template Correction
- Changed Actions or Contributions from free text to a controlled Actions/Contributions dropdown.
- Kept detailed descriptions in the narrative where the regulation requires them.
- Migrated recognized legacy draft values and cleared incompatible free-text values for reselection.
Version 0.9.6 — Service Medal Field Matrix Alignment
- Aligned all Service Medal fields and generated wording with the regulation citation templates.
- Replaced split role-and-element inputs with complete historical billet fields where required.
- Kept current-roster billet data as optional, editable suggestions rather than authoritative values.
- Corrected individual narrative introductions, Soldier’s Medal phrase mapping, and Defense Superior Service Medal paths.
Version 0.9.5 — Operation Unit Recipient Control Alignment
- Restored reliable hiding for inactive Unit Award worksheet branches and internal selectors.
- Normalized worksheet section headings, fields, and narrative typography to the compact Service design.
- Added explicit spacing and styling for the unified Unit Award selection prompt.
Version 0.9.3 — Worksheet UI Cleanup
- Removed award-group identifier panels beneath all award selectors.
- Removed recipient-slot count text from all worksheets.
- Moved Operation and Service Medal recipient controls above their recipient fields.
- Renamed Citation Location to Operation Location for Operation Medal and Operation Unit Award worksheets.
Version 0.9.2 — Worksheet Rendering Repair
- Removed a duplicated malformed Service Unit form fragment that rendered below every worksheet.
- Added duplicate-ID and stray-markup checks to prevent hidden worksheet fragments from leaking into other views.
Version 0.9.1 — Flexible Organizations and Shared Operation Medals
- Changed Service organization fields from restricted values to free-text fields with roster-derived suggestions.
- Added one-to-twenty recipient controls to the Operation Medal worksheet.
- Added duplicate, roster-match, recipient-limit, sorting, draft-restoration, and shared-output handling for Operation Medals.
- Added a manual-review reminder whenever an Operation Medal recommendation contains multiple recipients.
Version 0.9.0 — Unified Worksheets and Navigation
- Replaced nested navigation with direct Operation Medal, Service Medal, Unit Award, About, and Feedback controls.
- Standardized all worksheets around the cleaner Service worksheet layout.
- Combined Operation and Service Unit Awards into one award-driven Unit Award worksheet.
- Added award-group classification and award-first field rendering across all three recommendation workflows.
Version 0.8.0 — Shared S1 Roster and Organizations
- Moved Combat and Service recipient data to the S1 API MASTER All roster.
- Included active, ELOA, Reserve, and Retired members while excluding discharged and memorial records.
- Derived approved Service organizations from every eligible primary and secondary billet.
- Added smaller support billets and department prefixes to organization selectors and bulk filters.
- Expanded roster-source, status-filtering, organization-parsing, and secondary-billet regression coverage.
Version 0.7.0 — Shared Service Recommendations
- Added support for one to twenty recipients on Service Medal recommendations.
- Added bulk roster selection for department-sized Service Unit Awards.
- Added organization filtering, pasted-name matching, duplicate prevention, and selected-recipient review.
- Added compact recipient summaries and roster-sized Service Unit Award validation.
- Updated shared citation grammar, recipient sorting, draft restoration, and regression coverage.
Version 0.6.0 — Codebase Stabilization
- Hardened public feedback submission against automated abuse and duplicate requests.
- Removed public development runners and retired unused server-side generation and cache-administration code.
- Repaired loading retries, server tests, organization parsing, and Combat and Service draft restoration.
- Strengthened Service award validation, preview freshness, reset behavior, and output regression coverage.
- Reorganized Service client code and added repository, packaging, and embedded-asset safeguards.
Version 0.5.8 — Feedback Type Styling
- Removed the inherited yellow legend styling from the Feedback Type label.
- Aligned the Feedback Type label with the other form labels.
- Restyled the three feedback choices with muted unselected states and a clear gold selected state.
- Improved spacing, borders, hover behavior, and keyboard focus visibility.
Version 0.5.7 — Feedback Header Cleanup
- Simplified the Feedback page heading to a single white Feedback Form title.
- Removed the yellow APPLICATION FEEDBACK label from the panel heading.
Version 0.5.6 — Feedback Type Control
- Reworked Feedback Type into a compact segmented control with a clear yellow selected state.
- Made Bug Report the default selection while preserving keyboard and screen-reader behavior.
- Fixed the visual selection so it updates whenever a different feedback type is clicked.
Version 0.5.5 — Simplified Feedback Form Correction
- Replaced the feedback-type dropdown with three visible choices: Bug Report, Suggestion, and General Feedback.
- Reduced the page to the agreed optional name field, required feedback field, and Submit Feedback button.
- Ensured the feedback client binds itself when loaded and preserves entries after a failed submission.
Version 0.5.4 — Feedback Submission
- Replaced the generated feedback-report worksheet with a simplified submission form.
- Reduced feedback types to Bug Report, Suggestion, and General Feedback.
- Added an optional name field and one required feedback field.
- Added direct server-side email delivery through Google Apps Script.
- Preserved entered feedback after failed submissions and cleared the form only after confirmed success.
Version 0.5.3 — Service Citation Guidance
- Added a visible sentence starter above the Service Medal narrative field.
- Renamed the narrative field to Continue the Citation.
- Updated the sentence starter automatically when the recipient or applicable narrative verb changes.
- Added guidance instructing writers to continue the generated sentence directly.
Version 0.5.2 — Service Awards & Project Repair
- Added Service Medal and Service Unit Award worksheets.
- Added Service award citation generation, validation, previews, and ticket formatting.
- Added approved support departments and roster-derived line-unit organization options.
- Added the Outstanding Volunteer Service Medal department-or-unit selector.
- Added nested Combat and Service navigation and a dedicated Feedback page.
- Added Service ribbon previews and restored the project after filename and content corruption.
Version 0.4.0 — About & Validation Transparency
- Added the About page.
- Added a detailed explanation of the application's automated validation checks.
- Clarified what the application does and does not evaluate.
- Added privacy information concerning browser-based recommendation generation.
- Added expandable version history and release notes.
Version 0.3.1 — Preview Freshness
- Added a generation timestamp to completed recommendation previews.
- Added a warning when worksheet changes may cause the displayed preview to become outdated.
- Preserved access to preview controls while the warning is displayed.
- Updated regression testing for preview freshness.
Version 0.3.0 — Validation Improvements
- Added real calendar-date validation.
- Prevented future operation dates.
- Added explicit maximum-length validation.
- Added maximum Unit Award recipient validation.
- Improved required-field handling for Unit Award recipients.
- Expanded automated regression testing.
Version 0.2.3 — Interface & Workflow Improvements
- Improved the Individual Medal and Unit Award worksheet layouts.
- Added the System Info page.
- Reorganized navigation and recommendation controls.
- Added the compact validation summary.
- Moved the medal recommendation ticket button into the completed recommendation workflow.
- Improved application styling and visual consistency.
Version 0.2.2 — Draft Autosave
- Added automatic browser-based draft saving.
- Added restoration of Individual Medal and Unit Award worksheet data.
- Added restoration of Unit Award recipient selections and recipient count.
- Ensured worksheet resets also update the saved draft.