Director of Scoutbook - 4/1/2106
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Director of Scoutbook - 4/1/2106
Do Your Best. Be Prepared.
What’s in a motto? From one perspective they are a statement of intent – how we will behave, how much effort we will provide, what attitude we intend to bring to the situations we face. We don’t always live up to the spirit of the mottos we embrace but we try, every day, to do so.
Mottos also say something about how we will react to change – especially when coupled with any number of points of the Scout Oath and Law. Will we do less than our best to be positive and seize the opportunities presented? Will we be prepared for change when it is in front of us?
Change is coming to Scoutbook – positive change. The team has begun working on the early planning for synchronizing and integrating data between Scoutbook and BSA’s official database of record (call it ScoutNet or MyScoutingTools or Akela, I will call it Akela). When implemented these actions will "automate" internet advancement uploads, ScoutNet roster imports, training updates and a number of other manual processes in Scoutbook, making the unit leader's life easier.
The timing is not determined yet but we begin these steps. We will also begin applying the advancement and membership policies of the BSA in the process. If this sounds a bit ominous, it really isn’t, but both mottos above are relevant.
What can you do (your best) to be prepared? A few actions on your part will make your unit better prepared:
- Make sure every Scout (and Scouter) has a valid and current BSA membership ID in their profile. We will not be able to make a good connection without one.
- Troop leaders, pay particular attention to the tenure and leadership requirements between First Class, Star, Life and Eagle. Preliminary analysis suggests this is an area where policy hiccups can happen in syncing advancement in Boy Scouts.
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For unit leaders, in addition to making sure that member IDs are accurate:
- Check that the registered position in MyScoutingTools for each leader matches the position in Scoutbook. If they don’t, take action to correct the difference, including charter organization approval if needed.
- Make sure every adult leader has current youth protection training
Keep your eye on the Change Log (https://www.scoutbook.com/mobile/forums/change-log/) and this blog for timing and updates on these important steps to make your Scouting lives easier.
I hope all you Cub Scouters saw the updates to applying Webelos/Arrow of Light elective adventures to ranks and the update to the Cub Scout World Conservation award. Enjoy!
Thanks for everything you do for Scouting and for your support of Scoutbook.
A question on verifying leader positions. Many leaders "wear multiple hats" in Scouting. Generally we reflect those in Scoutbook.
Will having multiple positions in the same unit in Scoutbook affect the matching with Akela, or as long as the "registered position" is present in Scoutbook the rest will be ignored?
I'm registered as Committee Chair, for example, and that is on my Scoutbook profile. But I'm also a den leader and have that position in Scoutbook as well.
I assume multiple registrations in separate units won't be a problem.
Thanks again.
Do units need to also check the Merit Badge Counselors, Nova Counselors, Supernova Mentors, and Unit Commissioners that may be linked to their units, or is something BSA needs to get the districts to do? I understand these positions are registered at the district/council level.
Thanks for the update. I have the same question as Ken. I'm registered as Pack Trainer but am also Webelos Den Leader so both are on my SB profile. I have been a registered Den Leader for years but because we had to have a pack trainer to recharter and I'm the District Cub Scout Training Coordinator, my pack decided to register with me listed as Pack Trainer.
Thanks again
Given the frequency with which actual leader hats change relative to registration updates, I would strongly encourage the Scoutbook team to make implementation of these policies dependent on integration of both BeAScout and Internet Recharter with MyScouting.org. Right now the online adult registration / approval process is painfully complicated and most roles change only at recharter because of the paperwork and approvals involved. Don't impose BSA policies on leader roles in Scoutbook until there is a way for key 3 to make changes midyear without requiring a new adult application (online or paper) and charter organization approval. Without these process changes, Scoutbook will just become a repository of bad registration data similar to Akela. Don't pave the cowpath, level the terrain and build a proper road!
Scoutbook is great for tracking boys advancements, but using the predefined roles created in scoutbook doesn't always work for us. Those roles are to narrow or inflexible when we need a leader to have permission to do something not specifically defined in their specific leadership role.
In some instances we've assigned certain leaders as admin equivalent in order to give them permission to do the things they need to do. It has always been unclear to me what roles have what permissions.
I wish there were an Access Control List to allow us to modify Scoutbook's predefined roles as needed. The ability to use scoutbook's predefined list of leadership roles as a template and then modify them as we need would be helpful and be a better option than giving them admin rights.
When the transition happens, it is important that Scoutbook be mindful of this reality for many units, and work ensure that the functionality of Scoutbook doesn't become subservient to an ideal in which one person fills each leadership role. Otherwise, we could end up with problems were our Cubmaster is unable to administer his den because someone else (his Assistant Den Leader) is registered as the DL for that den. It's likely not that big a problem for me, since I will be bridging over with my Webelos next year, but I know that there are a lot of units (particularly smaller ones) where multiple hats are the norm, rather than the exception.
Reducing the manual involvement in Internet Advancement need not hamstring all of those units who don't have a one person one role mapping. In fact, I would argue that reducing the manual involvement in Internet Advancement absolutely should not be tied to interconnection of the adult database by position. Advancement Chair is not one of the required positions for a unit (e.g. for Packs, the list is: Institutional Head, Chartered Org. Rep, Cubmaster, Committee Chair, 2 Committee Members or 1 plus a Pack Trainer, and one den leader of some type -- Tiger, Cub Scout, or Webelos -- plus adult partners for each of the Tigers.)
We have also seen some significant glitches in our registration (misspelled names, missing leaders, etc) what were right on our recharter app but wrong when we received the membership cards. I am concerned that glitches like this will make it difficult for people to execute their tasks via Scoutbook because they aren't who Akela (or whatever database) thinks they are.
I thought the point was to ensure we had trained leaders. If the reality of multiple roles is not recognized by MyScouting and Scoutbook is changed then it will lead to untrained leaders. Let us keep the multiple roles in Scoutbook to ensure all our leaders maintain their training.
I am the Webelos Den Leader, Committee Member (registered position), Pack Trainer and Webmaster. I also do district training which is how I ended up registered as Committee Member. The reality is in every pack I am aware of Scouters wear multiple hats so unless MyScouting will allow for multiple roles this is just a waste of trees.
As the Pack Trainer one of the greatest things about Scoutbook was I could list everyone's roles to validate all their training needs. Prior to Scoutbook I used a spreadsheet to track it all. If you only allow the one registered role to be applied in Scoutbook I will have to go back to my spreadsheets. I would really prefer that not happen as Scoutbook is a much more efficient way to track training. Scoutbook allowed me to show the leaders more easily what training they needed for all their roles. Lets not go backwards it is not realistic.
On a related note...at many levels in our district and council, there is VERY little knowledge of Scoutbook, what it does, that it's even OWNED by BSA, and that the plan is FULLY integrate it into (or replace) Internet Advancement. With that type of lofty future goal, there's still a lot of people hanging onto Troopmaster, Scoutlander, Packmaster, Pack Track, Cub Track , ScoutTrax, and whatever else is out there. I'd like to see a much faster push to eliminate any confusion at the district and council levels and get this thing going mainstream as quickly as possible.
Thanks Bob and your team for what you are doing, but again, it's been five weeks since any kind of communication FROM Scoutbook, so these threads eventually devolve into training and other topics. Let's keep it moving!!
1. The reality is that ALL volunteers perform more than one function within a unit and SB needs to be flexible enough to handle this - it is not.
2. Each unit is unique in that different folks handle tracking advancement in different ways that work best for them in the confines of their unit and the time available. SB needs to be flexible enough to handle this and allow custom reports to be generated that work for an individual unit's needs. Functionality is seriously lacking in this regard. I can't even create one custom report for my entire troop sorted by patrol, then last name.
While I greatly appreciate all of the forum suggestions for Excel templates etc. that users have created to solve their needs, I question why we are working toward forced usage of SB for a fee when many of us ALREADY used other systems that were "close" to what we needed and created our own work-arounds and were managing just fine. Now the system that was supposed to fix all that, give us all what we need (because it was created by Scouters who "knew" what we needed), doesn't have what we need, for a fee. Very frustrating.
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