Discontinuing the Academics and Sports Awards AND Getting Prepared (For the Coming Advancement Sync) - Revised 7/13/2016

Thanks Bob for the update!

Random question Bob,

I check SB quite regularly, why do I not see any blog updates, then I will randomly log on and it will notify me as to a new post only to see that it shows you posted four days ago.?.?.

Bob wrote it a few days ago but it didn't go up until today. You didn't miss anything.

It seems to me that updates are few and far between. Is there a schedule? I moved from Troopmaster and am starting to regret it.

Likewise. Fix the Report Builder.

Michael, Bob does not publish an update schedule. Bugs are being constantly fixed but not always announced because they often are back end fixes that a user will not see. The development team is busy working on new features which will be rolled out when they are deemed ready.

Hey Bob, I'm looking for a little clarification. Up until this point we have been asked to prepare for the Akela sync/switchover by ensuring each individual in our Scoutbook roster has the correct Member ID#. But in your post above you mentioned: "Please get your units prepared by making sure each Scout has their current Member ID in their Scoutbook profile and that that ID, first and last name, and zip code match what is in my.Scouting Tools (my.scouting.org)." So, do I need to ensure that ID, first and last name, and zip code match what is in my.Scouting Tools to ensure an accurate transition to Akela? If so, shouldn't THAT be the announcement being made? Please advise! Thanks for all the hard work you guys are putting into this!!

Would be nice if Rooster Builder would show Zip for us, but seems to fail

@Donovan if you also select show addresses it works. Development has been notified of the issue.

With the discontinuation of the Academics and Sports belt loops (I am glad because parents can't seem to understand that we are no longer working on those...) will you be adding support for the new Shooting Sports Program soon? We worked on this this summer but I couldn't record it; my work around was to substitute the belt loops; I would prefer to have that corrected before belt loops are shut off...

Scoutnet doesn't use Zip Code as a matching field. Why would that be required now? It's First , Last, Middle, BSA ID and DOB. I'd also like some preview as to what actually is being implemented as far as a sync goes. Is this just removing the need to extract the PO and upload to Scoutnet? or is this doing anything else "automatically" based on Earned and Awarded flags? What I don't want to lose is the ability to decide when and what gets pushed to Council

@gary thanks for the catch. Bob replaced ZIP with Date of Birth it in the blog post above.

Any thoughts on providing a utility to check for errors on integration issues? Maybe add a link to the "Edit Troop" page that checks all of the members (Boys and Adults) that the required fields are in the correct format, and any errors that the Integration API might throw. Then give us a "OK" or a list of fields that need to be corrected?

Carrie, the guys at our scout shop told us if you bring in a copy of the form that the range masters filled out, our guys will take it upstairs and our council will keep it on file until IA has it listed. I believe you can also upload a pic of the form for record on the boys' accounts. While it's not yet streamline, I'm glad that we can at least record and get credit and awards for now. Have you asked your council how they want to handle it?

There is an update on the status of the sync testing here. https://www.scoutbook.com/mobile/forums/change-log/78105/scoutbook---akela-integration/

Ben, I fat fingered the original post but updated it yesterday - check member ID, first name, last name and DATE OF BIRTH (not zip code).

Gabe and Carrie, the development team will be working on adding the Cub Scout Shooting Sports award to Scoutbook over the next several weeks. Upon completion you will be able to add the awards and pins in Scoutbook - AS GABE NOTED YOU NEED TO SEE THE A PROPERLY SIGNED Shooting Sports Tracking Card.

The dev team will, during the same period, be working on removing the ability to award/record or complete Academics and Sports Awards. Awards earned will continue to show on the Scout's profile page but since they are discontinued, they will no longer be earnable within Scoutbook.

Thanks Bob!

Will the Academic & Sports awards earned previously still be able to be entered? Will they show up in the "Needs Approval" report but not show up in the "Needs Purchasing" or "Needs Awarding". or will only admins be able to enter previously earned awards to update a scouts record in Scoutbook or IA. When we imported from IA none of these awards were listed and had to be manually entered.

In our transition to Scoutbook this past year, many parents requested that the previous awards earned be shown.
Thanks

I know this is elementary, but where can I check in my.scouting.org for the scouts birthday? The scouts that have seen in my.scouting.org appear to have just the month and the day, no year.

Hut, I believe it is in the recharter paperwork. Or you may have to calculate the birth year from their ages.

Hut, as Jacob noted, the full DOB is on the recharter paperwork. If you have that handy you'll have what you need.

To your specific question about my.scouting.org...it's not there. At least it's not complete as you noted. my.scouting.org will show you the Birth Day without the year, and a separate report will give you the scouts' current age (as will the roster generated by Internet Advancement). From there you can calculate the birth year for the complete birth date. Not ideal (and frankly unknown why BSA thought it best to hide that data from Key 3 leaders) but that's what we have to work with today.

Michael V., in reference to your old awards not transferring over, I experienced the same when I converted my pack to Scoutbook and the issue stemmed from two issues. (1) Some of the scouts had one or more of the following fields incorrect or missing - BSA ID, first name, last name, or DOB. I corrected these by checking it against my Recharter paperwork. I found that some parents had corrected the spelling of their son's names which prevented the auto update. I had to "un-correct" their correction. (2) My Advancement Chair stopped keying belt loops and pins 3 years prior and the only one she had maintained was her son and his was missing the last 2 years. To gain the experience of using the Quick Entry and other SB functions, I updated the records in SB and then uploaded the PO to IA.

Thanks for the update

Just wondering if the automatic transfer of advancement is just on completed awards, merit badges and rank or all progress of awards, merit badges and rank?

Lauri, ScoutNET only tracks completed items. Partial completions will continue to be tracked only via ScoutBook.

Ed, thank you. I have a Troop Committee mtg tonight and want to get the committee on board to move over to Scoutbook. I have a feeling I will hit some resistance. The Pack has already made the switch and love it.

Another question I know the SM is going to ask is do they still need to be signing off in the boy's books with Scoutbook keeping all the records?

Lauri, a unit leader still needs to approve everything that is marked as completed. The scout can indicate in Scoutbook that he has completed an item and a leader will approve it, meaning he/she agrees the scout has satisfactorily completed the item. The handbook is still viewed as the official record so I would say it should be updated as well. Scoutbook makes it easier more people to know the scout's status and provides a backup if the handbook is lost.

Bob,
Thank you so much for the update! Our unit is getting excited for the upgrade. After the Akela integration, and the MB Counselor tracking for Councils is complete, it would be wonderful to have the developers spend a week or two reworking/adding reports so that we can better analyze the data and help the young men progress. Just a friendly suggestion and hope. A huge thank you to you and your team for all you are doing!

*Perhaps start with some of the canned type reports similar to the ones in Troopmaster. All the data fields exist it is just a matter of the developers creating the forms within the database to pull the data to populate.

Our district's day camp is 15-19 August. Our guidance has been that belt loops and pins can continue to be earned as long as the supply of loops and pins holds out. 16 July seems like insufficient notice of such a significant change in policy.

With the sync with Akela for advancement will there also be a bridge for training to have a full training sync for each adult/scout on Scoutbook? This would provide the same training report that Councils can pull from the Akela database.

Hi Bob, what if we didn't update all the IDs before the first test? Can we still do it?

@Natalya you can update the IDs at any time.

Bob, would it be possible to add a Day Camp award to the list. Our pack would like to track what boys go to day camp from year to year and this we think would be the logical place thanks.

Craig, custom awards have been requested previously. Your suggestion would certainly fit under that, but we don't know when/if that will be worked on.

A couple other alternatives that could be used presently:
1. Take attendance. You'd have to remember/track the dates from prior years. To get data out of the attendance report, I believe you could use a Chrome extension for Scoutbook.
2. Since day camp or resident camp is a requirement for the outdoor activities award, you can export advancement data and filter on the various Cub Scout Outdoor Activity Award (version/rank) #1s in the Advancement column. I think this would miss Webelos Scouts who attended twice, and it wouldn't distinguish between resident camp and day camp.
3. Pick a particular award/requirement and enter the details as a comment. If you use the same award/requirement every year, you'd be able to scroll through the comments for that particular scout. This is a little bit of a pain to have to do this for every scout individually.

There's not a perfect solution at the moment, but you might consider the alternatives.

Craig, adding to Jacob's suggestions:

Another good place to track day camp attendance would be in the Camping Logs. You can track the number of days, number of nights would be 0, and you can Export / Backup the logs to see who attended and when.

And if you have a day camp award that you give out, you can add that to the notes section in the Purchase Orders (for example: 8 day camp awards for Scout A, Scout B, etc.).

Jennifer, I like your suggestion better. It never occurred to me that you could enter 0 nights in the camping log.

If there is a difference in dates for awards in IA and Scoutbook - which one is chosen as the "master" record when the sync occurs?

When there is an approved change in advancement in ScoutBook, it will be reflected in the council records. When the council records change it will be reflected in ScoutBook. The last change will take preference.

Thanks for the explanation Bill!

Good day! Is there any update on when the Advancement Sync will go "live?"

For those of us that 1) didn't see this post and 2) have plenty of loops and pins on hand, can we continue to hand out what we have?

How can we delete Belt Loops that had been added and approved? I thought this was supposed to end earlier this month. I had a leader go in and enter 30 belt loops.

Mickey, you need to go to each scout and individually remove the completion date and the approved check box for each award you want to remove.

Wow I have been away for awhile. I have a few suggestions for a lot of the posts above-

1) As a prior advancement chair for my pack I informed them that if they go in and work on belt loops or pins that are no longer supported. I would approve and award those belt loops without handing them out. Reasons- I can't purchase them and They are still required for some awards that are seen in the award section. I put that out a a pack meeting so there were no confusions. I did remove them until I saw that some awards requiring them.

2) Getting info on your scouts- Unit key 3s can get that info but if there are issues where they can't- you can see your Unit Commissioner for assistance and you could have the CC or CM stop by district/council to get a reprint on the previous recharter packet.

3) Unit Commissioners are a good key to assist in the recharter process. If you have them assist with roll call in October (not just attendance but info verification then recharter will go smoother. Also, have your unit collect dues throughout the year so your scouts are paid before the recharter packets go out. This will take a lot of the headaches of collecting recharter fees at the end of the year and it may relieve any financial burden on families.

4) Use the Report Builder to generate ADHOC reports for whatever information you need to verify. I used it after every recruitment night to verify BSA IDs and see who I am missing info on. I also use it at recharter time to verify all the information required for recharter. Another report I used what advancement status reports to see where all the scouts in a pack were at to ensure ranks are achievable by the end of the school year.

Thoughts?

Has the advancement sync started yet?

Two way sync has not been enabled.

Why doesn't Arrow of Light award populate during import or update from scoutnet?

Anthony, does AOL appear as an entry in Internet Advancement for troops? The current ScoutNET import logs in to IA and goes through each screen to import the data. If AOL is not on one of the IA screens then it can't be imported. This may change when the two-way sync is released later this year as Scoutbook will be directly accessing the Akela database.