Scoutbook Advancement Record Sync Rollout Update

Thank you do I need all my leaders and scouts fully connected to our Troop before we. Can do the direct sync

Who are the unit key three? Cub master, committee chair and representative? What if only den leaders use SB regularly and we do not get the message?

Mariaina,

To be enabled for 2 way sync, you need to have a unit subscription. There are several steps to activate sync. One of the key 3 (Cubmaster/Scoutmaster, Committee Chair, Charter Org Representative) must complete the l authorization step. The other steps can be done by any admin.

Speak with your Key 3 and tell them at some point they will receive an e-mail regarding advancement sync from Scoutbook. Once the e-mail arrives, they can forward it to the admins who can complete all but one of the steps. The Key 3 step can be done at any time in the process of activating sync. It does not need to be the first or last step.

James,

All scouts that are approved in Scoutbook must be on your official BSA roster in order to activate sync. Leaders are not checked against the roster. The only leader requirement is that the approval step of activating sync must be done by one of the Key 3. That person will need to know their my.scouting.org password in order to complete the approval.

Details on Advancement sync can be found at:

https://www.scoutbook.com/mobile/forums/using-scoutbook/99892/getting-ready-for-the-advancement-sync/

That is also a more visible place to ask questions.

Last year in our Pack, we had some enthusiastic Den Leaders that were finding older awards and marking them complete and approved. Of course we were able to catch these and back them out (since the Scoutshop didn't have the awards any longer). They had also completed the Summertime activity in February.
I noticed in the link above on the details, once these items are approved they will automatically be uploaded to Scoutnet.
How do we manage this on the unit level?
In the past we just backed out the approval date and that removed it from the purchase list and CSV that we would upload.

Jeff,

When a "sync" unit removes approval from an award, the award will be removed from the other BSA systems. For scouts enabled to sync, Scoutbook is the official record.

When we sync, it plays havoc on our dens. Moving scouts out of their correct den and putting them in other random dens. Is there a way to prevent this?

Jason, it sounds like you are referring to a scoutnet import, which is different than the two-way sync that is the topic of this post. The two-way Advancement sync will not move or add any scouts.

I've never actually seen a scoutnet import change a den assignment. Are you saying that a scout who was in the proper den in scoutbook was moved to the incorrect den? Or was a scout added to scoutbook for the first time but assigned to the wron den? Or was a duplicate of the scout created in a different den?

Scoutnet does not contain any den information. So, scoutbook is basically guessing as to the proper den to assign.

Jason,

The recommendation is that you only do a ScoutNET roster import one time to get Scoutbook setup then do all of your updates in Scoutbook and upload the Scoutnet csv file you can create from a Purchase Order to update Internet Advancement. Click the SUAC icon to the left of this post to see many SUAC help documents.

Jacob Fetzer: This has happened to me several times. If there are still scouts in your unit that are still registered with your council, then they will populate on your Scoutbook account when doing an upload from ScoutNet. We have boys that are no longer active, but will not be removed from the list until the next recharter. You will need to go into SB and manually delete the account each time you to an upload from SN. Hope that helps.

Tiffany, that is a known issue, and the workaround is to move all of those scouts in an inactive den, and disapprove the den... or as Ed suggested, don't do another scoutnet import. I felt like Jason was saying something different. Perhaps not.

My son is a new Scout. What would be a good badge to shoot for?

Kelly - the first question to ask is if your son is a cub scout or boy scout. But in either case the advancement path is laid out in both handbooks.

Kelly, as Stephen said, there is an Advancement progression to follow depending on his age. For long term goals...Eagle.

I know you guys are probably still chasing down bugs, but I would love my unit be put on the short list for the sync. Carrying advancement documents back and forth to scout store is a real pain. Good luck with the progress and looking to see it in action.

My pack just signed up for SB on July 22nd. Does that mean we are not sync capable yet? This would be a big strike against SB for us as our current software already does this and does not encourage switching. I'm not looking to make my advancements coord's job more difficult.

Holly - The Manual sync of Downloading and uploading the file to ScoutNET is available now. It's being improved to allow 2 way automatic sync which makes it even easier.

We moved. How do I change my son's troop number?

Do we have an ETA for the synch or can we get on an abbreviated list?

Aaron, you need to edit your son's profile to reflect the new troop number if you have full control over your son's account. Or, and admin from the last unit you were a part of will need to do this for you. Also, you will need to make sure to give the new Scout Leaders permission to be your sons leader or they will not be able to access his record.

I have now spent 30 minutes clicking thru blogs and threads to get absolutely no where in understanding what the process is for syncing, or the status of the process.
I would give my life for an actual user guide for Scoutbook rather than these interminable blog posts. Where can we find the precise sync process and find out which councils/troops are live?

Linda,
It has come to a stop, as there are "issues". As soon as it is live, you will get told. In the meantime, be sure names match in Scoutnet, and you have youth dob, and ID numbers. You can always call your friendly registrar to get a current roster to double check! LOL
Marian

Linda, please see:

https://www.scoutbook.com/mobile/forums/using-scoutbook/99892/getting-ready-for-the-advancement-sync/
https://www.scoutbook.com/mobile/forums/using-scoutbook/86040/suac-scoutbook-faq-and-resources-table-of-contents/

Aaron, Scoutbook recently added a new Membership page. To change your son's troop go to [Scout]'s Membership and add the new troop info. there. If you have further questions, please ask in the Forums, because you will get faster answers there.

Linda, for guides on using scoutbook, click the Scoutbook User Advisory Council icon to the left of this post.

Is this roll-out and update going to include the ability to award the eagle palms as changes from national have indicated?

Daniel,

The changes for Eagle Palms in Scoutbook were released on Tuesday with additional updates on Thursday.

We recommend subscribing to the Change Log forum for announcements of new features and bug fixes.

Ed wrote 11 days ago ... "All scouts that are approved in Scoutbook must be on your official BSA roster in order to activate sync".

Sad. It means we need to delete all the aged out Eagle scouts and others out before we can activate sync.

Peter, you wouldn't need to "delete" them. In fact, I'd never delete anything. We wouldn't want to lose that data. You can simply go into their current membership, uncheck the position approved box and click update. That way, their records will still be there if you need them.

I am anxiously awaiting the sync process as we can't do the scoutnet import. My council has told me that we need to request the sync, but didn't know where to do that.
Also, we can't do the scoutnet import because our unit number is wrong on scoutnet. We were told to contact the council. They threw it back to national saying they've requested it to be fixed. My question is, will that also affect the sync?
Also, although I asked two of the key three to join, neither has yet. The one who is most likely to notice the email, I believe is on vacation. Will she still get an email when the sync is available?
Thanks

Published: Mar 9, 2017 - "The Scoutbook Advancement Record Sync is now in production. We will run the sync with the pilot units through the month of March to ensure everything is working smoothly."

I love Scoutbook but it has been six months since this "Mission Accomplished" post. This is only the advancement portion of what SB has been promising for well over a year.

Can we please have an update on the status. Have you "temporarily slowed down" implementation to correct issues or frozen it. What are some of the issues that have been discovered? When will we be "full speed ahead?" It has been two weeks since the last update.

I encourage my troop and pack to utilize Scoutbook to the fullest extent possible. I am a champion of SB and will continue to be. I just need realistic estimates so that I am not constantly having to combat user skepticism. Thank you for any information you can provide.

I would like to know what is going on as well. We are having to update both systems manually and it is getting very frustrating and making it difficult to manage transitions to new leaders.

Hayley, while the automatic sync is not available to all units, yet, that does not mean that you need to update Internet Advancement manually. For the Purchase Order, you can click the "scoutnet file" button to generate a csv file to upload to Internet Advancement. Instructions can be found here: http://bit.ly/2duTQ7c

Please post in the Using Scoutbook forum if you have any additional questions.

I keep hearing about "sync." I assume this means Scoutbook can receive/be updated by information in Internet Advancement, but not the other way around. I would be very wary of having Internet Advancement be changed by "information" in Scoutbook.

Lyn, it will go both ways. Why would you be wary? It has to be approved by a leader before it will sync.

I am still not getting my scout book synced with Internet advancement. Is there anyway that you can get this taken care of for me? My counsel is not very helpful in assisting with this. However it is creating a lot of issues for me on my end with Internet advancement. I did a scout net file and sync it however it did not pull everything in. I then had to manually enter a few awards in and it created problems at the council. At this time I'm not able to do anything on my Internet advancement. The sync button has disappeared. am I supposed to delete previous purchase orders? I did not know what I was supposed to do so I added a new advancement record to an old purchase order and save the scout at file however it is not coming over to my Internet advancement website at all. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. I work full-time I also run Girl Scouts and my children are involved in tons of extra curricular activities. this extra time that your system is taking is extremely frustrating and I'm not getting anything done.

Patricia, if you'd like to post this in the "Using Scoutbook" forum, I think it'd get a little more attention: https://www.scoutbook.com/mobile/forums/using-scoutbook/

Jacob: Seriously, why would you want it to sync in both directions? Internet Advancement is the official record, and should be controlled. If you have multiple potential sources of input ("a leader," what does that mean?), you are opening up for problems that you may not want to have.

Lyn, maybe you can clarify who you are concerned shouldn't be approving things in Scoutbook? Are you concerned about the Scoutmaster, Assistant Scoutmasters, Merit Badge Counselors, etc.?

Sync benefits those who use Scoutbook as it was designed to enter completed advancement requirements in Scoutbook as they are completed, just like a scout and leader do in the handbook. Then, once the entire rank/MB/award is completed and approved, instead of needed to create a separate file to upload to Internet Advancement, it automatically goes there. You'll never need to use Internet Advancement again, and Scoutbook becomes the official record. Many users are happy about that. Is your unit tracking completed requirements in Scoutbook as they go or merely entering completed awards into IA directly and pulling those records to Scoutbook occasionally through a Scoutnet import?

Before I enabled sync I was able to do a roster import from scoutnet whenever we added a new scout, this ensured he was entered into our scoutbook exactly as he was entered into scoutnet to prevent issues when uploading advancement and merit badges. Since enabling sync I notice the roster import from scoutnet is no longer possible and my new scouts do not get created in scoutbook, are there plans to restore this feature?

Tim, you can still find the roster import under edit troop.

How is the key 3 set up? I can't sync our unit because I can seem to get past step 2!

We have new scouts who need Advancement activities approved; but, I can not. The error is: scouts need to be set up in Advancement Sync....where are those instructions?