November Scoutbook Update

COH Help is always appreciated

WELP. i'm in.

I will always help in any way you need.

Love, love, love the BS Recognition Report!! Nailed it with this one, Thank You!!!

I think I did it

Dianne,
Look at your troop roster, if the Scouts have an A with a circle around it next to their names, they are synced.

Nancy,
Thank you!

I was in boy scouts for a long time in my days , I'm now 30 years old and am willing to help our younger boys to succeed in the scouts wherever I am needed to help out the most of my input :) please let me know how I can be of great assistance to your guys kids in the boy scouts !!!!! Willing to lend a helping hand :) I live in the great state of Illinois , bout 60 miles Southwest of chicago area :)

Brian,
Go to this website to volunteer your time: https://beascout.scouting.org/Volunteer.aspx
Good luck, and thanks for asking!

Will we be able to do a sync into a den only unit? The pack has decided to stay with the software they have used for the past many years and I purchased the den as i like this software better due to the ease and ability to use on devices anywhere.

Joshua - I do not think den and patrol accounts will be able to as this is a unit thing.

Joshua, you could potentially convert your subscription to a pack subscription (with only your den’s Scouts in it). Then, with the key 3’s permission activate sync for just the scouts in the subscription. I don’t know whether there would be any unintended consequences from this, but I can’t think of any.

To convert to a pack subscription, email scoutbook.support@scouting.org with all your info.

Awesome!!
Count us in!

Joshua — my understanding is that once the sync is activated, the Internet Advancement interface will no longer be available (IA is actually a different database that syncs with the master “Akela” DB).

So if you configure the unit to sync, they won’t be able to enter advancement, as I think the other packages (Troop Master, etc) sync through files uploaded to IA.

IA will still be available but you won't need it. When you activate the sync, your approved or awarded advancements will automatically go to Akela and ScoutNet(PAS).

Bill --

That conflicts with what I've read elsewhere, which was that IA would no longer reflect the back-end. (that is, if you enter things in SB and they sync to Akela, you wouldn't be able to see them in IA). For example, in the FAQ: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7eow1old_bYekdnVXROaGRGbmM/view it says "NOTE: After activating sync in Scoutbook, Internet Advancement will no longer show accurate data for your unit. It is recommended that you do not use it going forward."

Or am I taking that warning to strongly? (like, it'll work for entering data but maybe not for viewing it?)

Also, out of curiosity, is there any way to view a scout's advancement data in Akela/ScoutNet directly? Or are IA and SB the only real user-level interfaces to that system?

David - once you are on sync there should not be any reason to be logging into IA. I personally have never been fond of IA and do not miss it. If you want to know if items have hit you can check the cub scout history report and note where that originates from. Finally, there is no direct access for local scouters to AKELA.

David,
Just to be clear, I wrote the FAQ. Internet Advancement will show changes, however Internet Advancement doesn't have everything that Scoutbook has and so doesn't show advancements like Palms correctly. Internet Advancement won't be turned off for your unit when you sync. We just don't want units to be confused because it may show inaccurate data.

We all need to get use to the idea that Scoutbook is an official BSA database. If your advancements are in Scoutbook, and your unit is sync'd your data is "golden."

If you have more questions, feel free to send an email to scoutbooksync@gmail.com with your contact information and a good time to call.

What is a sync?

Bill --

I know you wrote it, that's part of why I was confused.

So I guess then that I was interpreting it too strongly -- I'd been under the impression that IA only synced ... well... I don't know exactly what I was thinking (I keep trying to fall back to more technical explanations of what's going on and that's pointless to speculate).

Bottom line, perhaps a unit *could* use SB for one or two dens and IA for the rest, if they'd really wanted to. My impression had been otherwise (that once you switch, IA became, essentially, disconnected), and so wanted to warn Joshua from a few responses back that the suggestion might cause more problems than they'd expect.

Certainly, I can see there'd be things that you'd be able to see, and do, in Scoutbook that wouldn't reflect in IA, and you'd lose those features, that visibility, if you went back to IA.


Anyway, to you (and Stephen) I'm 150% on board with Scoutbook (and can only hope I can convince whatever Troop my boys end up at to use it as well). As for the mindset about Scoutbook being "an official BSA Database," I'm definitely on board with that as well, but I'm also technical enough to know that it's a synced *copy* of *the* official DB, and the nit-picker in me was also wondering if there was a public way to get direct to the actual source....just because.

Thanks to you and all the team for everything. We activated sync for our pack the other night and it went really smoothly. Now I can greatly simply the instructions for whomever takes over from me buying bling at the scout store!

David,

Long term, all advancement data for the BSA will be in the Scoutbook database. Those units that do not use Scoutbook will have a path to get advancement completions into the SB DB, similar to the way Internet Advancement is the path into ScoutNET today. The BSA has told the SUAC that as of now, the Scoutbook DB is the official record for any unit that syncs. The sync with ScoutNET is there because councils want a single place to view unit records. Until all data is migrated to the SB DB, that place is ScoutNET, however, if there is a discrepancy, the unit can go back to SB to show that the Scout has in fact completed the work.

David,
In the future the BSA will have different data stores that will be accessed by BSA applications via a data warehouse. Programmers will not need to worry about where the data is actually stored. (advancement data will be in the SB database) There will be no 'sync.' For the end users (us) we just need to know that if we currently use Scoutbook and are currently sync'd our data is safe and is stored in the BSA database. Just like if we used Internet Advancement.

The BSA IT Roadmap is here: http://itroadmap.scouting.org/

If you have more questions, feel free to send me an email with contact information and a good time to call at suacinformation@gmail.com

Thanks! The IT roadmap looks like a good place for me to explore...(I love roadmaps).

It's great to see a structure and plan moving forward, considering that many of the apps are things most of us only use sparingly...seeing a long-term plan to improve and (hopefully, eventually) streamline and unify, is fantastic. Often it feels like there are just so many different and fragmented systems with totally different user experiences...knowing that "the problems" are being worked is very reassuring. :)

My second class 5mile hike was not updated and please fix when able to

Andrew - you should be able to do that yourself.

Thank you for your constant support and development of this product. You guys are awesome.

Thank you

There needs to be more development on the MB advancement updating feature. Multiple simultaneous updates with the same date does not seem to be supported making data entry of each requirement painstakingly SLOW. The same goes for editing a date. It would be better to combine the two pages into one. Additionally, can you add a button on the same page to "add another MB." Just a suggestion to get the existing BS to enter their historical data FASTER.

Marcelo,

On a Merit Badge requirement page you can click in the white area to enable a date field at the bottom of the page. Enter the desired ate then click the completed requirements. This will mark those requirements complete with the required date.

I also recommend the volunteer written and supported [url=https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/feature-assistant-extensi/paemmmaolgojladlndlbpgjpmflfcjoa?hl=en-US]Feature Assistant Extension for Scoutbook for Chrome[/url] and [url=https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/feature-assistant-scoutbook/]Feature Assistant Extension for Scoutbook for Firefox[/url] which adds features for Merit Badge councilors such as quick entry.

Marcelo, have you tried Quick Entry for merit badge requirements? As for historical data, if the data is already entered at Internet Advancement, all you need to do is activate the Scout(s) for the advancement sync, and their date will sync to Scoutbook within a couple of days.

mine keeps snagging on the registered unit admins, i have all my den leaders and myself as admins.. any suggestions?

Dusty,

We can help you better if you post in the forums where we can ask detailed questions and get notified of your responses.

Bill, you have ask me to go to round table I have no clue where that would be I can't fine
Any users in my area on this app

Larry - roundtable meetings are a district function so check your council web page for your district calendar.

Hi All- I'm having trouble designating myself and the other leaders as a key 3 member. We are a relatively young pack so we might have missed this at set up. How do I figure this out?

Aaron, there was an issue with the validation step that has now been resolved.