Our linked troops are using one TroopMaster Web account. When uploading an advancement file for the boys, which includes the girls, the entire file is rejected and not processed. Why can’t the file simply reject the girls’ BSA ID# and process the file?
You will need to contact Troopmaster for support. IA will reject any file that has Scouts not on the roster. This is by design.
We had multiple Scouts with us from other troops during summer camp - we have them in troopmaster but they are not registered to our troop. how do we get IA to accept the file with other scouts in it? Or how are we supposed to track scouts from other troops ?
With Internet Advancement you only track Scouts registered in your unit. You have to remove every instance of the non-registered scouts from the file.
That being said - you might corrupt the file doing that. I would just remove the Scouts from TM if they are not your scouts. @RichardExnicios
If you don’t want to remove these Scouts from Troopmaster, then you will need to contact Troopmaster support to find out how to produce an advancement report with only your registered Scouts.
unfortunately removing them from troopmaster is not an acceptable answer, these scouts are with us frequently and we share responsibility for them with their home troop. We also have Scouts whose registration is still pending or waiting for council to enter them, will this also be an issue? This is the scenario we were concerned about from the beginning
If you share responsibility for Scouts, they should be dual registered.
Councils should be processing applications quickly. You will not be able to record advancement for new Scouts until they are on your official roster. If your council is not processing new applications within 2 weeks, you should speak with your council professionals to find out why.
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the basic response is council is short on staff. For the Cubs this is a real issue - they register and earn their Bobcat within the first week and according to the program, as in the BSA Cub Scout program they should receive their Bobcat immediately. We cannot purchase the patch until we can process advancement - so they way weeks for what we used to be able to award at the very next meeting. I realize this may not be in your area but it is a significant issue that needs to be pointed out.
Only officially registered individuals may receive BSA advancement awards per BSA policy. Not allowing units to record advancement for non-registered individuals is how Internet Advancement and Scoutbook implement this policy.
Your choices are:
- Use online registration which will add new Scouts to your roster within 24 hours.
- Wait for the council to process paper applications.
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Back in May/June timeframe IA didn’t reject the file. It listed the errors but continued to process it. Why the change?
And I’m still waiting for a scout that joined my unit in June to show up in IA. Paperwork has been submitted to district/council. So even without the linked troop issue, I can’t process any of my 180 summer camp merit badges until this one scout shows up in IA. This is penalizing units due to whatever paperwork issues are going on within the council. And I have a court of honor coming up.
I don’t buy the staffing excuse for not processing an app for 2 months. I would call the council and ask for the status of this application. I bet the council didn’t wait 2 months to process the payment.
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We also use an outside program for tracking, ours allows us to uncheck specific Scouts before creating the Advancement file, that way if there are issues with any of the Scouts registrations we can still submit the rest of the advancements. If TM does not have this option perhaps reach out to them and see if they could implement something like that so you can choose who goes into the Advancement file. Manually editing the file is also possible but make sure you are careful with that as it could easily be changed so nothing would load correctly. I am surprised it ever worked all of the documentation I have seen says that if something is wrong the whole thing will error out.
As far as purchasing the Patch, as long as you have advancement paperwork you can purchase multiple patches, buy extra to have on hand to award then take care of the paperwork on the back end when everything gets worked out.
Troopmaster Web allows you to create filters, and use them when creating Court of Honor reports for uploading to Internet Advancement. Just create separate filters for the boys and girls, or a filter including only the boys registered in your unit, then use that filter when preparing your upload file.
Jeffrey - Can you expand on the filters we can use in Troopmaster Web? I have the same issue here.
The way I got around it for now was to export each Patrol separately. That was clear for how to do in the Court of Honor report (drop-down in center column under scouts), and all our girls are in a separate patrol. It was definitely more work though.
We also have huge delays in processing paperwork at our local council and it is one of the reasons I’m very hesitant to sign on to scoutbook as the only source. We need to be able to communicate with and track advancements of scouts once they have committed to us, not once the council has processed the paperwork. I read about online registrations once and got excited - until our local council told us we were NOT allowed to do that.
I will reach out to Troopmaster also, but I agree that we should be able to move ahead with the IDs that DO match when importing - notify us of the errors but move ahead.
@ValerieMis in Scoutbook you can manually add Scouts at anytime - to track and communicate - they just become official when the council gets around to entering them
Our Pack Committee Chair said when she has added scouts or parents to Scoutbook before the council processed the paperwork, they often ended with duplicate accounts, which was even more of a headache. Is there a trick to prevent that from happening?
The developers are looking in to this issue. At this time all you can do is wait for the paperwork to be processed and the adult to be automatically added to your unit instead of manually adding the leader.
Thanks. This solved the issue.
