Welcome! This forum has a treasure trove of great info – Scouters helping Scouters! Just a heads up, though - all content, information, and opinions shared on this forum are those of the author, not the BSA.
So I’ve been confused by this for a while. When someone transfers to my council from another council, my council makes a brand new BSAID for them. Every time. Then we (almost always?
always? not sure) have lots of problems with data moving from their ‘old’ account to their ‘new’ account, since it looks like scoutbook treats them as separate persons- except it won’t let me use the same email for each of the accounts either.
Is the council doing this wrong or am I confused - I thought the whole point of a nationally unique BSAID was so that you have ONE record as you moved through your scouting journey??
Or will the recent improvements to my.scouting that allow you to add multiple BSAIDs allow you to tie multiple council’s records with multiple BSAIDs to one identity?
BSA ID’s are isolated to councils. So they are nontransferable. It is stupid. The user can use Manage Member ID at my.scouting.org to help finding training and a few other things like log ins but it is not a full solution.
I suspect that this is less about BSA-IT (who I suspect already recognizes that > 1 database record/BSA ID per individual = bad), and more about BSA national reassessing the strategy they previously pursued to prevent overlapping BSA ID usage (> 1 person per BSA ID) among councils by pre-allocating BSA IDs on a per-council basis.
The real question is: how many resources are needed to consolidate all individuals on a single BSA ID, how many individuals have multiple BSA IDs, and how much impact is it causing relative to the various other impact items. Personally, I’d like to see it all resolved sooner rather than later, but I suspect it’s a non-trivial problem to resolve, that is more than just a coding issue.
Transfers between councils create a new BSA ID# for scouts and adults because the BSA ID# is unique to each council, as Donovan has said.
IF you transfer the scout in Scoutbook before the paperwork is processed, using the TRANSFER IN SCOUT tool (button at the bottom of the roster page) you get their account with all their history, including parent connections. Then update their account with new address and council/district info. Make sure their details match the paper application (First/Middle/Last Name, Date of Birth, City/State/Zip Code). Turn the paper app into council for processing. Member sync should match the My.Scouting account that is created to the old account and update the BSA ID#.
If the paperwork process takes 90 days, then there is a new problem. Member sync automatically ends a Scoutbook membership that is not sync’d to the My.Scouting roster at 90 days. So keep tabs on this and change the membership start date as needed to avoid the 90 day limit. When sync’d, edit the start date to the correct date. The membership entry has a notes field, useful for tracking this.
Use the My.Scouting tool Manage Member ID to match multiple BSA ID#s to one person.
Parents may also have an ID# from previous scouting. IF they DO NOT register in the current council, they may continue to use their old account. IF they register in a new council, then use Manage Member ID to match the old number (and associated training) to the new number.
IF you DID NOT transfer the scout before the paperwork is processed, then the scout has two accounts (at least) and they need to be MERGED.
Merged implies an easy process. It is not. It is manual and requires outside help. Get this done ASAP; delay makes this process harder.
There are several steps.
Find all of the scout’s accounts.
a. They have at least one in their previous council, but there could be several. For military kids, there could be several councils with accounts.
b. You may need to post to the forums for SUAC assistance in finding all the accounts.
c. Each account has a Scoutbook SCOUTUSERID in the address bar when you open the account. Make a note of each one. (All the steps below are easier if you transfer the account to your unit.)
Determine which account should be the one to keep.
a. This is probably the account with the most history, as consolidating history is a manual process.
b. Don’t forget access to Scout activity logs is lost for accounts that are not kept; this is also part of the scouts history.
Determine which BSA ID# is the one to keep. If there is only one from the current council, this is easy. If more than one, talk with your registrar.
Manually update the scout account you will keep.
a. Advancement history
b. Awards history
c. Scout logs history
d. Parent connections
e. Use Manage Member ID to link old ID#'s to the current number.
Contact SUAC to finish the process.
a. Post in the forums you have a scout with multiple accounts and need help merging them.
b. SUAC will contact you via private message for more information.
c. They will need to know which account to keep (and which to end) and which BSA ID# to keep.
SUAC, did I miss anything?
Edit - thanks Jennifer for the additional details needed for Member sync match.
I would add that you also need to update the city, state, and zip code to match the information on the application, because the membership sync is trying to match certain fields before creating a new record. Full name (first, middle, last), date of birth, and zip code are all fields that the membership sync looks at for a match.
