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.
I’m Executive Officer, Cubmaster, and Wolf Den Leader in my Pack. I’m working on entering some awards that my Den just earned and I cannot approve or award my own child (I was able to do so for everyone else in my Den) for particular awards. The ones causing me grief are Germs Alive! (won’t let me mark as awarded) and Finding Your Way (won’t let me approve). The system let me approve Bobcat.
I’ve never run into this before… I’ve been a Den Leader and Key Three position holder for years. Is this a known bug? Are there new rules that do not allow me to enter my own child’s achievements?
I started with quick entry for the entire den but noticed I had an alert for “Items to Approve” for only my child. I went directly to his page because I was confused as to why only he was showing as needing approval. It’s giving me an error that says “Your position(s) and repeated permissions do not allow you to perform this action.” I just went back to the To Approve in Advancements and it let me approve Finding Your Way there, same with the To Award for Germs Alive!.
So there appears to be a bug only on quick entry and the Scout’s page for my child only on specific adventures.
Same issue. I am new to this as a new Advancement Chair but I was playing around and found this worked for me:
On my Scout’s page selected adventure (Bobcat). It wouldn’t go through when trying to save when I picked date and checked “Mark as Approved/Recorded” only to get the “Your position(s) and repeated permissions do not allow you to perform this action.” message.
Selected date and clicked saved without checking box and it went through.
Selected the quick entry notebook in upper right corner of scout’s page.
Checked the complete and approved all boxes to select everything
Entered date and saved. - It went through and saved.
Hope this works for others as a short term work around.
ETA: Other 2 Scouts I did worked fine. This was only for my Scout.
I’m currently experiencing this issue as well. I’m a den leader and an admin with “full control.” Scoutbook gave me grief during the spring for my child’s achievements but not the other kids in my den so I needed another user to do approvals, then it was fine after summer camp and our first den meeting, and now it’s giving me the same error mentioned above. I’ve tried Quick Entry, going to my child’s profile through the den, going to her profile as my child, going through SB legacy, and two other routes too long to explain and I keep getting the same error. I’ve tried changing the dates and that hasn’t worked either. I use the website because I’ve heard the app is worse but I might try that route next. Just wanted to share my experience.
The app is only for parent/scout, so doesn’t offer the ability to Leader Approve things (even for a parent who is also a scouter).
You mentioned Scoutbook. Are you talking about classic Scoutbook (https://scoutbook.scouting.org) or Scoutbook+ (https://advancements.scouting.org)? All advancement for packs has been in Scoutbook+ for a while now, and troops just shifted over comparatively recently.
I’m talking about both Scoutbook + and Scoutbook legacy. I’ve basically clicked on every menu option and tab to find a work around. The only time I can approve my own child’s achievements is when SB decides to let me.
In the upper right corner, click on the Orange Oval with your Pack’s name, then click on your role as Pack Admin.
After that you should be able to approve/award for your own child.
For some reason it seems to default to “parent/guardian” role for your own child, but “Pack Admin” for everyone else until you specifically click on the role.
I default to a Scouts BSA unit (I’m leadership in multiple units) so my first step is always to switch to the Pack. Regardless, I was able to approve multiple other cub scouts. The only one I couldn’t approve was my own child.
I’m running into the same problem with a scouting troop. I’m the advancement chair, and I can approve any scout EXCEPT my own for things. My child (ID 134788348) recently completed First Class, and while I could mark it as complete, I couldn’t approve it (It was marked approved by “BSA Administrator” later that day). I also just tried to mark one of his Merit Badges (Aviation) as “Awarded”, since he got it a while back, and I got “Your position(s) and related permissions do not allow you to perform this action”. What’s particularly strange is that while I was marked as his parent in the past, I’m no longer marked that way in Scoutbook (I need to have my wife fix that).
Can this please be fixed? IT makes it very difficult to do my job as the Advancement Chair.
In classic Scoutbook, there was no real verification against the official membership database for parent/guardian connections. Now, SB+ relies directly on the official membership database for validating all parent/guardian relationships with scouts. As you discovered, a connected parent (in the membership database) can validate the connection of another parent, but adults can’t validate themselves. The council can also add that connection if there isn’t a connected parent able to do so.
I know how to fix it. I haven’t done it yet. I more meant that when I view the scout, I’m not listed as a parent (although I am in the possible “users” of scoutbook drop-down from the oval in the top left.
The problem I need fixed is being able to approve my own kids as Advancement Chair.
