Hello,
My first use case is that I am interested in creating a digital photo album for our troop. I would like to host the album on our own web server. The album is not meant to be viewable by the public, only for members of the troop. I would really like to be able to have parents/scouts that have scouting.org credentials be able to use them to log in to our troop’s website. That would require scouting.org to offer an authentication API like OAuth that we could use. In addition, some simple read-only APIs that we could do from our web server like getting the member id of the authenticated user and their associated scouts so that we can ensure that the user is actually a member of the troop (according to scouting.org). In this way when someone leaves the troop they automatically lose access to the album (and other future features), and when someone joins they automatically get the ability to log in to our troop’s website and get access to troop member features.
Thanks!
-Michael
@MichaelNicolella- the answer to that ask would most likely be a no and I would strongly advise against pushing the issue in the forums.
This request is beyond the authority of anyone in the forums. We can take bug/enhancement requests for Scoutbook/Plus and how to questions for all tools. If you feel strongly about this, you’ll need to go through your council staff to request it.
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@MichaelNicolella
My suggestion is to encourage families to log in to my.scouting.org and switch their Scouting America logins to use either Apple or Google IDs. You could then have your system provide the same login options. It accomplishes the same goal without Scouting America needing to spend $ to implement your suggestion.
As others have said, this is a request that would need to go through your Council’s professional staff. You would have to demonstrate how it furthers Scouting America’s business objectives and could provide a return on investment for the $ required to implement and support such a system.
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Thank you for the replies. I will try to figure out where to send such a request, but honestly if this sort of feedback isn’t being actively sought or at the least gathered from the forums then it’s unlikely the decision makers know how many packs or troops would be willing to use it.
Having users switch the credentials they use on scouting.org plus our website doesn’t do anything to solve this problem or make it easier to solve at all. The core of the feature is that of authentication - I need to know that the user on my site has authenticated with scouting.org, and only the scouting.org website is able to answer that question. Given a successful authentication, my web server would be given a token that I could use to ask scouting.org questions about the user (like what their BSA ID is) so that I can use it to cross reference against other data that the troop admins have access to.
@MichaelNicolella- there are no decision makers on the forums only volunteers
@MichaelNicolella
I suspect the number of packs or troops that have the expertise to build such a system is small.
The volunteers that monitor the forums can only provide feedback via the paths we have been given. For everything except Scoutbook and Scoutbook Plus, this path is directing members with issues or suggestions to their local councils who can submit member care tickets.
The SUAC has asked for the ability to report bugs to other development teams but we have been denied. Those teams only want to accept bug reports and suggestions from Council staff.
The system is not perfect nor what volunteers would like but it is what we have.
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