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.
Sunday, I successfully uploaded a Council MBC list to Scoutbook. Today, Tuesday, I modified that file to remove the no longer used fields and uploaded it again. It is now reporting 20 errors because the First or Last names on ScoutNet no longer match their name in ScoutBook. It seems the names actually do match, they are just CAPITALIZED differently. These counselors were not flagged as errors last week!
This is on top of the changes to the format of the Council MBC Upload file that were not, to my knowledge, announced before the update. So besides springing a new file format on us without little or no warning, (Yes I saw the RED Message on the upload page that said the format changed. But it didn’t tell (link to) where to find the new format,) the system is now checking the capitalization of first and last names??? Suddenly counselors that matched perfectly well last week are now reporting errors!
It appears that several of our Counselors originally created their local ScoutBook Accounts with different capitalization of their names than what is registered on ScoutNet. Some have created all capital first and last names. Other have used different capitalization within their names, like Von Schmacht → von Schmacht, and Deluna → DeLuna. This went undetected until the recent changes, when suddenly it blew up.
I don’t believe the new ScoutNet → ScoutBook MBC link propogates the First Name and Last Name spellings from ScoutNet to ScoutBook. That is why I am suddenly getting these errors. (My source for Counselor’s names is ScoutBook Print Registrant Selections.). Or do I have to hunt down each counselor and ask them to specify their preferred name capitalization and if necessary, ask them to change their ScoutBook name to match that? Or I need to go back to ScoutNet and modify the capitalization of their names on that system to match their ScoutBook version. This is especially important for the few folks that entered their name in ScoutBook in ALL CAPS. I don’t believe we want to go back and put that into ScoutNet.
So, I am now going to have to either edit ScoutNet to match the capitalization of names in ScoutBook. Or request the users correctly punctuate their names on ScoutBook. And will ScoutBook even let the edit their names without creating some other snafu?
The names in ScoutNET and Scoutbook should be the same, if they are not you are going to run into issues. You will not be able to change names in Scoutbook with the upload file and if the names don’t match you will likely run into issues not only with the MBC upload but with other things down the road.
The only thing the Council Admin MBC upload can change now is the assigned MBs. If you store the assigned merit badges in ScoutNET you should be making all your changes in ScoutNET.
If you do not have MBs in ScoutNET and wish to continue to make changes of MB assignments via the upload file, then download the file from the Merit Badge Download page, make your changes to the file, and upload it.
Feel free to reach out to me if you wish to discuss.
Bill,
For about 20 of my 1350 counselors, my upload of the counselos reports a name missmatch. The overnight ScoutNet → ScoutBook link does not seem to propogate the counselors first and last name from ScoutNet to ScoutBook for these folks. Rather, it reports them as having a name miss match. The names in my upload are identical to ScoutNet as they are pulled from the Print Registrant Selections report. Ron Fedele says the names did propogate for counselors in his Council? So why didn’t the system propogate the names for my 20 counselors? Could it be that they had previously created ScoutBook accounts with the name differences? Does ScoutBook know which accounts were created from ScoutNet, and which were created by the user?
This problem leads to a concern about what will happen when a counselor asks the Council to change their name, for whatever reason. The Council admin edits their ScoutNet record with the name change. How will this name change get propagated to ScoutBook?
Plus it appears that one counselor, who has been multiple successful ScoutBook uploads since April, is now reporting “BSA Member ID Is not existing in Scoutbook”. As far as I can tell, his number in ScoutNet has not changed. I can share specifics in an Email, if needed.
Based on a tip, I have edited the names in ScoutNet for each of the counselors. In many cases I just deleted and then added back a letter in each of the First and Last name fields. Then I saved the record. Hopefully this will mark the record as “Dirty” and cause ScoutNet to update the matching record in ScoutBook. I will check tomorrow to see if that happened.
And Bill, the file I emailed you earlier shows examples of the problems.
That may be the best solution. I expect that other councils will start having this problem as they try to upload their MBC lists.
In the mean time, I have edited the 20 records in ScoutNet that don’t match by case the ScoutBook entries. Hoping this will geneate a “Dirty” tag on the ScoutNet data, causing the names in ScoutBook to be updated to the ScoutNet source. I will check tomorrow to see if the updated names pushed thru to ScoutBook.
One the the problems with spreading data across multiple systems is deciding which system is the “Authoritative” source. Only one Authoritative source should be identified for each data field. Changes to that data item MUST come from the authoritative source. Otherwise we end up where we are today, with miss-matched case in names causing match failures.
Ed,
I understand and agree. But we also need to communicate to folks how they can get changes made to their name. If the tip I was given is correct, they we should inform folks that if they need to edit or change their name in ScoutBook, they need to ask their Council Registrar to make the changes in ScoutNet, which should cause them to flow thru to ScoutBook.
Yesterday I edited the ScoutNet records for several of our counselors with case differences in their names. I overwrote the First and Last name fields in ScoutNet (frequently with the same exact data), and then saved the record. The hope was that would mark the record as “dirty” and push it thru to ScoutBook. Apparenly that doesn’t work. I checked today and their names in ScoutBook were not updated with the changes. (It could be that ScoutNet is too clever, and realized that the changes were identical to the original and just didn’t send the data???)
Given that the name fields in ScoutBook do not allow editing (which I understand), how do we as admins, or users, change their name in ScoutBook? Even with the case insensitivity enabled in ScoutBook, this will still be a problem. Peoples names change when the marry or divorce, etc. So we need a way to facilitate that change.
So what is the method to a person’'s name in ScoutBook. (This is not the same as chaniging their Login name!)
There is an issue when a council administrator uploads the MBC file to Scoutbook if a name in Scoutbook has different upper and lower case letters than the name in ScoutNET. A fix has been identified. This issue will be fixed in the schedule Scoutbook update on Wednesday night.
Thanks for fixing this…I just encountered it. (Ironically, Scoutbook was insisting on the wrong capitalization.) Making the match case insensitive is the right fix.
…may be worth checking why the error for name mismatch is repeated. “Last name DeCharles in the MBC File is not the same in scoutbook last name Decharles. Last name DeCharles in the MBC File is not the same in scoutbook last name Decharles.” Department of Redundancy Department?
YiS,
Michael
I finally found a way to force the person’s name in ScoutNet to overwrite their name in ScoutBook. Edit their ScoutBook record and append a “-x” to their first and last names. Make sure their names are correct and properly capitalized. Save their updated ScoutNet record with the -x names. Wait overnight (or two) for that to push thru to ScoutBook. Once you see the -x name in scoutbook, go back to ScoutNet and delete the added “-x” from their names. Make sure that all parts of their name are correct, including capitalization. Wait overnight (or two) again, and their ScoutBook account should now mirror their names in ScoutBook.
