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.
We move scouts around the patrols a few times a year after crossover, elections, and when scouts age out or become inactive. Unfortunately, with the current migration there seems to be issues with duplicate patrols shown in Scoutbook Legacy. The ones marked in orange are duplicates and cannot be found in Scoutbook Plus.
There’s no functionality as far as I can find, in legacy, to delete those duplicates.
Another bug occurred when I had to move a scout from one patrol to another. I tried two methods:
Go to the destination patrol and add the scout. Scout added, however, scout was not removed from the original patrol, hence create a duplicate in SB+.
In order to remove the duplicate scout listed in both patrols, I went to the original patrol to remove the one scout, save (not delete the patrol). The entire original patrol and all other scouts were deleted. I had to Add a new patrol title, assign remaining scouts and adult leader into the patrol. I suspect this also amplified the issue of duplicate patrols shown in Scoutbook Legacy.
@ChrisCh - they can be ignored as parents and leaders should ONLY be in advancements.scouting.org. And if things are correct there.. then that is all they need to know.
Need help too!
I have duplicate patrols showing in legacy SB and not even showing in SB+
I have created them a couple time, looks like it works, then whamo! all gone. All the scouts placed in “Unassigned” as if there is no patrol at all. Tried to create it again, looks good. Refresh; gone again.
The patrol system seems hopelessly broken.
I’m just trying to manage my Troop and I spent hours fighitng Scoutbook and now Scoutbook+ is even worse.
Please, I would love any help the community can provide, even the guesses, but is there anyone actually at the Scouting office who we can contact to fix issues?
Helpdesk ticketing system? Anything?
YIS
David Moore
I’m not really, but clearly they are still connected somehow, as the patrol (multiple copies now) show up there. I’m only mentioning it to help diagnose what is happening.
Does it matter? I am trying to get patrols set up in Scoutbook+, I promise. I will use SB+ exclusively, if only it worked…
Okay, after reading the “help” page for the final time…
I decided to just create the patrol without putting any Scouts in it yet.
I got a success message in SB+ but no patrol showing using group by patrol.
I DID verify a THIRD instance of this partol in legacy SB for whatever that is worth.
I then choose a Scout from the “Unassigned” list and “Add to Patrol”
The new patrol DID show up in the list of patrols to choose from - which made me hopeful.
I choose the new patrol and clicked Save.
Voila, I see the new patrol in the group by and I see the Scout in the patrol!
I even refreshed the page and…still there! Woohoo!
I feel elated at my success and accomplishment.
I grabbed a donught and a new cup of coffee to celebrate.
I decided to tempt fate and add a second Scout to the patrol.
I clicked again on “Add to Patrol” and choose the new patrol from the drop down, and clicked Save.
”Looked” like it worked. Both Scouts show in the patrol.
Refreshed the page…Gone.
Patrol…Gone
Both Scouts…Now back in “Unassigned”
Went to throw up my doughnut and coffee.
Came back and just for giggles, refreshed the page again.
The patrol is back and still has the two Scouts assigned.
Pensively optomistic, I may have found the magic process.
I sitll don’t know if the edit feature will work, but at least I can get my “Unassigned” scouts into a patrol.
I hope this helps someone having the same problem.
It would STILL BE GREAT if there were actual technical support provided by Scouting America, but that has been a dream of mine for too many years to count now.
yes, that may have some affect on this. BUT, cache and cookies does not delete an entire patrol that has been active for months, and does not explain the behavior I started with today.
Once a website shows data from a direct service request, cache and cookies should ensure idempotency of that data, not randomness of results, and should never revert to a previous state.
FYI, THIS is what a do for a living, and have been for 30 years. I assure you, I can tell when a web application is working properly, and when it is not. I can also assure you and any Scouting America employee who might happen upon this, I can fix everything that is wrong with Scoutbook, and turn it into a productive and performant application that Scout leaders can navigate easily and rely on to manage their units without these headaches. I promise.
I would also work to impliment a ticketing system where users can get dedicated technical support.
@DavidMoore13- fair enough. It was only a guess on my part. Now I will say that the forums are volunteer run and the dev team and national are not involved. Nor am I aware that they would implement a direct ticket system with users.
It is a pipe dream for sure, until the director of application development, or whoever holds that position of authority at that level, initiates such a project. There is no reason in my mind that a national organization, with over a 100-year history, such as Scouting America, should be this unatainable for technical support of their systems, and rely solely on a volunteer community to provide help.
Not saying this isn’t valuable, but when an actual issue is exposed, there needs to be a way to let the develoment team know.
Hi, As a person for my council who is the first line of defense, I am going to ask you the same questions I get asked when I try to get help:
Are you using a computer (NOT A PHONE)?
Is your chrome current?
Have you cleared your cache “for all time”
did you try incognito?
And my personal ones: Check your caffeine level. Have you had a bathroom check lately? Have you eaten recently? Have you had chocolate? Have you made the appropriate sacrifices to the computer gods and goddesses?
Other than that, it does look like something is seriously wrong. Super folks here may be able to help if you add the ID number only of a couple of the appearing/disappearing scouts.
You can of course, send an email with ID numbers, detailed steps of what you did (like you were explaining it to a 5 yr old), to the registrar or designee in your council office. They can submit a ticket. Don’t hold your breath.
Sorry I can’t be more helpful, but I will check with folks in my council to see what has happened to them.
talking to myself. A while ago, there was an issue. The weird solution was to reset the filters and make sure you were picking all options for membership. That would be on the unit home page in SB+ Not sure if it would help, but worth a try?
@MarianMcQuaid
Computer, check (a phone is not a computer )
Latest Chrome, check
Cleared cache, check (but see earlier comments. A good application should not require this. Clearing cache should be held as a last ditch solution. Any application that relies on this is flawed.)
Incongnito is not something I have tried recently that I know of. This is something I use quite often with systems in which I have multiple accounts, like Microsoft, where multiple accounts can interfere with each other’s cache and cookies. Scoutbook Plus is not a system where that should be an issue. If incognito mode solves a problem, then that problem is an issue that should be fixed by the developers.
My caffine level is usually quite high in the morning, but thank you for your concern. Bathroom, check. I’m on GLP-1, so I’m not eating as much as normal, and that does affect my mood, not gonna lie. Chocolate, good idea. I tend to rely on my own god status, as I often fix other’s problems by simply entering the room, but I admit, even we need to pray to higher gods sometimes, thanks!
Our Council office is disfunctional at best, and I often wonder how anything gets done here. As an example, it can take weeks to get a Scout registered to my Troop after I have submitted his application (by hand) to the Council. (I can’t get anything done by email.) This adds to my frustration as Scoutbook is really my only tool. Managing my Troop is difficult enough.
FYI, I am the Scoutmaster of a Troop chartered by a boarding school. I have zero parent help. I do my best with one dedicated Assistant Scoutmaster, his wife, and a handful of teachers at the school. I have very limited time to enter data into scoutbook, so it needs to “just work”.
You have been very helpful, both of you, if only to get me calmed down and “try something else”.
Thanks!
Good to hear you have a handle on this, sorta. I hate to say this, but quite often when I ask something of National, I get asked “did you try incognito”?
Does your council do online registrations? I know in my council, the number of errors dropped dramatically. We do have folks who start an app then stop when they get to the payment screen. Couple weeks later when they have $$ they start a new one. That and reminding unit leaders to check and approve the apps was another issue. I am sorry for your issues.
YiS
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