In legacy Scoutbook, it was possible to add additional adults to scouts accounts to get email and calendar reminders. Also, unless an adult has created an account for themselves they cant get messages, even if they are linked. In the Beta version of messaging in SB+ There is no longer a way to do this.(and indeed, all of these types of connections will be automatically removed on Dec 31st!) I can not send messages to 2/3 of my troop parents in SB+ because of these issues so I am continuing to use legacy scoutbook for messages. I realize that a full connection is not appropriate, but it will be overly burdensome to ask a grandparent, step parent, etc to create a scout account and link to the scout to just receive communication from the troop. There needs to be a way to add additional contact email addresses to a scouts profile that get messages and calendar reminders, but do not have login rights to see anything in scoutbook.
This is a must have feature for my units- If the ability to add additional email addresses tied to a scout goes away, we will revert to sending messages outside of scoutbook.
Beta Units have a way to report issues - please use that. But moving forward, Legacy connections will be ended, Relationships need to be established, Relationships are a multi-Scouting type that work platform to platform.
I know relationships will need validated. I am saying that units need to have a way to add additional emails onto a scouts profile for communication / event reminders only.
If you mean like Grandparents/uncles etc - that is known - council can add those also
Yes- Grandparents, Uncles, or others that are not a parent that dont need access to the scouts advancements or record, but need to be on communications as they are the ones doing drop off / pickup, etc. Are you saying that feature for units to add contacts is in development/backlog? and that in the mean time council can add those contacts? Thanks!
@CraigValent well in Legacy SB - the Other Family was never automatically included in Emails - only parents where - of course a unit COULD make anyone a SB Parent to get around it.
I’ll suggest a workaround for now: in most email programs, the user (parent) can set up an auto-forward. It takes a bit of work initially, then is easy:
In gmail, it’s Settings > Forwarding. Add a forwarding email address for grandparents & uncles. They have to accept it in their email (to prevent spam) and authenticate in parent’s gmail. Then the parent can set a rule for calendar reminders, all emails from xyz@scoutbook.org, etc to auto-forward desired emails to the people of choice.
In my pack, this would work as Scouting started requiring emails and using a scouting login to sign up for scouts a few years ago, but in my troop, over 50% of the scouts the parents don’t have scouting IDs (and I have tried to push a number of times. I had to collect money and pay at the unit level for registration from those parents last year because they couldn’t get logged in.) Eventually this will work its way out of the system as these older scout age out, but there are probably 5 years yet. And still no way for me as a unit leader to add an email when a parent or gaurdian says “I want to see emais so I know what is going on”
I have sat with my laptop at meetings and helped parents create a my.scouting.org ID for themselves. My troop will not register Scouts on behalf of parents so this problem of not having a my.scouting.org ID quickly resolves itself.
A majority of users that are on SB and can Log in have a Member ID - you can see it in there SB Legacy Profile
Here is where is falls apart- the new method requires someone to login before they are even connected to get emails. Especially at the troop level most parents don’t want or need to log in and never have. That’s how I will end up with 1/2 of the troop unable to get emails after the first of the year. And then we are back to the original issue of people that do Not need to see advancement or the scouts information and just need event reminders and emails.
This is apparently the process that’s been specified by Scouting America. The SUAC folks can’t do anything to change that. If volunteers like us want to advocate for a change, we will have to do that via our council professionals.
It is actually pretty important to have a parent with an email in the system. Not only is it the current process to get messages for reminders, but also reminders for registration.
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