This was covered in this topic, which is now closed, so I’m opening a new one. Can we have a basic API for accessing Scoutbook data? I’d even settle for an authentication endpoint so I can provide single sign-on to my parents. Thanks for listening.
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As you can see from that other post, the APIs are not something that is getting any priority right now.
Can you explain what you are trying to accomplish with with an authentication endpoint? We already have SSO with all the various bsa applications. So, I’m not sure what benefit you are seeking. Pretend I don’t know anything anything about those technologies… because I don’t.
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Hi, Jacob, thank you for your reply. I have authored an application to manage my Troop’s events, calendar, etc. At present it has standalone identity management, meaning Troop members have usernames and passwords unique to my application. In a perfect world we can tell them to use the same credentials they use on scouting.org. That would mean scouting.org serves in an authentication capacity using a mechanism like OAuth.
Separately, I’d be interested in learning more about the Scoutbook User Advisory Council and perhaps even participating if that’s an option.
Many thanks.
While I appreciate the idea and the benefit it would bring to you, I can’t see IT allowing that. (I checked with others who are technically proficient in this area).
I’ve asked someone to reach out to you.
@RaymondBradley - if your domain/realm aould be in full sync and compliance with the scouting.org domain then perhaps but in this case why re-invent the wheel.
Hi, Stephen. Not following your comment. What compliance are you referring to?
Got it. So it’s not necessarily a prioritization or resourcing issue, as described on that other thread. The issue is that it’s not allowed by IT. Am I understanding the issue correctly?
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@RaymondBradley - taking ownership or at a minimum read only on the public/private keys of sso would give you access to all users in that realm/domain and I do not want you accessing my credentials.
Due respect, that’s not how OAuth works. What I’m proposing wouldn’t expose or compromise anyone’s credentials.
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Creating read only APIs is a prioritization issue. The SSO authentication endpoint is a no go regardless of priorities.
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Ah, okay…that’s encouraging. While we’re here, I’m interested in learning more about the Scoutbook User Advisory Council. How does one become involved in that?
Many thanks, @jacobfetzer
@RaymondBradley - ok my mistake but in the end why would you not use what currently exists in scoutbook for calendar, message and notification?
I had conflated your request with sso/saml…
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@Stephen_Hornak because the Scoutbook calendar and messaging facilities lack features that I consider important. I’m interested in participating and helping improve Scoutbook, too. In the meantime, I’d like to build or use tools that fulfill on our needs.
I’ve asked someone to contact you, but I think he’s camping.
You mentioned that, sorry for missing it. Appreciate it, thanks.
Seems like my.scouting.org and scoutbook and this forum all support Google and Apple logins now, they didn’t always. Probably easier path to update your app to use one of those to achieve SSO than to wait for scouting.org to open up an SSO API.
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Fair point. Might be where the world’s headed, although I personally never use those options. Thanks for pointing that out.
One idea for would be to build a ScoutBook Discord Bot using the API. I’d be willing to donate time to make it happen if the API was available and I had some volunteer help.
This would make getting information from scoutbook really easy based on user. By linking the Bot to scoutbook account, it would be able to lookup information for your scout, or if you are a den leader, be able to display requirements needed for given tasks, etc.
I think having an API would be very helpful at the very least for being able to list events. If I’m putting all of our Pack events into Scoutbook, being able to get a list of those events and show them on a website would be great!
The BSA has already said no to an API, but you can subscribe to the unit calendar and display that in the website. There are instructions in the Scoutbook help wiki:
