Thanks for replying, James. I think I have a lot to learn about scoutbook…
Just to clarify, the scouts and parents are not able to view the MBC list, in accordance with the Guide to Advancement. Only unit leadership (i.e. registered scouters) can view the lists. It also looks like Chief Seattle council has district-level MB Coordinators, who can provide MBC lists (outside of Scoutbook) to unit leadership for their use.
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Thanks- we’ll keep that in mind. (I didn’t really understand this site was only for the troop leadership!)
It’s not. It’s just that some things (like the MBC lists) are restricted under BSA policy. We (troop leaders) are not supposed to provide them to the scouts/parents. Instead, we provide names and contact info for one or two counselors that the scout then uses to initiate contact and get started on review of their work for the MB (or get started working, depending on their approach). As I noted before, that’s the process laid out in the Guide to Advancement.
I have to admit that’s the way things worked for me (albeit with phone calls and paper lists) decades ago when I was a scout.
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As the Dist Advancement Chair, I don’t have access to run a report of MB Counselors. Neither does our council Advancement Chair.
District and council volunteers access the merit badge counselor list via the Roster tool in my.scouting.org. I think the district committee chair has access and the council advancement chairs have access. It is under reports. Make sure they are registered in their positions. The council registrar may have to assign them the functional roles in Position manager tool.
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Unfortunately, @WilliamNelson that list and what’s in Scoutbook do not match. At least not in my council and I bet that’s true in every other council as well.
I have raised yet another issue hoping to get this resolved. But given the previous responses to issues, I don’t have much faith anything will be fixed.
Plus, they STILL haven’t fixed the bug in the merit badge report where they needlessly split the list of MBs across multiple columns, but they leave off the first character in each subsequent column. I reported this MONTHS ago and it has never been addressed.
For example, I have someone with the following MBs in the first column:
Theater, Reading, Music, Law, Genealogy, Fingerprinting, Family Life, Disabilities Awareness, Crime Prevention, Citizenship in the Nation, American Heritage, Personal Fitness, Traffic Safety, Safety, Radio, Public Speaking, Personal Management,
And these in the second column:
ournalism, First Aid, Emergency Preparedness, Cooking, Communications, Collections, Citizenship in the Community, American Cultures, Scouting Heritage, Scholarship
Maybe I missed it, but where’s the “ournalism” merit badge found? I don’t see it anywhere.
I have another person with the following second column of badges
amily Life, Cooking
What’s the “amily Life” merit badge?
Here are some other examples:
rafting, Canoeing, Camping, Backpacking
otor Boating, Nature
eatherwork
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I have almost finished a macro for excel that will take the list from my.scouting.org roster, reports, Council List of Merit Badge Counselors.
Yes the truncation of the first letter at the start of a second or third person is very inconsistent.
Also, outputting the file in a CSV format and having a Merit Badge called Signs, Signals, and Codes also creates another issue.
I am requesting that a functional position to be made at the District and Council levels. I would eb requesting that that position be able to add/change/edit Merit Badges and possibly Stem Advisors. Our council has passed down the tracking on MBCs to the district level, and passing the new and current applications to our council.
the above would also solve the bi-yearly update delay, up to 2 months, for MBC’s because recharters take precedence. Our Council has over 1500 counselors and 15000 individual merit badges in 8 districts.
The updating of this information should not be delayed any more than possible. As connections to scout and MBCs cannot be done correctly.
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Scoutbook Council Admins can already upload a file to change MBC assigned merit badges. Scoutbook is the database of record for the assignments. (Registrar assignments are already directly writing to the Scoutbook database.)
All reports in My.Scouting will access Scoutbook for the assignments soon.
Send me a direct message (PM) if you would like more information.
William,
You do realize why that’s completely insufficient and totally unusable in the real world, right?
How many “council admins” does each council get? Is that enough for every district to have a MINIMUM of 2 people who can update the list?
And do you want your district merit badge counselor coordinators having full council admin rights? No, I didn’t think so.
Please, I beg you, put at least one person on the SUAC who is a volunteer that actually works with this stuff on a daily basis from the district / council level. I’ve volunteered to help repeatedly.
Hi
My post was from April 3rd. Since then the BSA has gone to one source of truth for merit badge counselor assigned merit badges. All user interfaces and reports now point to one database that holds the assignments. There is no more syncing of assignments. Council registrars can make assignments per merit badge counselor and council scoutbook admins can make assignments by uploading a file to Scoutbook of the entire list.
We have asked that there be a capability in scoutbook for CA to make assignments on one badge or one group of badges at a time (instead of having to upload the entire list.) When that happens, councils may open the capability up to one person in each district (it will be up to each council.)
By the way, I use the tools on a daily basis; and I am our council’s advancement chair.
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I’d love to discuss with you offline about the many, many, many issues with SB and MBCs. I’d like to understand how you do even the most basic functions like letting district MBC coordinators see the list of MBCs in SB much less manage that, handle reregistration, etc.
No, there is not one source of truth. I still have mismatches between the reports I download via my.scouting and the reports I download via Scoutbook. Happy to show you that data if you like.
One person per district is insufficient. People go on vacation, etc. A MINIMUM of 2 people is required. It should be “unlimited” meaning I should be able to assign as many people as I want/need.
This should NOT require CA rights as that gives the user FAR to much access for what they actually need to do.
Again, happy to discuss offline as this is not the correct forum. Can I call your cell number and discuss or can we jump on a zoom call?
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None of what I was saying are things a MBC has to do.
MBC record keeping is different.
see: Merit Badge Record Keeping for Merit Badge Counselors (SB) - Scoutbook Knowledge Base
Correct. I’m talking about what council and district people have to do. Your post that I responded to was about CA’s being able to upload a file to change MBC assignments, etc.
Everything I’ve been discussing is about MBC coordinators at the district or council level. That’s why, I assume, you replied and said you were your council’s advancement chair.
As far as the “one source of truth” let me give you some data that completely disproves that.
As of my downloads from my.scouting (council merit badge counselor listing), and scoutbook (download the current mbcdetails.csv) on May 15 (4 days ago) I have the following “mismatches” between these two reports that are supposedly “pulling from the same database”.
The following people show up in SB, but not in the my.scouting report:
BSAMemberID
4768618
108925400
136932282
4728134
131623684
134364571
137297880
137344982
123210932
13805500
14122116
135838139
13586935
4779621
104294403
137507641
137009086
135381553
12956902
136515135
13810431
4894952
4532420
12884406
110371894
The following people show up in my.scouting but not in SB:
memberid
137265668
13012072
137253910
There is demonstrably not “one source of truth” for merit badge counselors.
Again, I don’t feel this is the right forum. Happy to continue discussing offline. Can I call your cell or can we arrange a zoom call?
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For those following this thread. James and I are working the issues off-line
Bill
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Yes, Bill and I are sorting out several issues offline. I REALLY appreciate his help on this!
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Bill, Would it be possible, when you are done working James specifics, to post what you found to be the problems? Just saying you are doing something off-line doesn’t help others. Perhaps what you find could help others take care of their problems without your help.
I have roughly 140 MBC’s in my District, and much the same situation exists here. I tell the Unit folks to ignore SB for MBCs and use my published listing, since that is what was approved and submitted to the system. Listings of approved badges for each counselor is another problem, with one counselor having 100% the wrong badges listed. But that is probably a problem with the data entry folks.
Pete Townsend
These are the issues we have submitted:
- Duplicate entries in Scoutbook download
- MBCs in Scoutbook and my.scouting not in sync
- Scoutbook list of MBs not matching my.scouting
- Duplicate entries in my.scouting report <= this should be fixed now
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