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.
Received this from a Crew Advisor: As a Crew Advisor, when I go into the Scouts BSA advancement for youth who are in both Troop (B or G) and Crew 54, it won’t let me (as the Crew Advisor) click the on the option to sign their blue card. See the error below that pops up.
I have two Crew members who want to finish their Eagle in the Crew and I need to be able to ‘sign’ the blue card before they get started. I am able to link them to a MB Counselor.
If you are a Crew Advisor and don’t have the proper permissions to approve advancement and merit badges in Scouts BSA, you’ll need to contact a unit leader to get the proper permissions. I don’t believe Crew Advisors can sign off on BSA merit badges. Have you tried connecting to an MBC or getting a unit leader to sign off on it?
EDIT (sorry, I misunderstood, I thought you were trying to mark an MB as “completed.”): If you want to try, you can go to the “print blue cards” option and select the MB you’re trying to initialize a unit leader signature on and select the “sign merit badges for initial unit leader” option then follow the prompts to see if that works for you (see below image).
Assuming OP can see the “Scouts BSA advancement” option and the MBs and Ranks on the Scout’s profile, that option should already be enabled for that Scout. @CarolWeinrich, if nothing else works, maybe try disabling that option and then re-enabling it? I think the records should save so there is no risk associated with that.
EDIT: For some reason, it appears that certain Scouts do not have that option in their profile preferences while others do. However, (I think) everybody who is doing Scouts BSA advancement as part of a Venturing Crew has that option.
I think that you must have already completed First Class while registered with a troop in order to continue Scouts BSA advancement solely with a crew (i.e. while not concurrently registered in a troop). (Ref: Guide to Advancement 4.3.1.4). Not sure if/how Scoutbook is tracking that, or if it’s even relevant in this case.
I believe so, that explains why not every Scout has that option in their profile preferences. I’m not very familiar with Venturing, primarily Scouts BSA.
This appears to be a bug, because the Scout (136148946) has earned Life rank and has the Scouts BSA advancement slider turned on.
Because the Scout has earned Life rank and is dual enrolled in a troop + crew, I would expect either unit leader (Scoutmaster or Crew Advisor) to be able to sign the “Initial Unit Leader Signature” for a merit badge in Scoutbook.
You can also try signing from the “print blue cards” page (both ways, either through the print selection or with the button underneath the “print” button) and see if that works.
