Importing from Black Pug into Scoutbook

[KellieCarney]

Continuing the discussion from Individuals importing completed MB Requirements from a MB Clinic:

How does a council do this? Our council does not seem to know how. I had 95 scouts and they are frustrated they have to individually print out blue cards and take them into their Advancement chair who then needs to enter everything into Scoutbook. Thank you for the help.

[Stephen_Hornak]

@KellieCarney - from a BlackPug staff member there is this

Council Blackpug export

Black Pug does allow the council to extract a file that can be uploaded to Scoutbook. The problem is that the Scoutbook import process requires the BSA Member ID, but that isn’t usually collected in event registration process. So if it wasn’t collected, then the council needs to edit the file to add these numbers before doing the upload. Individual units have two options. They can also add the BSA Member ID’s to the file before uploading, or they can use the “Feature Assistant Extension for …

You may want to reach out to BlackPug for more details.

Black Pug Software | Scouting America Solutions

[CharleyHamilton]

@KellieCarney

How does a council do this?

It kinda depends on how the council wants to approach it and what the MB status is.

If the merit badge was completed by all of the scouts, then the council can simply add the MB directly to all of the scouts’ records (Registrar Tools, I think?) and you can notify all of the units that’s how it was handled. However, I don’t think that the council tools generally permit partial MBs to be logged.

There are a couple of options in the case of partials:

Option 1 is to continue pursuing the Black Pug upload file format issue. Note that you likely need to send separate upload files to each unit based on the scouts in that unit, since I don’t think councils can actually push the Black Pug file unto Scoutbook. The units might have to do that.

Another option would be to put the responsibility on the MBC to push the data to the scouts. In that case, have the MBC connect to all of the scouts in Scoutbook (this requires Member ID and name for all of the scouts), update everyone’s completions there using the Merit Badge and mark them Counselor Approved. The MBC can either do that using the Quick Entry or Edit Merit Badges options from their My Dashboard (see snapshot below). That would allow the individual units to then just mark them Leader Approved and handle purchasing as usual.

If the council can get the MBC the relevant information, they might even be able to upload a spreadsheet file with the completions (bottom option in the snapshot above). Honestly, I’ve never had enough scouts in the same group at once to make this worth testing out, so I’m not sure how it works.

The last option is to treat it the same way things happen after summer camp. Units (or at least our unit) routinely handle manual bulk input of data following summer camps. Send each scout their completions and they can then turn it over to the the relevant scouter in their unit (advancement chair, SM, ASM, etc) for processing however the troops usually handle it. I know you mentioned pushback in your original thread, but this is a lot less trouble than many units routinely deal with when manually inputting things after summer camp. It’s just one merit badge worth of partials to get logged.

[KellieCarney]

Thank you. Up to now (10 years of doing Merit Badge Clinics) I’ve been able to get the Scouts’ BSA numbers so I have had the MBC enter everything into Scoutbook. With the new Black Pug they do not want to give out BSA Numbers so we are kind of stuck. New learning process. Just trying to figure it all out. I really appreciate your help.

[JenniferOlinger]

Another option is to let the Scouts enter the info, and the troop leaders just check and verify the info. from the blue cards and mark as approved.