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.
Can someone define IA and IA2? I assume IA(1) was something before my time and a 1st attempt and IA(2) is the advancements.scouting.org site?
Why is it so hard to delegate permissions in the apps. We have two IT professionals “on the floor” that can’t approve/admin anything in the apps. The key 3, the charter rep is running a business, you expect him/her to approve a scouts hike from last weekend?
Most importantly, where are my boy scouts SUPPOSED to enter activities? My preference is that a troop activity be created by an adult or admin on the ADVANCEMENTs site. The scouts then go thru Scoutbook > activities > browse for a pre-created excursion and then register themselves to that event.
THE ISSUE: I have scouts entering activities thru the red icon “Scouting Mobile app” Thru this app they can not see activities I created as a Asst. Scoutmaster (no admin rights) or an activity created by the Scoutmaster (key3 w/ admin rights). If they use the red icon Scouting Mobile app, which is linked to scouting.org we then have 20 entries in advancements.scouting.org, for the same event all with different names and entries. Are the scouts NOT supposed to use the red icon Scouting Mobile App for entering items…but just use as a shortcut view into their advancements, if so what’s the point if scoutbook exists? I should ask the scouts to remove the red and blue scouting mobile apps?
You are correct. IA is the old system that’s no longer in use; it was replaced by IA2 a few years ago. IA2 is the advancements.scouting.org site.
You can delegate permissions, but it has to be done in the my.scouting.org Organization Manager, not in Scoutbook. One of your Key 3 (Scoutmaster, Committee Chair, Chartered Organization Rep) has to do it, though. They can set up to three Key 3 Delegates, who would have almost all of the same permissions as the Key 3 members, including editing activities.
We tend to do the activity recording after the fact, but we’re a pretty small Troop, so it’s not that onerous for someone to go through and create the activity based on actual attendance.
The BLUE Scouting App provides access to my.scouting.org, and it’s really intended more for unit leaders than Scouts. I would recommend that Scouts and non-leader parents not use that app at all.
The RED Scouting App is for Scouts and non-leader parents and is linked to the Scoutbook database so Scouts can see and record their rank and merit badge progress – stuff they enter there will show up in the leaders’ reports in Scoutbook.
Leaders should not be using the RED app at all, only the Scoutbook webpage. The RED Scouting app will only show them Scouts with whom they have a parent connection, not all Scouts.
In addition to what Steve said above, your troop’s Key 3 (Scoutmaster, Committee Chair, or Chartered Org. Rep.) can use the Organization Security Manager at my.scouting to designate one Unit Advancement Chair (UAC) and up to 3 Key 3 Delegates (K3Ds). Please note that functional roles such as UAC, K3D, and Unit Training Chair expire at the end of each recharter year and need to be re-designated.
Users with the right permissions (see 2. above) should be able to create a group activity (campout, hike, service project) for the event. After the event, Scouts should be able to “join” the already-created group activity and add their own service hours, miles hiked, etc. If this isn’t working, please let us know.
Steve/Jennifer thanks! One last question that was not answered above. It appears the red app is not linked to advancements as the scouts can not see hikes/campouts/service projects we create…is that accurate and that for hikes/camping/service they should only go thru scoutbook > log activity > which launches the advancements website? Perhaps my anal retentive side is getting the better of me but it seems absurd that every kids entry thru the red app creates a single event and they can’t see a “group” event created for them. It’s obviously more important that the kids become responsible and enter it themselves, but the current functionality seems to create and administrative nightmare. We’re a small troop of 30, I can’t imagine a larger troop seeing 70 entries under one date…guess it’s preference too at this point.
