MAJOR CHANGE INFORMATION: Moving away from Connections

[DonovanMcNeil]

IN THE NEAR FUTURE:
Scoutbook Plus is moving away from connections-based permissions and moving toward position-based permissions, which will provide greater performance and permission customization.

BACKGROUND
In Scoutbook Legacy, permission options are limited to “Full Control, View Profile, Edit Profile, View Advancement, Edit Advancement”.
If a leader has the position of Scoutmaster or Troop Admin, their connection is “Full Control” for every youth in the unit, which enables the leader to edit advancement, edit profiles, etc.
However, for other positions such as Secretary or Outdoor Coordinator, connection options were limited and did not translate well to the permissions needed to perform the duties of the position.
This results in leaders who are given connection based permissions that are beyond or far less than what they should have as it relates to their position.

WHAT’S NEW
In Scoutbook Plus, a unit can actively change most registered positions (and functional positions) for adults in their unit. For example, a Chartered Organization Representative may now move an adult’s registration from Committee Member registration to Assistant Scoutmaster in Scoutbook Plus. Previously, this action could only be performed in My.Scouting.
When assigning leaders to registered or functional positions, these positions will have a base set of permissions, which allows the leader to perform their duties across the full unit or sub-unit.
In addition, leaders may customize and add additional permissions associated. (So, if a leader is Troop Secretary but also helps out recording advancement, the unit can assign the “Advancement Editor including Youth leadership” permission to perform the additional duty.)
Default permissions assigned to positions have been determined by the Guide to Advancement and generally accepted position functionality. Some permissions may only be granted based on position (i.e. approving adults to serve as leaders is restricted to Chartered Organization Rep, COR/CUR Delegate, and/or Council Unit Representative) while many can be assigned to the individual.

Scenarios:
In some units, Advancement Chairs only help with advancement completion recording. While others have advancement chairs purchasing advancement or also recording approval.
Some units want all ASM’s doing the exact same jobs across the unit. Some do not.
Scoutbook Plus provides the unit the ability to balance permissions that must be associated with certain positions while providing flexibility to customize for their unit.

Please note:
Some permissions can be granted to youth such as conduct calendar editing, messaging (coming soon), advancement recording (Scout, Tenderfoot, Second Class, First Class for in Troop)
New SB+ Functional Roles = old Legacy Scoutbook Positions or Connections
Unit Support = Unit Admin
Sub-Unit Support = Sub-Unit Admin
—- On these Support Roles - the Key3 group will automatically have MORE Permissions than the Support roles, so Support is not needed for Key3 group.
Advancement Approver, Activity Approver/Creator/Remover/Editor, Advancement Editor
(includes Youth Leadership) = Edit Advancement
Profile Editor = Edit Profile

This PDF breaks down Each Position and the Permissions: Given to the Position, Recommended for the Position, Can be given to the Position, Can be assigned to a Sub-unit.

A video explaining this will soon be posted.

Copy of Scoutbook Permission Announcement.pdf (123.9 KB)

Scoutbook for Troops, Crews and Ships - Scoutbook Knowledge Base

3 1 Permissions Movie

[EmilyRepperger]

For the Calendar by SubUnit, how is the SubUnit defined? If we have an ASM who should have calendar access over a patrol, we would add the patrol admin in scoutbook per the patrol, but the Calendar by SubUnit doesn’t give an option for specifying the SubUnit, is it still picking up from the Patrol Admin in Scoutbook?

[DonovanMcNeil]

@EmilyRepperger Permissions for Subunits are assigned by the Sub-unit the user is assigned to in SB+. So Go to Roster > Edit Sub-unit > add John as Leader - then give John the Permission

[EmilyRepperger]

So if John is a leader in Patrol X and he has Calendar by SubUnit he will have access to updating the calendar for that patrol?

Also if he has Sub Unit Support, he does not have to have Calendar by Sub Unit specifically granted then. Right?

[EmilyRepperger]

Another question. We have a MB Cooordinator who is a Committee Member who does MBC searches so he can reach out to MBCs to host sessions the troop wants to offer as well as is the point who scouts go to to ask for contacts to MBCs. It looks like there is no way to allow our MB Coordinator to do MBC searches?

[Stephen_Hornak]

@EmilyRepperger- the merit badge search is still in classic scoutbook. I think the video covers this

[DonovanMcNeil]

@EmilyRepperger the Committee Member/MBC search is still under some discussion - it is on the Scout side of the Unit (Scoutmaster Corp) - but yes some units extend this to MCs.

[CharleyHamilton]

I would argue in favor of available to assign (but optional) for both ASM and MC. I assume it’s already captured by the “all permissions” for SM, other Key 3 and K3D. I’ll skip the policy arguments in favor of the suggestion, since those aren’t specifically germane to the “what” (unless there’s a specific request that I add them). I’m trying to color inside the lines of avoiding policy discussions on the boards. :^)

[EmilyRepperger]

Did not see anything about where the MBC was currently. Just that we couldn’t give it to a Comm. Member in the video. I might have missed it if it was said quickly

[EmilyRepperger]

It would also be good to get a listing of what is active and what is not from the old system verse the new right now. As I assume Patrol Admin is no longer giving ability to calendar editing because a Patrol Admin is who alerted me to this issue. But I believe Troop Admin from the old side is still controlling them having rights across everything?

[AshleyMerical]

I am trying to add volunteer hours for multiple events our Troop members have done. I can create the events, but no longer have ability to view the drop down names to add people to the event. Is this related to the new connections?
I am committee member, advancement coordinator, finance officer, and marked as a leader with legacy, but do not have the connections manager on my SBP screen.

[Stephen_Hornak]

@AshleyMerical- your key 3 would need to work this as far as the new permissions manager is concerned

[MichaelWilkinson]

This is good news, I’m glad to hear it.

Since my previous posting (below). We have moved to tracking advancement in Excel. We did try to catch up recently in Scoutbook Plus as we found the Key 3 could now enter advancement. But the entries our SM made were lost and we gave up on Scoutbook Plus again.

I am excited to see that there is progress and excited to start using it again. But my opinion so far remains the same, that Scoutbook Plus simply is not yet ready for production use.

My question is: when is the permission feature tentatively scheduled to be released per your existing roadmap?

Thank you!

Apologies, but this software is in a terrible state

While the direction and roadmap to Scoutbook Plus is aggressive, it is, unfortunately, poorly executed. Granted, I am a software architect, and have been for 25 years, I may be a bit hard on this deployment. I am a 7-year user of the previous Scoutbook software, and while it had its issues, they were not as egregious as those in Scoutbook Plus. What I have noticed is that this release has not had a proper QA cycle, not only are there holistic issues, but rather straightforward unit failures. I…

[Stephen_Hornak]

@MichaelWilkinson- the permission manager is live now

[CharleyHamilton]

@MichaelWilkinson

when is the permission feature tentatively scheduled to be released per your existing roadmap?

As a follow-up, Scouting America IT doesn’t release timelines, and to the extent that the SUAC might know them, they’ve previously noted that they are under NDAs which would preclude them from discussing details of what they know beyond what they’ve been specifically approved to discuss.

[EmilyRepperger]

Is there a way to see the permissions granted via the positions and roles of an individual leader? For instance I am trying to figure out what our membership team has actually been granted, and don’t see a listing for the Registration Inquiry functional role. Or do they just get the same as New Member Coordinator?

[Stephen_Hornak]

@EmilyRepperger- i see registration inquiry listed in the assigned section not functional roles

[EmilyRepperger]

That is listed under “functional roles” part of the Assignees tab. I am trying to figure out what permissions come with it. I was hoping I could pull up someone assigned to it and see what permissions they have but can’t find a way to do that, either from roster or in reports. The only way seems to be to open each area of the Positions/Roles Permissions and search each individual section for the person and see what they have / don’t have or can’t have. So question is actually 2 fold. One, how to see permissions a specific person currently has. Two, what permissions are granted by registration inquiry if any, or are they only granted by New Member Coordinator (which is a second role these volunteers have).

[DonovanMcNeil]

@DonovanMcNeil

Copy of Scoutbook Permission Announcement.pdf (123.9 KB)

@EmilyRepperger this pdf has a chart