We have noticed that Merit Badges are showing up in IA for our Advancement Chair to approve when a MBC has not marked it Counselor Approved in Scoutbook. The parent has marked it completed in Scoutbook but it has not been leader approved or Counselor approved. We don’t want to discourage parents and scouts form marking items completed so they can keep track. However this could cause our Advancement Chair to approve a MB that really has not bee approved by the MBC. Is this a bug in how SB and IA communicate?
@sgallup - was a MBC assigned in scoutbook? There are units that do not use the merit badge counselor portion of scoutbook. It is a process flow more than anything else. If the advancement chair has the final blue card from the scout then approve away, if not it sits awaiting approval. It is up to the scout to provide the proof.
As @Stephen_Hornak indicated, Scoutbook needs to work for all situations, including cases where the MBC does not use Scoutbook, since Scoutbook use is not mandatory. The needs approval report does tell you if it is counselor approved when you look at the individual items.
Jacob thanks for the clarification. I would understand if this flowed to IA when the Leader Approved box was checked on the MB. However this is happening when just the Completed Date is checked by a Parent. No other area of Scoutbook that I know of sends info to Internet Advancement only upon a parent putting in a Completed Date. It normally gets sent to IA when a Leader checks Approved. I also understand the need for it showing up on the Scoutbook Needs Approval Report and that makes sense when a Parent puts in a Completed Date. The only issue we are having is the fact that it also flows to IA so the Advancement Chair sees it. Is there a way to not have it flow to IA until it is marked Leader approved? Otherwise the Advancement chair is having to go back and forth to Scoutbook to check on each MB that shows up for approval in IA.
As I understand it, the pending advancement/awards in IA should be the same is the advancement/awards in SB needs approval (excluding individual requirements).
IA is functioning properly and as designed - not sure why the Advancement chair is using IA and Scoutbook - as either can do everything that is needed.
I would expect the merit badge to show up in Internet Advancement as a pending item (pending approval), because not all MBCs use Scoutbook.
@sgallup - was there a merit badge counselor assigned via scoutbook ? If there was none, then there will be no approval from the MBC.
This topic was automatically closed 7 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.
