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.
I’m trying to better understand how the MBC list upload for councils works, in part because there have been some problems in our council, and I’d like to help them resolve the issues. In no small part, I’m motivated by the fact that we have many MBCs in our unit who were in Scoutbook with MBC roles before the council uploaded the list the first time, and all of our positions were ended (and can’t be restored at the unit level). So, those of us who had gotten used to using the various Scoutbook/extension tools for tracking what our counselees have completed have lost access to those tools.
1. When the council updates the list, do they have to upload the entire list all over again, or can they upload incremental change files (i.e. add this list of people, delete this list of people, anyone not in this file remains as-is)? I’m trying to figure out how much trouble I’m asking my council to go to in order to get this working for what is potentially a small cohort of people.
2. If the council has to re-upload the whole MBC list, how does the system behave for: a. MBCs who are currently showing correctly in Scoutbook, and are still on the list? Does their position get ended and restarted? b. MBCs who were terminated in Scoutbook by the first upload, but are actually still current on the list? Does their position get restarted?
I’m trying to figure out how much risk is involved in asking them to fix this issue. I don’t want a bunch of other peoples’ positions getting fouled up in order to get our dozen or so MBCs back into the system.
3. How frequently do other councils upload their MBC lists? Quarterly? Semi-annually? Just at recharter time? Every time somebody’s registration expires (assuming that’s not harmonized to a given cycle)?
I upload the list for my Council.
The way I understand it, once a Council uploads a list, that is the only way it can be updated from then on, meaning idividuals can’t update MBC information anymore
MBC have to update their information every year, so perhaps the ones that were in your Scoutbook are no longer currently registered as MBC.
When I pull a list to upload to Scoutbook, it only adds or removes according to the current list from our system.
I upload a list every couple of months, more frequently if we have a bunch of changes, additions or updates.
Hope that helps some.
I have confirmed with council that each and every one of the MBCs is current and on their lists. I’m one of them, so I know my registration, YPT and certs are current in their files. That was the first thing I checked when the issue arose.
If I understand you correctly, when you make these updates, you’re pushing the full list of everyone currently registered, not just a list of the people to add, remove, or change badges. Is that correct?
Could be a problem with the way they are pulling their list or the upload, the Council needs to report the problem to Scoutbook or check how they are pulling the list.
Yes, I pull a full list each time from our Scoutnet system but it only updates changes.
Awesome. Thanks, @LoriMaguire. I guess I’ll keep leaning on my contacts at council to see if they’ve reached out to Scoutbook. Is there a special contact for the council to reach out to, or do they also go through scoutbook.support@scouting.org?
I’m hardly the expert, but here’s my understanding:
You must upload the full list.
The first upload automatically ends all previous MBC positions in the council. They were previously treated as a unit position, which, of course, they are not. The newly created positions will be council positions (with the ability to restrict your availability to unit, district, council, or worldwide). It also removes the ability to manually add a unit MBC.
Subsequent uploads will only end the positions For those that don’t appear on the new list.
Many councils do it monthly to ensure they get the latest updates.
