Merit badge report from my.scouting is incomplete / incorrect and is missing important columns

There is a field in ScoutNet/PAS for Registrar’s to register a MBC that way. My Council doesn’t use it.

My understanding is that ScoutNet/PAS in the MyBSA tools is being replaced by newer software.

It appears they fixed the report in the last 2 weeks. Previously (5/15/2021) it only contained the city, state, and zip.

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This field has been on the white sheet for a decade or more. If we are moving away from scoutnet, why add the field to the output when you have no intention of adding code to populate it? Why have the troop only field (boolean) that is populated and editable without a way to list the troops? As a developer, these would be added at the same time as part of the same feature.

I think it’s a violation of privacy policy to offer someone the option (via the white sheet) to only serve in their unit or district (limiting the scope of visibility) and then silently make their private information visible to the entire council.

Just my $0.02

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The BSA does not plan to make any changes to ScoutNET. It is in the process of being retired.

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Now they have completely removed the address field.

Is there any way to get this added back???

I’ve logged an issue / request / discussion under the my scouting tools section of the forum as well.

The address field was removed at the request of the councils. I would suggest you work with your council SE on any requested improvements of the report.

Thanks. I’ll check with the council folks.

I just really wonder if ANY other council is actually doing anything with MBCs. It doesn’t seem like it since there is considerable active work to block and prevent any reasonable way of managing them.

If anyone out there is actively managing their MBCs, I’d sure like to know how they are doing it. Please pass along any tips.

Edited to add: I find it super annoying that SB shows the city and zip code on the PUBLIC FACING interface to the internet. But the backend, where’s there’s actually some level of security, won’t export this same information. It’s just completely backwards to be honest.

I guess I can create a web scraping tool to do a web search in SB for each MB in every zip code in my council. Seems stupid but if that’s the only way I can get the info I need to do my job I guess that’s what I’ll do.

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@GregoryBuchanan is some who manages the MBC list for their council. You guys should team up.

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This ^^^ and this ^^^^
In an effort to make character count

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@GregoryBuchanan are you interested in teaming up?

James - check out @GregoryBuchanan past posts to get a flavor of the depth he has gone trying to get this stuff sorted out. It is really impressive.

My history with Merit Badge Counselors is that I have managed the list for my Council (Silicon Valley Monterey Bay Council) for nearly 20 years. When I started, I inherited a Access Data Base from the previous person. That independent data was used to create printed Counselor lists that were duplicated and distributed to each unit; to PDF copies of the list that are Emailed to the Unit Leaders and Committee Chairs, to tracking counselors on ScoutBook. Over the years I have modified and added to the MSAccess code we use to manage the list. We use it to track all Merit Badge Counselors in our Council. All our counselors are registered as MBC on ScoutNet in their respective District. Because of the old/difficult to use ScoutNet interface, we have not used ScoutNet to track the badges they counsel.

Instead, we download the list of active counselors and use that data to add/update them on our local Counselors DB. We treat ScoutNet data as the authoritative source for counselors names, addresses, phone #, Emails, etc, and update our local DB with any changes from ScoutNet. Badges and information that is not in ScoutNet are kept in our local AccessDB, including if a counselor wished to work with any scout, or just their own unit. While counselors are registered at the District Level, in our data base we associate them with a specific unit.

Having the data in a local Access DB allows us to generate many different reports about the counselors. For example, whenever we register a new counselor we Email them an information sheet with their contact information and the badges they counsel. At recharter time we send renewal Emails to every active counselor, asking if they wish to continue for another year. If we get an afirmative response, we renew them for the coming year. If we don’t get a response, a few weeks later we send out a reminder. If we still don’t get a postive reply, they are dropped from the list. This is how we purge inactive counselors from our list of counselors. In support of this, we send a list of counselors associated with each unit to the unit ScoutMaster and Committee Chair, asking them to facilitate the renewal of the counselors associated with their unit.

During the year, any time there are changes to a counselor’s information or they change the badges they counsel, we send them an confirmation email.

Twice a year, we have been Emailing the most current list of Merit Badge Counselors to the Unit Leader and Committee Chair of each Troop and Crew. We include two lists, the first is Counselors in their District, and the second is all counselors in the Council. We ask that the list be restricted to the Unit Leader with responsibility to connect scouts to counselors.

We use the ScoutBook “Manage Approved Merit Badge Counselor List” function to upload the list of counselors and badges to ScoutBook. Depending on the number of changes, we may upload the file to ScoutBook several times a week.

Since I have filled in as our Registrar on occasions, I have fairly extensive capabilites on the system. This includes access to the Council Member Care functions.

My background is as a Computer Programmer/Software Project Manager working on Operating Systems.

It will be “INTERESTING” to see how the replacement of ScoutNet/PAS will affect how we manage our Merit Badge Counselors.

Greg

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Northern Star Council manages all MBCs in ScoutNET. The MBC turns in the MBC information form which is forwarded to their district rep on the Council advancement committee. After the district rep approves the form, it is forwarded to the registrar who registers the MBC or updates the MB list.

All members of the Council Advancement Committee are listed on the roster for the council’s “camp staff” crew so those not registered with a unit have access to the MB Counselor Search function in Scoutbook.

There are over 2500 MBs in Northern Star Council and all are managed this way.

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Ed, Circle Ten Council (Dallas metroplex) manages MBC’s exactly like you do. Applications go to District Advancement for approval who in turn forwards to the Council staff for entry. The Council staff enters the Counselor and all approved badges into the ScoutNET system which auto populate Scoutbook periodically. My three units rely on Scoutbook for identifying approved and properly registered Counselors.

Greg,

Thanks for the detailed response. I have some follow-up questions and comments if you don’t mind.

Download from where? You can’t get address from ScoutNet / my.scouting as far as I can see. That’s one of my major complaints.

How do you deal with deletions? If someone is deleted from SN how do you know? Do you just assume that if they are in your DB and not in the latest SN dump, they were deleted for whatever reason? I see people “disappear” from SN all the time without being intentionally deleted.

How do you get this information? Is the “white sheet” routed to you vs the council registrar? How do you know when someone has passed the background check and been entered into the national system? How do you “hold” the extra counselor information while you wait for them to be entered into the national system?

Merit badge counselors aren’t associated with units, it’s a district or council level position. That’s why MBCs renew mid-year while unit charters renew at the end of the year.

That seems like a HUGE privacy violation and is not in keeping with what I understand national policy to be regarding PII of our adult leaders.

Do you check that what you uploaded is what SB shows? For example, people who’s email address was changed to “changemyemail@scoutbook.com”.

Perhaps that is how you have access to information not available to most of us. It would certainly make managing the list easier.

Me too. That’s part of why I’m so frustrated with ScoutNet / Scoutbook. The intentional roadblocks being put in place to prevent volunteers from effectively doing their jobs is incredibly annoying.

I’m curious what you do if the district rep never forwards the form. What’s your “fail safe”? We were thinking of doing something similar but were concerned that a volunteer on vacation, etc. could hold up or lose the form and thus deny an entire district access to counselors.

When I proposed creating a special “unit” to give all the council and district folks search capability in SB, I was explicitly told that was a violation of BSA policy and could NOT be done under any circumstances. Creating “fake” units goes against membership policy is what I was told.

Interesting that we have to violate BSA policy in order to do our jobs. Doesn’t that see just a bit silly? Especially when the solution is so incredibly simple, just create a position within SB that allows access. Then I can assign people that position code and viola! problem solved.

Ok, but how do you MANAGE the list of MBCs? The district advancement folks have no access to the SB lists nor to ScoutNET / my.scouting reports. They have no idea how many “underwater BB stacking” counselors there are in any given geographic area. How do they decide if another one is needed or they already have too many? How do they identify geographic areas that are not covered for certain badges (especially required ones)?

How do the district folks get a list of existing counselors registered in their district in order to contact them with updates? How do they contact them annually to determine if they want to renew as a counselor? How do they contact those who’s YPT is about to expire? How do they get an ADDRESS in order to mail them a reminder postcard?

I’m concerned with actually ACTIVELY MANAGING the list of MBCs not just passively approving people who apply. That’s the actual job of the district merit badge counselor coordinators, as I understand it. I don’t see how ANY council is effectively doing this today given the lack of data support from scoutnet / my.scouting and scoutbook.

Because of COVID, the forms are scanned and e-mailed to the district’s member of the Council Advancement Committee. In non-COVID times, they are in a hangfile that the member has access to during the meeting. They are reviewed, signed and returned the same night in most cases.

If they are not returned in a timely manner, the Council Director of Training and Advancement signs them so they can be processed by the registrar.

The “camp staff crew” is a real unit, not a fake unit. All council employees, including camp staff, must be registered. This crew gives the Council a place to register any camp staff that are not already registered with a unit. As a convenience, all camp staff registered with another unit are also registered in the camp staff crew.

Our council is far to geographically large to have an in-person meeting. We cover one entire state and parts of 2 or 3 others.

That makes sense.

How is it a ‘real’ unit? If it exists simply to register camp staff, that’s not an actual functional normal crew. Perhaps there’s something I don’t understand here.

Yes, but they don’t have to be registered in a unit. I’m a volunteer and I’m not registered with any unit. I’m registered as a council volunteer, code 47, council committee member.

Page 24 of the Restriation Guidebook lists a number of council and district “non-unit” positions. In fact, there are two positions dedicated to camp staff, 48 (adults) and 68 (youth).

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