Messaging a group of scouts added to Scoutbook since a given date

Scoutbook Feature Assistant Extension
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I would like to be able to message new scouts/parents about events that were advertised before they joined. I use Feature Assistant to add the scouts to the event invitee lists, but that doesn’t send them the actual invitation. I don’t want to just send the invitation to everyone who hasn’t RSVP’d, because at this time of year (September), I’m adding a new scout every day or two, and that’s a lot of spamming my returning families.

I see two possible paths to do this:

  1. Add a feature to the event feature to “Message Invitees” that lets me select scouts added since some date
    or
  2. Add a feature to the “Send Message” feature that lets me create a group of scouts added since some (selectable) date.

Yes, I could use Application Manager to create a group and then upload that group to Scoutbook, but that’s a lot of extra work.

Thanks for reading.

2

Love the thought! I know how much of an issue it is and have experienced that pain myself.

I’m also thinking about the Add Invitees function - maybe I can capture the list of invitees added and use that somehow.

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Probably needs to store as a local file? Not that you didn’t already know that, but like defined groups (which I love!), it means the user needs to remember to either send from the same machine or “carry” the file with them.

I’ve used saved groups (an extension feature) in the past to do something like this:

  • Define a mail group that includes the new scouts and their families. Reload that group and update as needed (or if there’s a “long-enough” gap, define a new group entirely).
  • Copy the event invite/RSVP links from the various unit messages and save to a file externally to Scoutbook (e.g. Word document).
  • Paste the RSVP links, event summaries, and a relevant “welcome” blurb into the Send Messages interface, targeting the saved group of “new” scouts/families.

It’s clunky, and relies heavily on manual interaction and remembering to update both the saved group and the “form” email file. At the same time, it avoided burying current scouts/parents/leaders in emails.

4

Just a thought, but what might serve a similar purpose would be to use Scoutbook’s send message function to the new families and use the “Insert Upcoming Events” option. It’s not quite the same as the event invitations, but they would have the basic details of the upcoming events.

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5

I’ve been playing with the extension, and can offer this if it will help -so feedback would be good.

I have a test version that will create a Mail Group when AddInvitees is run. The Mail Group includes any of the names “checked” when AddInvitees is run - plus - if the invitee is a Scout, it will include their parents(as many Scouts are not directly available to message). In the snippet below, you will see various groups created with a date and “Invites” in the name

image

Clicking on one of these will add those invitees to the Messages Leader/Parent/Scout Selections. You can then send messages in the standard way - including links to events or whatnot.

Since they are extension standard Mail Groups, they can be deleted or combined to form a new group.

There are restrictions that are unavoidable. It only works with unit level calendars (not Den or Patrol) and you need to have full control (e.g. unit admin) of any Scouts in order for the extension to determine who their parents are.

Keeping them in the Mail Groups gives you a sense of history as to when they were added to the calendar.

Please let me know if this seems useful or not.

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When I use “add invitees,” I just check all parents and all scouts, because otherwise I have to look through the whole list (more than 50 scouts) to find the new ones and just check them. So, this isn’t any less work than just making a group of these scouts in the messages part of scoutbook.

Thanks for thinking about this!

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