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.
When entering advancements through Quick Entry (from the den page) or Adventure Quick Entry (from an individual scouts page) the advancements show up in the Needs Approval Report even though the “Approved / Recorded” checkbox is checked during entry. I do notice that each individual requirement for the advancement shows as “marked completed” and “leader approved” but the main checkbox only shows “marked completed” (I presume this is why it’s appearing in the report).
I’m assuming this is not expected behavior because why show the “approved / recorded” checkbox if the leader still has to go to the needs approval report and approve it again?
This is the intended behavior as we felt den leaders would also want to know when the adventure is actually completed rather than just showing up one day when the advancement chair purchases awards.
Thank you for the quick response.
I also did some more testing and see that this is the case with adventures (as you mentioned) and also for awards but not for rank requirements (if marked approved they do not appear in the needs approval report). Mentioning this in case anyone else stumbles on this.
To be a treasure trove we need fewer terse responses and a better understanding. I shared the following with my pack after spending far too much time testing awarding, removing of test awards, and retesting. I’m guessing it may not reflect 100% accurately but I’m working with what I have…
Summary
When recording advancements in scoutbook, it is important that den leaders mark advancements as “approved/recorded” once they are completed and that the den “needs approval report” be reviewed frequently to ensure that earned advancements are recorded and queued for purchasing and awarding.
Workflow
The simplified workflow is as follows;
A scout performs specific activities to earn advancement.
Activities are entered by the scouts parent/guardian or a leader connected to the scout.
The leader marks activities as “leader approved/recorded”.
The leader reviews the den’s “needs approval report” and marks activities as “leader approved/recorded”.
Advancements now go to the “needs purchasing report” for the Advancement Chair to purchase patches, etc.
Once purchased, items then go to the “needs awarding report” and are marked as awarded once presented to the scout.
When rank requirements are entered by a leader, there is an optional “leader approved” checkbox that appears. If this box is checked when initially entering the requirement, nothing more will have to be done by the leader. The requirement will be recorded as leader approved and will proceed to the “needs purchasing report”.
The process for entering adventures and awards is mostly similar to entering rank requirements with 1 important additional step. The optional checkbox for this process is labeled “approved/recorded”, a subtle difference in nomenclature. If checked when a leader is entering advancements, the individual requirements that make up the adventure/award will be marked as leader approved, however, the leader will also have to go to the den “needs approval report” to mark the main adventure/award as “approved”. This can be done at the time advancements are being entered or periodically, prior to the cutoff for the next purchasing deadline. It is important that leaders be diligent about doing this for a few reasons. Most important is that it ensures that the scouts activities are queued for purchasing and that they are received on time. Also, when pack admins (committee chair, cubmaster, etc) review the “needs approval” report they will see any unapproved items for the entire pack, which can be a substantial list. They do not know, first hand, whether these items should be approved and this causes them to have to reach out to den leaders prior to purchasing to request that each leader’s “needs approval report” be reviewed and approved if it has been completed.
