Online Application

Well that didn’t go near as well as I had hoped at our JSN last night. There was no option to ‘pay by check’ for the couple that made it that far in the process. No option to go back, to select other payment, only pay by CC. So they did and then we collected the rest of the dues.
Another parent tried registering, then could never get signed in as it gave the error “your using scoutbook.com login for my.scouting.” Which is totally wild since scoutbook wasn’t setup yet.
Another parent got through part of the way, then it was pre-populated with my information as parent. So here’s to hoping some of it gets smoothed out for fall JSN as it would be really nice to use.

Apparently there’s a setting in my.scouting to allow payment options. However evening being a Cubmaster / Key 3 I’m unable to edit it for some reason. I’ll post back when support responds.

The one user who had login issues entered his son’s birthdate instead of his own.

Your ability to set the payment options might be limited by how your council has things set up.

I had a couple families use it last fall. In both cases the payment process failed entirely. We handled it within the unit just fine but I would like to be able to at least add a custom message for the unit.

I believe you can add a custom message. A unit key 3 or key 3 delegate should go to organization manager > settings. Then, there are a number of fields to customize what you allow. I could be misinterpreting where some appear, though, and it’s possible the council may be able to restrict some of your options.

We have used it in the past. It has its Pro’s and Con’s. The Pros are pretty self explanatory. No paperwork, no messing up of misreading a poorly written paperwork. The potential of speeding it up. We turned off the payment option so our families are not being pro rated for the year.

Cons are if there is a mistake it takes forever to get straighten out. Parents who registered online automatically get registered as an adult on your unit roster. Now forcing them to use SSO as opposed to the parents who filled out a paper app, just use the email to log in. We also had a key 3 approve them on line and never talked to the family and they never actually joined. I’m not sure they they actually even know they are signing up at that time. But we had one boy stuck in our pending payment for about 15 months. It was a very frustrating process is get that boy removed from a national level.

In the end we decided it was caused to much confusion with the payment option and the process order in which it should occur. Paper apps is what will be using this year. However we will use it for any adults who volunteer to take on a role.

I think the real confusion is you charge a family a yearly due and that is based off Jan 1 to Dec 31st, but when they sign up they are charged online or think the charge is what the pro rating cost.

WARNING:
I did the online application. Paid only to pack—we have it set that way. It was a snap.

Then I switched positions and had to do a paper application. Every person in my pack and dozens of others we know who have done this now have 2 or 3 (5!) scout numbers. They don’t know how to merge the accounts. They don’t check for a scout number and it’s not on our carbon copy, paper application. So leader/people’s training are spread everywhere. We’re all trained but no one knows it because you have to manually fix it, yourself. I don’t have more time to give so it stays a mess.

Just be forewarned that it does make things messy because BSA hasn’t figured this out. I’m pretty sure they don’t have a clue to how many people are really trained—it bothers me every time I hear scouting PSA on safety, etc. I know my people are trained because we hunt it all down but this, all this, is just maddening to track!

My recommendation for anyone filing a new application that has a BSA number is to write that number on the application. I typically enter it in the box that says Enter membership number from unexpired certificate.

The other thing that helps is to always use the same name on an application. Do not, for example, complete one with the first name of Ed and another with the first name of Edward.

The council registrar can merge BSA#s and training records for any number assigned in that council. If you have BSA#s across multiple councils you need to get a copy of your person record for the registrar to update your current record as they do not have visibility across councils.

So we’ve emailed in different numbers but aren’t getting a response. Can you direct me to someone who can work with my pack trainer directly. He’s got his work cut out for him without a direct contact.

Contact your council registrar to have BSA#s merged. The contact information should be on your council web site.

If your council registrar isn’t willing to merge the accounts (they should), the adult leader can log into my.scouting > legacy web tools > manage member ID. Add the new member number with which they are registered as their current position and set it as primary. After a day or two, the training should all appear with the new position and member number.

One of the issues I run into to a surprising amount is that “Dad” fills out the application for the Scout, but fills in “Moms” email since she keeps track of all schedule stuff. I understand, but this will and does bite in the behind eventually.

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What is the dollar amount collected with an online application?
I know it’s the national fee only, but is it prorated the same as when I take a paper application to the council office? If so, does that at some point switch back over to the full amount?
I’m pretty sure that the way our pack handles registration/dues, we’ll either be over- or under-charging families if we add the option of online registration, but I can’t tell which!

The online apps prorate in the same way as paper. $2.75 for each remaining month (including the current month). So, one taken in May is $2.75 x 8 = $22 (without Boys/Scout Life).

So, if someone joins online in Sept/Oct, they’ll only collect the tiny bit due to finish out 2019 and we need to add rechartering fees to the council insurance and pack dues that we ask the family to pay us?
I guess I need to reframe how I think of this tool. It’s not going to make our job collecting any easier, and seems like it might actually complicate things a little, but I suppose that getting people signed up right when they’re thinking about it is valuable, and this should also help avoid the issues we have with kids earning Bobcat before their application has been processed.

This is the last I’ll post on this. The answer is no—they can’t merge, etc. I know everyone says they will and ya’ll have been telling me that but we’ve contacted them a lot. And the answer is “fix it yourself.” And yes, we contacted all the people you told us to.

The problem is you cannot fix it yourself. BSA #s are assigned as blocks to each council. If you have multiple in a single council, the registrar CAN fix it. If you have one in Council A and one in Council B, they cannot because a registrar can only see BSA #s in their block.

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my.scouting.org > Legacy tools > Manage Member ID

This tool can merge multiple Member IDs into one primary ID - IF you know the numbers

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2 posts were split to a new topic: Activating Online Applications

I started having participants use the Online Application system late 2017 when I first noticed it was available, everything worked perfectly, then and through 2018, maybe had one minor issue. Fast forward to early 2019 and 80% of the Online Applications that were submitted failed and either took a month to fix, requiring the parents to call Nationals Help Desk, since they don’t seem to respond to Leader Inquires, or required doing a paper application. I have at this point given up and gone back to paper for the time being. I am hopeful they will get the bugs worked out and I will feel confident going back to it at some point but wow what a nightmare it has been since the beginning of this year.