Continuing the discussion from Advancement import file must be a pipe-delimited text file:
You all broke the biggest time saver for your VOLUNTEER advancement chairmen. Our troops all went to summer camp and we now have thousands of rows of data we were expecting to import. Our scouts and parents are asking when it is going to be available. We have to use Tentaroo because of Atlanta Area Council and NE GA council. I’m not going to key 3500 rows of advancements for my troop saving one at a time waiting 4 seconds for each record to load or trying to sort my data files to figure out some bulk load. Fix your change immediately. It is ridiculous that you made an “upgrade” to merit badge process and removed/broke/ignored the most important, time saving feature - that was an add in (unsupported) and something that someone had to develop for you. In IT if we break a big feature, you undo the change or fix it ASAP. We need it yesterday now that we have scouts returning from summer camp. The excuse of a “rabbit hole” is not helpful. Stop what the dev team is doing and fix this ASAP. You have EVERYONE IN THE COUNTRY with this problem that you created by pushing a change before it was ready.
@JonathanDuvall
This is a known issue.
Prior to the import being available, I used quick entry to enter MB reqs or completions with the final date of camp as the date for everything. This is the method I would use again if I needed to get SB updated prior to the fix becoming available. Alternately, I would just wait until it is ready, Unless a Scout needs camp MBs for Star, Life or Eagle, there is really no issue with waiting. For a Scout that needs a camp MB for rank, I would just enter final completion for MBs that are done and not bother with the reqs. For everyone else I would wait.
Watch Scoutbook - Scoutbook Plus Change Log - Scouting Forums for an announcement of a fix.
The Extension was just updated and Legacy SB - it works for me now. Update extension to 0.49.0.15
I agree! Glad they put it back. I just did a small upload for one scout and that worked. I’ll get my summer camp file “fixed” because sometimes the names are spelled differently and the ID numbers aren’t always loaded because Scoutbook Plus and Tentaroo don’t talk - arughhh. Small price to pay to get it uploaded.
Thank you for the update. Come on National Get it together for us little guys doing the work.
@JonathanDuvall - tentaroo, doubleknot and black pug do not have direct access to the national database and are reliant on units entering data. The use of these providers varies by council and the extent to which they use or enable features. Like all third party providers they must work with national it to provide upload data in format that works.
I’m going to disagree that this response is anything helpful or shows an understanding of the process and usefulness of current data for scouts and their parents. After summer camp, Scouts want to see what they didn’t complete so that they can finish over the summer. Quick entry for everything completed at summer camp is a waste of time and its great that someone enabled the uploader again. We can get it loaded ASAP before someone pushes another production change and breaks it.
I’m aware that they don’t have access - I’m stating that this is stupid and that our national organization needs to get with the times and allow an API access for Tentaroo so that we don’t have unauthorized adults showing up at events because anyone can be added to tentaroo. I discovered that we had adults going on trips as “ASM” who were not even on our roster - because there is no data integrity between the systems. I can sign up Jeffry Dahlmer in tentaroo as an ASM and he would be allowed to attend summer camp because he is on the Camp’s tentaroo roster.
The folks here are volunteer scouters like the rest of us, and don’t have the authority to set or deviate from policy. The people who have the ability to influence these types of decisions aren’t on the discussion groups here. Even the SUAC access to the developer team for reporting bugs and so forth doesn’t permit them to influence policy, since the developers similarly aren’t the ones setting policy. They have to implement in accordance with national policy decisions, too.
Your best bet for pushing for policy changes like this is to explain the issue and arguments for your proposed solution in detail to your council professional scouters (something written they can forward is often best). They are the ones who can interact with the national personnel who make decisions on policy. That obviously doesn’t guarantee success, but pushing for it in these forums definitely guarantees failure, since nobody here can directly influence those policy decisions.
@JonathanDuvall - not every council uses tentaroo. The opening of API hooks for third party vendors is not something that i think national will do. So you would need to state that for tentaroo, doubleknot and black pug. Those seem to be the primary vendors used by councils.
Black Pug (scoutingevent) has the ability for Councils to upload rosters and registrations can be restricted to only those on the uploaded rosters. I do not know if Tentaroo has this same capability.
Yes, the purpose of an API is to allow secure access for any application. THis would include any of the stated applications
Charley, We are scouting. They should be working for us. If we are all complacent and silent about their disregard of making our jobs easier as volunteers. They are getting paid, they are collecting dues, it is their job. It is not Kind or Courteous to not be Helpful to the volunteers who are doing the work of the organization and making us figure out a pile of websites, chase paperwork and say “gotcha” when you dont fill out one thing that screws you up in a lawsuit. We all need to me more vocal with national to get some changes made that makes sense for the troops, packs, crews, etc. Think of all the wasted time in your troop and bring it up to your local councils to get them to push for national changes. Its not hard, they just need to stop giving an excuse about “focusing on lawsuits” and start focusing on the people who are doing the work of scouting.
I’m not suggesting complacency. I’m pointing out that this forum is not reaching national staff. The only way for us to reach national staff is either by reaching up via our council professionals, or essentially by sending snail mail to the national office. There is no national representation on these boards, at least not that I have seen over the past many years.
Charley, there are users marked with a title ‘Scoutbook user advisory council’ I was hoping that they would have some voice. I have also messaged the Atlanta area council CEO and others there to hopefully get some attention to help us out.
There are older posts from the SUAC indicating that Scouting America (then still BSA) did not intend to open up an API for either SB or SB+. Unfortunately, the SUAC can only pass along suggestions where policy decisions haven’t already been made. For changes to the policy, the only way is to reach out to national via the council professionals (or snail mail since they have largely eliminated all user-facing inbound digital communication).
