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.
I am a district chair. Following up on a brief comment I made when Position Manager came out - when will we be able to use this fully at the district level? Is it intended that we should be able to now, is it not intended, or is it coming down the line? Or perhaps I’m using it the wrong way?
I do have access to the tool, but out of about 150 Scouters registered in the district, only about 1/10th are available to me to assign to district positions. It appears to be only those who were previously registered as a UC or chair of a district committee. I can assign or unassigned those few, but that’s it. It seems I should be able to assign anyone who is already registered in any position within the district, even at the unit level, to any district position without requiring another registration, no?
Also, some positions are available (Training, Membership, Advancement chair) but most are not (Program, FOS, Vice chairs, etc). There are included a variety of “functional positions” but even something as simple as assigning someone to the district committee / district member at large is not there.
I would just like clarification if this is a problem on my end, a work in progress, or beyond the scope intended for some reason.
Maybe related, when I access the roster tool, it would be helpful to be able to search the entire district. Say, if a John Smith signs up for training, if I could simply search his name and find him and his unit info, it would be helpful. As it is, I already have to know where he is to find him, which rather defeats the purpose.
I never use the mobile app since I’m always working at my laptop when I need something or to find someone. I did try that though and the roster search does work there - but no position manager.
The attachment doesn’t address my questions, it’s just about using the feature at the unit level. By extension, it seems it should work as I describe at the district (and council) level but doesn’t yet. Unless I’m missing something else.
The only “Positions” in Position Manager have to do with access to functions in My.Scouting, which is why they are called “Functional Positions.” Like a Training Chair, or Training Committee person would have access to Training Manager. Or a Youth Protection Chair would have access to those reports in Training Manager. It is not meant as a way to assign all persons to specific functions. Most of those you mentioned are covered in registered position codes.
42 Merit Badge Counselor
61 District Chairman
62 District Vice Chairman
75 District Member-at-Large
79 District Committee Member
80 Unit Commissioner
81 District Commissioner
82 Assistant District Commissioner
83 Roundtable Commissioner
84 Asst Roundtable Commissioner
Maybe that’s the disconnect. I thought the whole point was that we were getting away from unnecessarily duplicated paperwork. That once a person is registered as a Scouter, we could use position manager to update their positions in Scouting - rather than wasting time re-registering them for each and every new position.
In other words, this should be the way to manage a person’s position codes. That was how it was originally explained. But it if isn’t intended to do that, just deal with internal MyScouting functions, I guess that’s still helpful, but a lot less so than what I originally understood.
It seems like, that once they are registered for the “organizational subdivision”, you could move them with in that “subdivision”. I use that term vs. unit since in this case, it includes district. Are the ones you want to assign/move already registered DISTRICT Scouters? Or just registered Scouters?
If your council allows on-line registration for Council & District positions that would eliminate some of the “paperwork” - but I think that maybe because the Registrar Tools are also moving into the My.Scouting platform, folks are thinking that they can be their own registrar.
Like access to all “tools” there will be specific controls on who has access to those functions.
While it is still a requirement that in order to assign a District functional position to someone, that person must already be a District registered adult. As @RonaldBlaisdell pointed out, the online process to “multiple register” with the District is relatively painless (almost no questions to answer). As long as you use the correct link after logging yourself in.
However, the process of approval is the issue with all registered positions.
Therefore the UNIT functional (and UNIT registered) positions were generally a no-brainer because the COR has the final approval for all unit positions.
However, (as it was explained to me) the District/Council positions become a bit more complicated. For example,
The District Commissioner is approved by the Council Commissioner and the Council executive board (upon the recommendation of the District nominating committee).
All Unit commissioners (and ADC’s, and RTC’s, etc.) are approved by the District Commissioner with the concurrence of the District Executive.
MBC’s have a different approval process depending on what Council you are with.
The point is, the approval process becomes complicated. Hopefully (keeping fingers crossed) it can be better resolved after Registrar Tools has been implemented.
The online registration is certainly better, but it is still a needless complication to require multiple registrations just because someone has multiple positions. (Unless, I suppose, if we were talking multiple councils).
Once someone is registered, they should be registered. Whatever position they have is something else - and should be changeable at the appropriate level/authorization completely within the system, no need to “re-register”. It is, I’m realizing, more an issue of organizational philosophy than of technology, at this point.
That’s my issue. If they are registered Scouters in the District - for any reason at any organizational level - they are District Scouters. To be put into a District position is a matter of position, not registration. Or it should be. Especially since most people will have multiple hats. Few indeed are only district volunteers without unit and/or council level roles as well. We clearly have the technology for that.
Apparently, only those who had been registered in a District position before the rollout of Position Manager now appear at the district level or available for district positions, but those who have registered since have yet to appear - even a couple months later. There’s just no reason to make the distinction in the first place, though. If they are registered, and within the District, they should be visible at the district level, even if their only position is MBC or Scouter Reserve or Tiger Cub Parent.
But, and I have seen this, the control the position in which one is registered needs to be controlled and not the will of a volunteer. I have seen some vindictive District Chairs and Commissioners in my day, and they don’t like it when they are told their idea is not viable - so they want to “dump” someone from their position. This is why we have checks and balances.
@RonaldBlaisdell - this is so spot on as it seems my council and district are full of vindictive folk. It has stopped my corporate matching donations and participation at those levels. Sad but true
I’m all for checks and balances - but all made as seamless and intuitive as possible, with the click of a button.
There are times I do wish we could easily purge membership rolls, when people move away in June but don’t stop appearing in their roles, and being counted against trained leaders or for YPT stats, etc, until recharter catches up the following March (if all goes well). But otherwise, it’s more about easily adding people to the positions/lists they are supposed to be on rather than taking them off.
I imagine, “District Chair added you to this position. Do you agree to this? Y/N.” etc.
