Qs re connection manager vs scouts' list of connections

What is the relationship between the connection manager and the individual scouts’ list of connections? They seem to yield conflicting information. Which one is overriding? What I see in the connections manager correctly reflects what I’ve set up. But what I see in each scout’s list of connections varies per scout and in general do not make sense.

  • There were, but I’ve already removed old adults who have left the troop by re-adding them to the troop, clearing their permissions in connection manager, and then removing them from the troop.
  • All scouts’ lists seem to show all (most?) parents in the troop as adult leaders. How can I fix this without having to manually go into each scouts list and delete each connection?
  • Some scouts have varying additional people who have never been adults nor parents in the troop listed as adult leaders. How do I know which of these actually should be there vs. shouldn’t?
  • Some people show up more than once. How do I fix this?

Would appreciate any light you can shed on this. I don’t want to be giving permissions to anyone I shouldn’t. But I also don’t want to be spending hours fixing things.

1 Like

Connection Manager is a quick way to change connections between Scouts and those adults associated with the unit. If a Scout is connected to adults associated with another unit (ex: previous pack) these will not be in Connection Manager. You will have to go to each Scout’s connection page to delete these old connections.

Parents who are connected to other Scouts will have the Adult Leader box checked but unless they are a leader in the unit and have Edit advancement or Full Control, will not be able to approve advancement.

2 Likes

So it is not necessary to remove all the parents that are not really leaders but just misleadingly listed as leaders in the scouts’s lists?

If I want to remove them so I don’t get bunches of questions from the troop about it, is there an easier way then individually? Would doing so mess up anything such as messages?

Thanks

1 Like

If I’m correctly understanding, you have adults in your unit who are not currently leaders in your unit, but are connected to the scouts as Adult Leader. The easiest way to solve is is probably by coordinating with the adults who are not adult leaders, but are listed as such, to have them remove the connections. What I mean is, if you (or someone in your unit) sits down sequentially with each of the non-leader adults, walks them through the process of removing a connection, and asks them to remove connections to any scouts who are not their children, that would clear the erroneous connections.

One reason to do so (or not do so) is related to the level of connection desired among the adults and scouts in the unit. Any adult in a unit with a connection to a youth that has at least View Profile privileges, can view some of the personal information about the scout. However, without at least View Profile privileges, adults can not message the scout/scout’s parents through Scoutbook.

1 Like

Connection names can be misleading. Permissions and connections are separate things.

A “leader” connection is the default connection between any adult and any other scout in the unit when connected. There is no “non-leader adult to Scout” type connection for parents to other Scouts.

Permissions define capability for leader connections.

1 Like

And without a connection of some sort, there’s nothing to hang the permissions on, right? I thought the question also related to whether or not deleting the connections would impact communications.

1 Like

Regarding communication - it used to be that if you were in a Pack, you didn’t need any connection to see them in Messaging, but in a Troop, you needed a connection. Somewhere along the line, it appears that the Troop now works like the Pack, so connections are not needed.

Connections do not harm anything from a parent to a non-child Scout as long as the permission is set to View Profile. That only allows the adult to see the names of the parents of the connected Scout.

If there are connections between a Scout and an adult you do not recognize, you can remove them directly from the Scout’s My Connections.

I recommend using the Feature Assistant extension’s Permissions by Position feature to manage permissions instead of the connection manager. It won’t handle adults not in the unit though.

1 Like

Ah. That’s a new feature. I knew that the troop youth didn’t need connections/permissions to email one another, but I thought that the adults still needed permissions for the email system to work.

Good to know. I had never tested it honestly, and assumed it worked like View Profile permissions did for adult leaders. Of course, I’ve now been a unit admin for so long that I’m not longer 100% certain what View Profile permissions get an adult leader anymore. :wink:

This topic was automatically closed 7 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.