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Can we improve the experience for MB chairpersons and counselors as it relates to connecting a counselor to a scout? The connections approach is very cumbersome, especially if you are trying to connect multiple scouts to a single MB counselor. I know you are aware of the steps but let’s quickly outline it. In every case, you have to go into each individual scout and into their connections. We are going to approach this as I just accessed the Troop page:
Click on Troop Roster
Click on the Scout
Click on Connections
Check if the Connection exists. If it does:
a. Select the person that will be the MB Counselor
b. Check “Merit Badge Counselor”
c. Select Edit Advancement
d. Check the Merit Badge
e. Click on Update
If it does not:
a. Click on Add
b. Type in the adult’s name in the Search box
c. Click on Search
d. Select the adult
e. Check “Merit Badge Counselor”
f. Select Edit Advancement
g. Click on Invite
This process takes about 20-30 seconds per scout to complete, depending on the performance of Scoutbook and the connection status of the scout.
When you have to do this for 10 scouts, you are taking up to 5 minutes to just update a single MB for a single MB counselor. This is an extremely frustrating experience. Would love to see this improve for the sake of our volunteers. An experience to be able to assign multiple scouts to a MB counselor would be great, like the Quick Entry for advancement. You select a MB, it populates the list of available MB counselors. You have a radial button to choose the MB counselor and then a checkbox of all of the scouts that have the MB open. Then you can choose if the scout already has a MB counselor or not. There are times when the existing MB counselor has left the troop and we need to reassign the counselor for an open MB.
Have you tried the feature assistant extension? It has quick entry functionality that automates most of those clicks and allows you to select multiple scouts.
I’m referring to establishing the connection between scout and MB counselor. Is there a different functionality from the assistant that will do that? It will allow you to manage the advancements for scouts that you are connected to. I might be missing something so if you can provide more details, that’d be great.
Yes, it will both “start” the MB and establish the connections in a way that would save you time even for a single scout… but even more so for multiple scouts. Once you have the extension installed, you’d select quick entry from the troop or patrol page and follow the prompts.
Thanks @jacobfetzer and @WilliamNelson. It appears the extension on my end was disabled so I was missing some of the features. Thanks for pointing me in the direction.
I may be a complete dunce here but the only option I see to do a mass assignment for Scouts to a MB Counselor is to use the Connect to Scouts listed in CSV file.
This is definitely an option but it’s not the most intuitive. I have been working on an Excel macro enabled worksheet to be able to choose a Scout, which would set their BSA Member Id, which then sets their last name, a drop down for MBs and then a drop down for the MB Counselors which would show their name and then set their BSA number:
Unfortunately, I have to constantly export our Scout and Adult Leader roster to get the most up to date data. At the very least, it will unblock me but it would be nice to simplify this process. Again, unless I’m thinking of this incorrectly.
Again, I apologize, I must be missing something. When I do a Quick Entry, I only see the Scouts that are assigned to me as MB counselor. I don’t have scouts that have the MB open:
