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Bit of a repeat question but posting in attempt to find some insight. Our council only does paper applications. Our Pack has been instructed to not manually enter scouts or their parents in Scoutbook and that they will appear when applications are processed. What we see, over and over, is Scouts appearing in our unit with unlinked parent connections. I can only assume the issue has to do with either the manual processing of the applications or some back end processing that isn’t happening correctly. Here’s a summary of the issue as I reported to Council where I’ve also reached out for support…
Request
Can you please merge Kari xxxxxxx’s accounts.
Details:
active - bsa: aaaaaa, scoutbook: bbbbbb
inactive - bsa: cccccc, scoutbook: dddddd
Summary:
2021-09-10 I looked through our unit to see which scouts had parents who were not linked. ~13, out of 57 scouts in our unit.
Keri’s Scout is showing in our unit (bsa: eeeeeee, scoutbook: fffffff).
the inactive account for Keri was appearing in scoutbook as being associated with her Scout but not linked.
On her sons profile, it showed her "IMPORTED BY MEMBER UPDATE, NOT INVITED: 3 days ago”
When I click on her profile, it shows “LAST INVITED: 3 days ago”.
Per our prior conversation, when pager applications are processed, no email invitations to parents are, knowingly, sent.
This is problematic. As a result of this, we have to periodically scan our unit to identify new, unlinked parents to manually sent an invitation to.
parents who are not linked cannot
enter advancement or activity logs for their scout.
RSVP for events for their Scout. This is extremely important for us to plan for events.
prevents the Pack from keeping records for achieving Journey to Excellence standards.
In the past, I have been able to have parents do this and then login to Scoutbook and be linked to their Scout successfully.
I believe this should maybe be explored further. We’re asked not to enter Scouts or parents in Scoutbook but when standard paper application processing happens, it often leads to having parents self register to assist in resolving the issue.
After registering, Keri was appearing as being in Rainbow Council instead of Pathway To Adventure Council (the active account noted).
Also odd, it seems she was able to register without an email account.
I was able to find her from the “add connection” on her son’s profile. I searched for her name (Keri xxxxxxxx) and she showed up.
I invited her to connect and she somehow received the invitation and is now showing as linked.
Do you live near the council boundary? The my.scouting council assignments are based on zip code, and some split zips end up in the wrong one.
So, now she shows up twice as a connection to her scout? In the process of creating the my.scouting account, it’s supposed to ask them if they already have a member number (or something along those lines). They should say yes, and then it’s more like they are taking ownership of their account rather than creating a whole new one.
Regarding Journey to Excellence, I was referring to attendance rates. I realize this is based on the attendance that the leaders take at the event but the constant necessity to bark at parents to rsvp when they can’t takes a considerable amount of time away from other important responsibilities. With this said, my initial claim related to JTE may not be accurate.
We’re in 46307 which is a large Council area. Rainbow, I wouldn’t think, should be suggested for anyone in this zip.
I will make note about the member number and see if this is the case. It would definitely eliminate a couple steps in the resolution process.
Any insight on the paper app process contributing to the initial issue of unlinked parents and not sending invitations to connect when they are created? This is the root issue which is particularly frustrating because we are paying ~$25 registration fees only to have to combat unlinked parent registration for weeks, months, and sometimes into the next scouting season (depending on how savvy and responsive parents are to troubleshooting and doing their part to resolve).
When you say unlinked, you mean they have not accepted the invitation. Correct? They should still receive communications. Just making sure, because that would be a completely different troubleshooting path.
This is something we have heard, and I’ll have to check if we have something in the backlog to address it as I agree it is clunky, at best. This may be something that needs to be discussed to determine the best process going forward.
The other things these parents could try is the forgot password link in scoutbook.scouting.org. I’m not sure if that’ll work. It might not, but it’s easier than sending them to my.scouting.
The forgot password link in Scoutbook seems not to work most of the time. It redirects to my.scouting and it’s normally 50/50 chance on whether the parent has a my.scouting account or doesn’t. If they do not then I direct them to self register on my.scouting.
Any chance you could elaborate on which part? I would really like to understand better where the issue is. Troubleshooting these issues with parents has literally paralyzed me from performing a number of my intended functions in the Pack.
