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 humbly request (beg! plead!) that the default RSVP not be “maybe”. Could it just be blank until parents enter SOMETHING? If they intentionally choose “maybe”, great. But right now there’s no way to know if maybe means they actually are actually unsure if they can come, vs they just haven’t RSVP’d at all. In other words, when it just says “maybe” for the entire pack, usually that just means no one has RSVP’d yet. It would be much better if there were four options: yes/no/maybe/blank, with it starting as blank until people choose something else.
And along those lines- it would be amazing if there was some way to see from the calendar view if I have rsvp’d yet- without having to click into each event and looking at it manually. Like a little red/yellow/green dot on the event title or something.
And while I’m at it, I’ll throw in a pipe dream- some easier way for people to RSVP. Right now they get emails asking them to RSVP, even if they already have, and these emails usually get ignored, because RSVPing is not easy. They have to click the link, log in to scoutbook, click each person, etc. If they could just reply to the email with a yes/no/maybe, I think that would increase RSVP compliance a ton.
There is a change in the works to make the default No Response. This was released a few weeks ago but had to be pulled back due to issues.
I’ll pass on the suggestion for an RSVPed flag on the calendar. We will have to think about how to do this as color can’t be used because the user can customize the color of each calendar.
There are items in the backlog to make RSVPing simpler.
+1 to the idea of RSVP via email. I get enough email surveys which invite me to start the process by clicking one, two, three, or four stars.
I recognize this is more complicated for Scoutbook than for those surveys, because the email can go to a person who is responsible for multiple accounts (e.g. a parent/ASM with two children in the unit), and you’d need a way to know which persons they are RSVP’ing for. Perhaps this should be split out into a separate topic.
It’s possible that it’s not as straightforward when there are multiple individuals represented, though. I don’t have any youth left in my unit, so I’m not sure what the interface looks like for a parent/scouter or parent of multiple scouts in one unit.
I think that change did just happen, but, as far as I can tell (and I may be wrong)- it’s only with the “RSVP Request” emails, which have to be manually triggered. The automatic reminder emails do NOT have the RSVP links at the bottom. I wish they did!
Other things I wish- that the email would allow you to RSVP for all linked accounts (i.e. I can RSVP for myself and my kids all from one email).
And I wish there was a distinction between RSVP and Reminder emails. If I have already replied, I still appreciate a reminder about an event. But it would be helpful to know if I have replied. Now they say something like “don’t forget to RSVP if you haven’t already”. In other words- don’t ask people that have already responded YES to respond again. But DO ask people who have not replied yet to reply.
Thanks Charley. I haven’t yet been exposed to that feature enhancement. I checked and in the past week I haven’t gotten any RSVP Request emails. I will look forward to getting one and hopefully delighting in the new functionality.
Hunh. That’s what I get for not realizing there was a proliferation of message types. :^)
I guess in my mind, a reminder email and an RSVP Request email would be the same thing. I suppose there was a decision made to differentiate the two, presumably based on the idea that folks who have already responded may still want reminders, whereas folks who have responded with intent to attend (or not) don’t necessarily want to be asked to RSVP again.
