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’m trying to understand the diference between Scoutbook and Scoutbook Plus.
The way I understand it is Scoutbook is built in old technology and will someday go away. Scoutbook Plus seems to be the rebranding of a new version of Internet Advancement.
But I can’t seem to do any advancement things in Scoutbook Plus. I can create Activity Logs and calendar entries, and look at what a Scout has obtained, but no advancement stuff.
So I have to do advancement recording in Scoutbook.
Do I have this right?
And if so, will Scoutbook Plus someday have the ability to record advancement info?
The BSA doesn’t typically publish their timelines, so I wouldn’t expect to see an announcement on this until it is at least imminent, if not already done.
Thanks for the updates. From what I had read and videos I saw during the summer, it seemed like we were moving to Scoutbook Plus and leaving Scoutbook Legacy behind. Sounds like that transition will take longer. Little bit confusing for leaders as we had got folks trained on Scoutbook Plus and now will have to sort of use both platforms for an undermentioned amount of time. Maybe it’s worth sending out wider emails to people, or having local councils send more updates as this migration moves forward. Well thanks for the info.
I’ve asked the people that assign permissions if I have what is needed, and they said I have everything they can give me. No one else seems to be able to record advancements in Plus either.
I can record advancements in Scoutbook.
Do you know exactly what my permissions need to be to be able to use Plus?
@DouglasHowe - Jennifer is correct, you can record a final complete of rank and merit badges and awards so I was not completely correct. But the individual requirements of those items is not in sb+
The Scouting Mobile App for Scoutbook may also be useful for individual advancement data entry. See Scouting Mobile App for Scoutbook - Scoutbook Knowledge Base. Not clear what the future will be for this app, but the middle school crowd seems to prefer it to the Scoutbook mobile web interface.
Thanks for your comments as I am a Committee member for a Pack and a Troop using Scoutbook and ScoutbookPlus and a Ship using TroopTrack. I agree that local council Advancement Commitees should send more updates. I am a District Advancement Committee member and will bring this topic up for the New Birth of Freedom Council (Central PA) to consider.
Scoutbook was a third party purchase by BSA that dumps directly into BSA’s database, and is in the process of being canabalized for the main BSA site.
Scoutbook+ is a new(ish) extention in Internet Advancement 2.0 and is the final destination for all of the Scoutbook moduals.
You are correct, you can not currently record Advancement in Scoutbook+(SB+), it needs to be done in Scoutbook(SB).
Keep in mind that you will have to record all activities, attendance, create events\meetings in SB+.
Also, please keep in mind that SB+ does not track Aquatics or Riding time in the Activities. I have found some useful tipw on the blog here…you can log them by using the Camping Activity logs with 0 nights, come up with an event title that makes sense to your Unit, use a title that you can easily spot in a report, and make sure the tile has all the info in it so you do not need to open the Activity.
Here is an example. “Aquatics: Boating: 5Hrs”, “Riding: Horseback: 3 Hrs”
This will matter and help you when you track and manage the National Outdoor Awards for your Scouts.
I just found this link to Change Updates to SB+. If you have time, I suggest reviewing it once in a while, even if it may not make sense to you right now. Keeping up with the change log will help you with future walls you may run into as well as help you fill any knowledge gaps in the SB+ programming\app.
