Please provide policy numbers / publication / policy quote information when citing policy as I still can’t seem to locate a policy that prohibits a shared calendar and have found several instances of BSA specifically citing shared meeting location and time that indicate intent for coordination among units within a Chartered Organization (ie the Feb 2019 FAQ for linked Troops clearly states “Linked troops could meet in the same location on the same night. The troop for boys might meet in one room, while the troop for girls meets in another”). As for scanning a record - certainly not ideal but we are limited by the known policy of using the paper forms. My current experience at World Jamboree demonstrated that health records can be stored digitally (via Cerner in that case) and the technology clearly exists at other camps via several services including CampDoc, ZenCharts, Cerner, and PracticeFusion have all been observed and used at various camps over the past ten years or so. With antiquated (and inherently insecure) paper record keeping, it seems reasonable, prudent, and wise to use a HIPPA secured record that has tracking capability - unfortunately I haven’t seen this yet available for units but have seen use of Cerner at Jamboree.
From Frequently Asked Questions Concerning the Annual Health and Medical Record
A. No. Please do not digitize! Districts and councils are discouraged from keeping any medical records, whether digital or paper, unless required by local or state ordinances. However, the electronic version of the AHMR is intended to be filled out and saved by individual participants. The electronic version should not be transmitted via email or stored electronically by units, districts, or councils. Units are encouraged to keep paper copies of their participants’ AHMRs in a confidential medical file for quick access in an emergency and in preparation for all adventures.
@MichaelFrost1 - your quote on meetings says nothing about calendars, data or anything else other than meetings
I will note that i add events across all three units at our CO all the time
There are clear policy directives relative to digital storage of AHMRs at the BSA’s website. However, since this is a policy question, the response has to be “Please ask your council,” rather than one of us simply posting a link to a policy FAQ we know exists. Trust me, it’s as frustrating for those of us saying “ask your council” as it is for the folks getting this response. The only way we’ve got any chance of getting any change on the “ask your council” issue is to ask the councils to advocate for removing the restriction on the forum scope.
If you want to advocate for a change to any policy, your only path forward on that is via your council staff, who can if they choose, raise the issue with national.
On your item 1, all current national awards are (as far as I know) represented in Scoutbook. BSA has previously said via SUAC that there are no plans to support local/regional awards in Scoutbook. Since it writes to the same advancement database as IA2, it’s not clear what further “integration” would be needed. Rechartering occurs through IA2 already.
Our unit doesn’t use the Scoutbook payment logs, so I can’t comment much on Item 2.
You’ve already heard the official answer (and some workarounds) on the shared calendar. I will remark that it’s fairly frequent here to have people posting with calendar issues where someone created a joint event between units which can’t be edited by someone in one unit or the other. It seems like it’s more trouble than it’s worth from my perspective, to be honest, but I do know units do it.
Although there’s no automated newsletter, Scoutbook can insert a list of upcoming events into an email. It’s a toggle at the bottom of the Send Mail interface available to leaders (I think all, but at least Key 3, Admins and Key 3 Delegates).
The BSA has previously said via SUAC that it has no intention of providing a file-storage server. Recommendations have been to post items like unit-specific permission slips or similar using links to a third-party storage service (e.g. Google drive).
On integration with other systems, it’s not really clear what you’re asking for here. You could easily link someone to the Scoutbook web interface login (i.e. link to https://scoutbook.scouting.org) from your website or social media page if you can post a link. However, if you’re looking to use a local authentication for authentication into the Scoutbook interface, that seems unlikely to happen, based on previous BSA statements via SUAC.
@edavignon and @CharleyHamilton Thank you for clarifying the A,B, & C item as a policy point. One that I disagree with as a point of function and as anon-covered entity under HIPPA, but accept as a decision and not an oversight of a feature.
@DonovanMcNeil and @edavignon I Still have been unable to locate the ban on shared calendars as a policy point and as advised in this forum I reached out to the professional staff who indicated that he was aware of no such policy prohibition and noted that families frequently share calendars as well as noting the previously cited reference to linked units sharing a facility (albeit also noted the importance of operating as separate units). So having asked council about shared calendars as a policy point, it is not a policy issue but in fact a feature issue with a simple fix - “You can share, to a point. If one is an admin in all units, you can check multiple units when making an entry. Scout calendar editors can’t do this.” (which has now been successfully addressed by @Matt.Johnson and thus solved where the SBAC response was not helpful in scope, explanation, or accuracy yet was marked as “solved”). In short the official answer that I got from council was that he is aware of no policy addressing the sharing of calendars and cooperation in calendaring to make it easier on families makes sense but they are separate units but can share committee members or even an entire committee if a linked boy girl troop.
@CharleyHamilton This final response is exactly the kind of information I was looking for, thank you for that.
The required functionality is a comparison between current Troopmaster (which doesn’t integrate well as multiple steps are needed to export data) and Scoutbook (which appears fully integrated for advancement & recharter (except fee payment) and neither appear to track the adult awards (unless I haven’t found it yet).
Thank you for your candor and Financial capability input from end users would be helpful - I will plan to start a new thread on this question.
For the newsletter question; thank you, this is a great solution and I had not found this as I was searching for a way to do a newsletter and had not considered the “send message”. Will try this and see how it works.
Again, a decision and not an oversight on file storage is much easier to work with in a presentation on pros and cons, thank you for that.
Finally, thank you for the link that I can present as an embed to the site (complaints about difficulty finding the Scoutbook log in via google (three steps through to the log in screen that I used to get into the site to test and evaluate), on the council site (not anywhere I can find), and through my.scouting.org (again not anywhere I can find) as the places parents and leaders go to digitally interface with Scouting most often outside of our troop website that has an easy link to the Troopmaster Log-In screen. As I present Pros and Cons (last attempt at Scoutbook use was in 2017 and did not work well and resulted in use of Troopmaster and significant hesitation on even considering adoption in 2019 even after BSA adopted the platform and still hesitation in 2022) I will try to be candid but was definitely put off by the initial response citing an apparently non-existent policy and then marking an issue as “solved” that was not in fact “solved”. It was the helpfulness of others that led me to continue evaluating instead of just providing a “sorry Scoutbook doesn’t do that” report and waiting for another two or three years of end user testing to reconsider presenting Scoutbook as an option worthwhile enough to warrant the headache of changing systems.
YIS,
Mike Frost, SM Troop 6
No worries. The folks here really do try to help, it’s just that a lot of the types of help that used to be requested/provided often run afoul of the recent BSA change to the scope of the forums. It’s pretty common (I find) to hit the interface between the software — which the folks here understand, and which most professionals at most councils don’t — and the policy issues — which many folks here understand, or can at least point to relevant BSA documents, and which councils have the official ability to provide/solicit official interpretations/clarifications.
I’m kinda surprised by that. I entered “bsa scoutbook” as the search term, and the first link dumped me here: Scoutbook | Boy Scouts of America, which has a button marked “Learn More” that links directly to https://scoutbook.scouting.org/. Maybe that’s what you were talking about in terms of three steps to get to the login screen?
Admittedly, I would be looking for “Login to Scoutbook here” as a button label, but I have also been told that my ideas about UI/UX can be…maybe “unique” is the kindest way to put it? I just don’t seem to have the same preferences in terms of UI to create a target UX that a lot of other folks (particularly those creating UIs) appear to. Meh: different strokes, I guess.
For what it’s worth, I think we were on TM before I started with the troop (about five years ago now). We switched over right around the time I changed transitioned from being a pack scouter to a troop scouter (before the BSA bought Scoutbook). Since I had been one of our pack’s Scoutbook admins, I kinda inherited the job when I moved into the troop. There’s been very little that scouters who were in the troop “in the before times” have said “I wish Scoutbook did X” that they say TM used to do. Could be that we changed long enough ago that a lot of the features folks are asking for either weren’t implemented or didn’t work as well then as they do now.
Appreciate the follow-up.
“I’m kinda surprised by that. I entered “bsa scoutbook” as the search term, and the first link dumped me here: https://www.scouting.org/resources/scoutbook/, which has a button marked “Learn More” that links directly to https://scoutbook.scouting.org/. Maybe that’s what you were talking about in terms of three steps to get to the login screen?” @CharleyHamilton those are the exact three steps I was talking about actually and I agree that a “Log In here” button label would be easier to use and what was looked for by myself and the other evaluators.
I do appreciate the insight from the end users and am hopeful that the developers and SBAC note the issues that those of us in trenches run into in real life and the features that we would find useful and again thank you and @Matt.Johnson for solving the question that was not addressed effectively by the SBAC folks when it was marked “solved”.
This needs to be closed now
@MichaelFrost1 - one simple thing to realize is that each unit and its constitute members are independent entities. So an adult registered in one unit only will not see those of the others. So only certain adults who are registered in all three will access all three. Youth however are limited to their respective units.
So the CC of all units will see all units. The COR will see all units. The remaining adults will see and access only the units they are registered in.
There isn’t a ban. Another user had concerns that a youth in one unit couldn’t edit the calendar of another unit. So, no ban, just some nuances on who can edit what. The bottom line is that boy and girl linked troops are separate units and a youth in one is not in the other troop.
This is a good example of sticking around as a pack committee member and Troop-to-Pack liaison can help both units.
