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.
Stephen (great name by the way) I appreciate the candor. Thank you for the information and background.
“I would not expect to have a parent or scout be able to mark advancement or awards complete in internet advancement. As far as the log entries, based on input from leaders, [they] come in from scout or parent entry as pending approval.”
Excluding those who are leaders, no parent or scout SHOULD be able to mark advancement or awards (or camping nights) as APPROVED, but there’s no reason they can’t mark them as COMPLETE, if they’ve completed them. This is a key feature of Scoutbook, not a flaw. Now if we’re only dealing with semantics, that’s not really a big deal (pending approval/approval vs complete/approved).
It’s all good info, but doesn’t really answer the question: ACCESS. What on earth would be the problem with ANY registered unit leader viewing someone’s camping nights or hiking miles? Why restrict even VIEWING it (not approving anything)?
And, lastly, why would we do major changes like this unannounced and RIGHT before most Cub Scout units do rank advancement?
I’ve made my point. I’m not going to continue to reply unless there’s new info.
Still having access issues, our Pack to my knowledge never really used IA, unless it was a behind the scenes system, so I really hope we get access as den leaders.
That said, it seems like major changes like this draw a lot of emotion, myself included, and I just want to say thank you to the SUAC members that volunteer their time, answer our questions, and take the brunt of our commentary. Deep down, I’m confident that we all appreciate your dedication and service to Scouting.
I’ll echo MarkHughes. I don’t think anyone thinks ill of the individuals implementing the change; to the contrary, you have our sincere appreciation.
Most of our remaining questions are “Why is this being chosen as the solution?” Most mature adults realize some things need to change. If there is a system limitation, perhaps it can be altered? It seems to me that there should be at least 5 levels of permissions to access information:
Denied
View
Submit
Approve
Dev-level access
I’m concerned that 2-4 are being lumped into the same group (or at least 2-3).
@StephenHenley - here we are not intending to restrict access, but broaden the access which we’ve discovered was inadvertently restricted.
Feedback from you and others is important to us and heard. We are working quickly and tirelessly to resolve issues and pain points being felt across the Scouting community. Your patience and understanding is sincerely appreciated.
Question: is there a legacy database capturing/storing all the activity logs previously entered for the Scout and for the Adult leader somewhere waiting to be ported over to the new version of Scoutbook/Internet Advancement?
Yes, the data in the legacy logs is still there, but not visible in Scoutbook. The data was already ported over to Internet Advancement. Are you a parent or a leader? If you are a parent, you should be able to access your Scout’s logs by using the Scouting mobile app.
It is now May 28. My scouts are “zero’d” out as unapproved every day in Scoutbook and Internet Advancement. I am still not able to update the activity logs for any of my Scouts…even after I “retrieved” them from the “unapproved” list by (1) going into their membership log, (2) search for the original unit - August 16, 2016 for 1 Scout, and February 1, 2019 for the other scouts, (3) select, and then (4) re-assign patrol, (5) click “approve” membership, before I can input any updates. This process is a daily occurrence - 24/7.
One Scout is Life with 117 merit badges and 10 BSA awards as of 5/28/2020.
Two Scouts are Tenderfoot with 13 merit badges and 2 BSA awards.
Neither Scoutbook nor Internet Advancement supports Lone Scouts. If these Scouts are not in a traditional unit, you will not be able to use Scoutbook or Internet Advancement to record their advancement. Your council should provide you with instructions on how to report advancement for these Scouts.
We have been using Scoutbook without issue from August 16, 2016 through January 23, 2020 as Lone Scouts in a family unit. By excluding Lone Scouts in the updates, Scoutbook is not being inclusive…
@Y_VonnTeh : to be very clear - Lone Scouts advancement was never supported in scoutbook in a proper way and was certainly not supported in the old Internet Advancement. All of your lone scout advancement is supposed to be submitted to council directly as that is a council supported program and NOT a unit program. What you had done in scoutbook was to take advantage of a former design scenario. Please do consult with your council on how you are supposed to be running the lone scout program.
To be very clear, we have been using paper advancement forms and blue cards and all BSA award forms since we joined in August 16, 2016 in addition to Scoutbook which we have submitted to our council every month. Furthermore, as indicated previously, I have also purchased the family option for my son and nieces and I to use as a family unit withIn Scoutbook without issue, until now.
We have not “broken” any rules as outlined in the Lone Scout Counselor and Friend handbook linked herein for your reference: https://filestore.scouting.org/filestore/boyscouts/pdf/511-420.pdf
@Y_VonnTeh - very well, but scoutbook was never designed for lone scouts. The family plan has not existed for a while now and the composition of scoutbook is unit advancement just as Internet Advancement is.
