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.
So there has been an update with the assignment of Merit Badge Counselors. It seems that only the key 3 can assign merit badge counselors to scouts. I have a parent who is also an ASM, who was not able to assign a merit badge counselor to his own daughter. I thought parents have pretty much the same rights as Key 3 except to sign requirements off.
Please enlighten me about the change, the intent of the change, and how we go about fixing this. Key 3 should not have this sole responsibility.
Actually, the guide to advancement says this should be the sole responsibility of the SM or a designated ASM. So while Scoutbook currently isn’t working as it has (known issue) this is actually how it is supposed to work per G2A.
Also, parents are not able to mark a requirement leader approved unless they are a leader. So, not the same.
I’m a Key 3 Delegate, so maybe I missed that the change occurred because it didn’t impact functionality from my end. Maybe someone from SUAC can comment on the intended Scoutbook functionality (i.e. anyone with Full Control can add the connection, only registered leaders with Full Control, etc)?
In practice, I would have expected an ASM (registered leader) who has Full Control (because they are also the parent in this case) to be functionally able to connect a MBC to their scout, although perhaps not for other scouts since they may or may not have Full Control for them.
Can you clarify what failure mode the ASM was seeing when they tried to make the connection? For example, were they unable to get a return on the connection search? That sounds a lot like issues I’ve seen reported in the forums here for other searching activities (e.g. making other types of new connections). The more information you can provide about the failure mode/error messages, the easier it is for the SUAC folks to help diagnose the issue (and if necessary escalate it to the IT folks as a bug).
Since there isn’t a “Merit Badge Designee” functional role with which to designate the relevant ASM, I would expect the system to be flexible enough to permit all ASMs with Full Control permissions to make such a connection for a scout. I get that (in theory) Key 3 Delegate could be used for such a purpose, but Key 3 Delegates have a lot more access than would be needed for that type of delegated activity (i.e. making MBC connections).
This should not be a function of the “Key 3”. Scoutmaster / ASM yes, but just the Key 3 no. Depends on how the troop is size, runs etc… The committee chair / Charter Rep has the least interaction with scouts so assigning Merit badge counselors for scouts does not seem like the correct task for 2 of the 3 key 3.
Does the ASM have Full Control for the scout(s) in question? That might be the impediment, since making connections requires Full Control.
ETA: Scratch that last. You mentioned earlier they are the scout’s parent.
ETA2: The fastest way to check this for an individual scout is to look at the connection from the scout’s page (reached via troop Roster) in Scoutbook. For a group of scouts (or to bulk-update the connection type for all scouts at once), I would make the change in Connection Manager from the troop Roster page in Scoutbook. If you anticipate always having a particular ASM assigning merit badge counselors, you might consider making that ASM as Unit Admin. That (should) ensure they automatically get Full Control permissions to all of the scouts as they are added to the unit.