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 was a parent who later became a registered leader and then I think that is what led to me having duplicate accounts and finding this forum.
We now have three current parents who want to get registered as den leaders or other types of unit leaders. What is a preferred way to tell them to go thru this process so they don’t have this same issue please ?
I would start by verifying that the names on their Scoutbook accounts are their full legal names, and their birthdates are correct. Mismatched PII is the number one issue we run into problems with for our unit.
If they already have a my.scouting account, make sure the BSA ID there matches what’s in their Scoutbook account. Also, have them check at my.scouting (again, if they have an account) to verify that their scouts are listed under the My Applications tab, which indicates they are correctly connected for any future transfers, but also that there likely isn’t a “ghost” ID hiding out there to which their scouts are connected.
In order for an adult to register they must have first completed Youth Protection Training. To take Youth Protection Training requires a my.scouting.org ID which has a BSA Member ID (MID). Unless the adult is transferring from another Council, the correct MID will be used.
Units should not create Scoutbook accounts for adults, because what usually happens is a BSA member ID (MID) also gets created, and this new MID is usually missing the adult’s date of birth.
Instead, advise parents to create an account for themselves at my.scouting. When creating an account for themselves, they should use their full name (not a nickname), and they should try to connect to their already existing BSA MID (many have one but don’t know it).
When filling out an online application (if allowed by your unit and council), they should log in to their my.scouting account first, and then follow the registration link to register themselves or a youth.
When the process is done correctly, the parent will be automatically added to the roster at the same time as the Scout. All they need to do is log in with the same credentials.
@DF00000 When filling out a paper application for a Scout, the Scout will get a BSA number and the parent / guardian who is included on the form will also get a BSA number.