Our Organizational is Not Agile

[InquisitiveScouter]

We have a Scout whose registration records are a bit messed up.

His family moved here in 2024, from a different council.

In getting him registered here, rather than transferring his primary membership from the other council, he was made a "Multiple" in his current Pack.  I use the passive voice there, because we have no idea who did this.  The Parents say they did not do this through my.scouting, the Pack Committee Chair says they did not do this through Scoutbook, and the Registrar says she did not do this.  Parents say they filled out a paper application here, but no one can (or will) produce a copy to figure out how it happened.  But that is minor, and will only show who took what actions.  We need to fix the registration issue at hand...

When the Scouts registration became due, the parent dutifully logged into my.scouting to pay it by credit card.  But, the registration (and the parent record) was in the original council.  So, when paid, registration renewed as primary in the original council.  And the multiple membership here continued.  No one in either council caught this.

Scout has finished his Arrow of Light, but we cannot transfer him to the Troop because of his "Multiple" status in the Pack. 

We have been working with the Registrars for a while on resolving this...

The parent has receipt and order number from my.scouting to show paid registration.

Yesterday, our Registrar told me she (and the other Registrar) cannot fix this with the tools they have, and our Registrar has had to put in a help ticket to National to try to get this resolved.  I am astounded.

With no transfer to Troop, parents cannot see Troop calendar in Scoutbook to help their Scout look at upcoming events and RSVP, leaders cannot help track advancement in Scoutbook, and committee cannot track financials (dues payment and trip charges) in the Scoutbook tools. 

For the interim, we have told the council (and they agree) that we are going to forge ahead with this Scout in our Troop while they fix their system.  The Registrar agrees to back-date his Date Joined Scouts BSA to the date we tried to initiate the transfer.  (This is because he cannot have his Scout Rank, or any other advancements, earned before his Date Joined Scouts BSA.) We'll use his Scout Handbook to track his advancements, and have sat down with the Scout and parents to review all upcoming events for attendance and conflicts.

I cannot help but see this as a symptom of a dysfunctional system between councils and National.

Add this to the long list of IT-type complaints we have endured over the past years.

With the tremendous burden of administration we already have to make a Scout unit function well, it'd be nice not to have friendly fire incidents like this.

 

 

[qwazse]

Sounds about right.

The IT structure was built on the assumption of a certain number of staff available to address unique cases.

Keep up those calls and this will get cleared soon enough.

[Eagle94-A1]

Yet another reason I, and many others, do not trust National's IT systems.

[InquisitiveScouter]

1 hour ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

Yet another reason I, and many others, do not trust National's IT systems.

Yes, why not just have a National Membership, with that registration portable through all councils and units.

You can already establish multiple memberships in multiple units, with one remaining primary. 

Why not let the member determine where their primary membership resides?  Seems like a no brainer to me, but I'm sure there is something I'm not seeing, or remain ignorant of, in spite of my best efforts to understand the system...

Edited 21 hours ago by InquisitiveScouter

[PACAN]

There is an indeed.com commercial about a manufacturing line gone amok.   The women says does anyone know COBOL?  The guy says Whats COBOL?

that all you need to know about BSA IT.  😜

[jcousino]

8 hours ago, InquisitiveScouter said:

Yes, why not just have a National Membership, with that registration portable through all councils and units.

You can already establish multiple memberships in multiple units, with one remaining primary. 

Why not let the member determine where their primary membership resides?  Seems like a no brainer to me, but I'm sure there is something I'm not seeing, or remain ignorant of, in spite of my best efforts to understand the system...

If its a nation registration then national is responsible for your action a local registration moves the liability to the local concil level and then to unit CO level. Not sure if you can register as primary council level position. 

[yknot]

As a unit CC I was once given a trouble ticket when I attempted to clarify a policy issue that had been unresolvable at the council level. I sent the policy, explained the issue, and then went on to receive numerous phone calls from BSA staff who updated me regularly regarding the status of my ticket. This went on for several months as the ticket worked its way up the org chart. Every time I got an update from a BSA staffer it was delivered with conviction that my ticket was being handled with utmost scout professionalism and responsiveness. Finally, I was called and informed that my answer was imminent by email. When I received it, with my trouble ticket number noted in the subject line, it was a three line recitation of the exact same vague policy I had sent in in the first place. They almost don't know how cheerfully incompetent they are. 

 

[InquisitiveScouter]

OK, so the solution from National was to create a third ID number for this Scout in our Council, and import his record from the other council to this "New Primary" membership, as well as merging the record of his existing "Multiple" membership in our council.

This all went in overnight, and the Scout's record looks OK.  Moving forward there...

But with all that, his parent now has three ID numbers tied to this Scout.  One of the parent numbers is also still in the old council, where he was a leader, and so it has all of his training records tied to it.  (He wishes to become a leader in our unit as well.)  So, I'll call my friendly neighborhood Registrar this morning, and begin working that piece of the puzzle.

Our Committee Chair says he is gonna TRIPLE my pay after this one

What is 3 x $0.00???

P.S.  I wonder if Scouts, BSA's membership numbers went up by three (instead of one) with all this??  LOL

Edited 1 hour ago by InquisitiveScouter