Event Not Required On Reimbursement Requests

The expense reimbursement workflow now allows you to request reimbursement for an expense that was not associated with an event.  Like camping equipment.  Or your TroopWebHost subscription renewal.   :)

To enable this feature, you'll need to select two more transaction types on your Expense Reimbursement Configuration page, as shown here:

Then when your users enter a new request they will see a checkbox below the Event selection box labeled Not For Event.

Clicking on that checkbox will cause the Event selection box to disappear.

When your treasurer reviews this request they will also see this checkbox.

The treasurer also has more discretion over how this reimbursement will be posted.  If the expense was not tied to an event, they may be prompted for an expense budget item.

40 New Girl Scout Badges

TroopWebHostGS now supports 40 new STEM and outdoor badges, including Digital Game Design, Cybersecurity, and Trail Adventure.

These new badges, including all of the requirements, were automatically added to every age level.

Automatically Award Leadership Requirements

You may now configure your site to automatically award the leadership requirements for Star, Life and Eagle.

To do this, please go to Site Configuration → Advancement Settings.

To qualify for this requirement, the leadership position must have the Qualifies For Leadership Requirement box checked.

As part of a nightly job, the system will then evaluate every scout working toward Star, Life and Eagle to determine whether they have held an eligible leadership position for enough time to qualify for this requirement.  If so, it will automatically mark it complete.

With this new feature, the system can now automatically award four of the seven requirements for Star and Life, and three of the seven requirements for Eagle.

Automatically Award Camping Merit Badge Requirement 9.a

The system will now automatically award requirement 9.a for Camping merit badge for any scout who has completed the required number of long term and short term camping nights.

If your troop requires attendance to be finalized before assigning camping credits (which we highly recommend), then it will only consider campouts for which attendance was finalized.

It will also consider camping nights recorded as Credit For Other Activity.  Any individual credit for more than four camping nights will be considered long term camping.

If the scout had not yet started this badge, the system will automatically add it to their list and mark requirement 9.a complete.

Delete Unused Awards

Your system came pre-configured with a number of awards, some of which may not be applicable to your scouting unit.

You can now remove unwanted awards from your list by going to Site Configuration → Special Awards.

Click Delete Unused Awards to go to a screen that lists all awards that have never been started or completed by any member of your unit.

To delete all unused awards, first set the Rows Per Page to "All" as shown above.

Then click on the checkbox in the heading row of the grid to select all items.

Then click Delete Selected Items.  The system will display the number of items to be deleted and ask you to confirm.

Master List Of BSA Awards

You may have noticed another new button at the top of the Special Awards grid.

Click View Master Award List to see a list of all officially sanctioned BSA awards that we've compiled for you.

Each item on this list includes the BSA Code needed for Internet Advancement.

Click Update My List With BSA Codes to run a procedure that will attempt to apply these codes to any award on your list that is missing a BSA code.

Click Add Missing Items To My List to run a procedure that will copy any of these items into your award list that aren't already there.

Individual awards can be copied to your list by clicking Add To My List on that row.

Merit Badge Counselor User Role

If your TroopWebHost site did not already have a "Merit Badge Counselor" user role, you have one now.  This should be assigned to all of your adult leaders who serve as merit badge counselors.

This user role is authorized for the "Merit Badge Counselor" task, which allows the user to sign off on requirements for scouts that are assigned to him on specific badges.

If you do not want your merit badge counselors to be able to sign off on requirements, please go to Administration → Security Configuration → Configure User Roles and update this role.  Remove the checkmark from "Merit Badge Counselor" and put a checkmark in front of "Merit Badge Counselor w/o Sign-Off".

If you want to give your merit badge counselors more authority, consider authorizing this role for the following additional tasks:

• "Merit Badge Counselor Add Scouts" allows the counselor to add a badge he supports to a scout who has not already signed up for it.
• "Merit Badge Counselors Sign Off All Scouts" allows the counselor to sign off on requirements for this badge for any scout in your troop, including those that are not assigned to him as their merit badge counselor for the badge.

URL For Any Event

We often get asked how to find the URL for a specific page on a troop's site.  Since the site operates within a frameset, the URL displayed in the browser's address line doesn't change from page to page.  What you really need is the URL for the "inner frame", which can be obtained in different ways depending on which browser you are using.

Since the most commonly requested page is the calendar page for an event, we decided to make finding that one as easy as possible.  Users who are authorized for the "Event Planner" or "Web Page Editor" role will now see that URL displayed at the bottom of the calendar detail page, as shown below.

Note that this URL includes the &Application_ID parameter, which identifies your specific TroopWebHost site.  This allows the URL to be used from outside the site, e.g. in an email or on another website.

Update All . . . Scout Affirmation Date

The Affirmation Date field can be used to track when a scout (or the scout's parents) signed a document required by the troop.  This might be the troop's code of conduct, or policy statement, or an annual permission form.

We recently added an "Update All..." page that allows you to update this field for all of your active scouts.

To find it, please go to Membership → Update All → Scout Affirmation Date.

Most Recent Event Participation By Scout Report

This new report can help you scouts that may be losing interest in the program.  It shows the last event in which each scout participated, sorted by the date of that event.

The scouts who have been away the longest appear at the top of the report.

Merit Badges In Progress By Counselor

This new report helps troop leaders work with merit badge counselors to find scouts who have been working on a given badge longer than others, and thus may need additional coaching.

It is grouped by merit badge counselor and then by badge.  It then lists the scouts currently working on that badge, in order by the date on which they started.  The scouts who have been working on it the longest appear at the top.

We also modified the Merit Badges In Progress By Badge report to sort the scouts by start date under each badge.

Virtual Meeting Link

Many scouting units are experimenting with virtual meetings in response to the coronavirus epidemic.  They are using on-line video-conferencing sites like Zoom or WebEx to continue their program despite the need for "social distancing".

To help facilitate this, we've added a Virtual Meeting URL field to the event, as shown below.

This field is enabled by a setting on the Event Type, "Display Virtual Meeting Link".  We enabled this attribute on all event types with "Meeting" in the name.

Prior to the meeting and until it ends, when you select this event from the calendar you will see a Join Virtual Meeting link at the top of the page, as shown here:

This will open the link in a new browser tab, allowing the user to join the virtual meeting.

Open In Excel Generates CSV File

The "Open In Excel" button at the bottom of most grids now produces a CSV file instead of an XLS file.  This eliminates the special formatting that often created unwanted blank rows.

Once the file is opened in Excel, it can be saved as a standard .XLSX file.

This change also applies to all single section reports when opened in Excel.  Multi-section reports, like the Scouting History Report or Account Balances Report, will still generate XLS files when you open them in Excel.

Request Sign Off On Requirements

Scouts working from home on rank requirements or merit badges now have more room to describe what they've done when they request sign-off on requirements through TroopWebHost.  The Scout Notes field on each sign-off request has been expanded to accept up to 4,000 characters.

These notes are available to advancement leaders when they review requests for sign-off.

Preventing Double Click Errors

If your Internet connection is a little slow, sometimes it's hard to resist hitting that Save button a second or third time to make sure it's really happening.

If you are adding a new record, this can occasionally cause duplicate records to be added.  If you are deleting a record, this can cause an error.

You'll notice that many buttons are now immediately disabled when you click on them.  That tells you that the button is being processed, and prevents you from clicking on it a second time.

Send Us Your Questions and Suggestions

Send us a ticket from the My Support Tickets page on your site's Help menu.   This is absolutely the best way to communicate with us!

Or simply contact us at CustomerSupport@TroopWebHost.com.  If you do, please include your troop number and city in your message so we can identify your site.