Manage privelages

I am totally lost with the privelages. My families are struggling to access info and rsvps and all kinds of things. I do not understand what privelages allow what. What is the difference between marking household, unit, troop, self, etc. what does each privelage mean? It is not self explanatory and the discriptions are very confusing. Please help. My troop is getting overwhelmed and one family even said they might quit our troop because of it. Is there a training video or something in addition to a general overview?

@HannahBarros There are two main parts to think of when considering privileges. The first is the access level and the second are the privileges themselves. Simply put, the first determines who they can see and the second determines what they can and cannot do with those individuals they can see. I will try to describe more or less what the privileges do and who should have what privileges and access, but please bear in mind that this is just one typical scenario and may not best fit the needs of your troop.

Scouts or kids with their own user names and passwords should have only “self” level access. Parents would have “household” access to be able to do things like RSVP for themselves and all members of their household (their kids, in other words). Unit leaders would have “unit” access and troop level leaders who need to be able to see everyone would have “troop” access. Some troops choose to give all leaders troop access for simplicity’s sake. (These levels have slightly different names depending on the organization you are with, so if I called them the wrong thing for your case, I apologize.)

Here’s a list of privileges, a brief explanation, and who might need them:

  • Edit achievement records - can add completed awards, badges, achievements, etc. to the record’s of whoever they have access to (household, unit, etc.) - NOTE: Parents don’t need this privilege even if you have them entering in their kid’s progress. We have created a feature called provisional progress that is specifically for parents and scouts to enter in things when they complete them and a leader approves or signs off on them.
  • Edit web pages - can create, edit, or delete the web pages under the Share tab (lots of people don’t use this, so it doesn’t matter for many troops)
  • Manage announcements - can create site-wide announcements, found under the Communicate tab (these pop up in a little colored box at the top of the page for whoever logs in)
  • Manage awards - goes along with the edit achievements privilege, allows them to purchase the awards and mark them as presented (Achieve > Present Awards, Achieve > Shopping List, etc.)
  • Manage checklists - can add, edit, and delete checklists (found under Manage > Checklists; not all troops use this)
  • Manage documents - can add, edit, and delete documents (Share > Troop Documents) - more on this at the end because the system here is NOT very intuitive
  • Manage equipment - you can keep an inventory of your troop’s stuff and people with this privilege can add, edit, or delete items on it, mark it as checked out to people. etc.
  • Manage events - can create events on the calendar and invite people to them
  • Manage fundraisers - can add, edit, and delete fundraisers (Manage > Fundraisers, allows you to keep track of given fundraisers and how much money has been earned and by whom)
  • Manage library - much like the “manage equipment” thing, you can keep an inventory of books and the people with this privilege can add, edit, and delete things
  • Manage mailboxes - this is a beta feature that many troops don’t use, let’s people add, edit, and create new mailboxes
  • Manage money accounts - can add, edit, delete money accounts for anyone within their access level (self, household, unit, troop); unless they are a leader involved with money in some way, most users don’t need this privilege
  • Manage own outside participation - can add, edit, or delete things on a the Service & Participation tab for anyone under their access level (separate from calendar events)
  • Manage privileges - can add or remove privileges from other users within their access level, can also change access level - only leaders need this privilege, typically
  • Manage public events - can add, edit, delete public events (unless you are sharing your calendar and making it public, this won’t be used much, basically the same as the manage events privilege)
  • Manage sign up sheets - can add, edit, and delete sign up sheets under Communicate > Sign Up Sheets
  • Manage training - can add, edit, and delete training records on the training tab for any person within their access level
  • Manage troop members - can edit details about troop members besides those already covered (achievements and money) - this allows them to change names, update addresses and other contact information, update grade levels and ranks/units/levels for the youth, delete or deactivate accounts, send password reset emails to users, send them emails to invite them to register to set up a user name and password, etc.
  • Manage troop settings - allows a user to change the troop settings found under the Manage > Edit Troop Settings menu (such as paying for the subscription, turning online payments off and on, and turning other site-wide settings on or off)
  • Manage user files - each user has a files tab on their profile and only someone with this privilege can add, edit, or delete them
  • Upload photos - can upload photos to the Share > Photo Albums page and create photo albums, but can only delete photos they uploaded, regardless of any other permissions
  • Use turbonet features - only applies to BSA
  • View all money accounts - can view money accounts, but can’t make any changes to them - this is one that you would give to parents to see their kids’ money accounts, but not allow them to alter them in any way
  • View and print troop roster - allows them to print a roster of everyone in the troop (leaders and scouts) with their name, email addresses, and phone number
  • View inbox - beta feature that applies only to subdomain emails (like the manage mailboxes privilege), so you probably won’t use this
  • View user files - can view the user-specific files for themselves and other people in their access level but can’t delete them, change them, or add any new ones

The one thing that is set up a bit wonky are the troop documents. The way you open them up for viewing is sort of backwards. If you want everyone to be able to see them, no matter how low their level is, you need to set it to ‘self’. If you only want the troop leaders who can see everyone to see a document, you would do ‘troop.’ The level a document is set to determines not who can see it, but what access level can see it. o if you set it to self, anyone with self, household, unit, or troop access can see it. Household - only household, unit, or troop. Unit - only unit and troop. Troop - only those with troop.

As long as a parent has household access, they can RSVP for themselves and their children - even if they don’t have a user name and password, since they can RSVP from the email invite they receive.

If you have specific questions that I didn’t already cover, let me know and I would be happy to address them.

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Perhaps I am not seeing something based on our Unit type but I see Unit, Patrol/Den, Household, Self, and None as Access Levels, to me Troop would be Unit and the highest level of access. Then Patrol/Den depending on if you are a Scouts BSA Troop (Patrol) or Cub Scout Pack (Den) would give access to an adult patrol guide or Den leader or a youth as a Patrol Leader to see everyone in the Patrol. Is there a Troop access level for some types of units that is higher than Unit level access?

The terminology used for BSA accounts is different than that used for AHG ones. They refer to their version of patrols/dens as units. Please see the equivalent terms below, with BSA terminology on the left and AHG on the right:

  • Unit = Troop
  • Patrol/Den = Unit
  • Household = Household
  • Self = Self

Regardless of the organization (BSA, TLUSA, AHG, GSUSA), there are only four levels. The top one (whatever it is called) is the highest and lets a leader see everyone. The second one (again, regardless of terminology) allows them to see the “group” they are in on the Manage > Units (or Manage > Patrols or Manage > Dens) page.

This is great - just what I have been looking for. But I have one question.

Say I am a Tenderheart unit leader with Unit access. But I also have a daughter who is in Explorers. Would I have access to her records, too, since she’s in my household?

It seems to me that in a hierarchy like this, if I am just a kid, I might have self access. Parent would be household to view all her kids. If I move to the unit level, I should maintain access from the household, but add unit level privileges. And then Troop would be all. Is this how it works?

Where would we find the provisional progress access? I can’t find it in our privileges, or under any of our tabs.

That’s exactly correct. If you have unit level access, it is assumed that you also have household access. Each access level has all of the access below it.

Provisional progress is a setting you have to turn on. If you go to Manage > Settings > Edit Troop Settings > TroopTrack Settings (fourth tab) > General Settings (first column), there is a checkbox regarding provisional progress. You just need to select it and hit the ‘update settings’ button at the bottom of the page.

Is there a table that shows what access or privilege is tied to each field/activity? I am trying to grant access to a scout that is in charge of taking attendance, but what privilege do I grant them without individually granting them access one by one? I have several other cases as well, but a table would clear this up very quickly.

There is no table I have seen that shows what you are looking for. The privileges are not very granular at this point, it has been suggested on another thread to make them more granular. In order to give a Scout the ability to take attendance, they would need Unit Level Access and Manage events. They will have access to all events and have the ability to create and delete events.

It has been said by TT staff on other threads they cannot recover individual events or items for a Troop, their backup is for catastrophic failures that affect the whole system.