Suggestions on how to set up Den Chiefs

Ask a Question
1

Looking for suggestions on the best way to set up Den Chiefs. These are Boy Scouts assigned to each Cub Scout den as a leader. They aren’t a cub scout and they aren’t a parent. We want them to get all Den and all Pack emails but not leader emails. Typically when sending pack emails we send it to the all scouts mailing list.

Thanks,

2 Likes
2

Marking the Den Chiefs as “Youth” prevents them from receiving the leader emails and allows them to receive Den and Pack emails. However, they will also show up on your roster as Scouts/Youth. So if you have a Den with 6 Bears and 1 Den Chief the youth total will be 7, even though one of those Scouts is a Boy Scout and not a Cub Scout.

I really don’t want the Den Chiefs listed on my youth roster numbers. One, because I’m lazy and remembering to subtract them out gets to be a hassle and two if someone not me is just glancing at our roster numbers in TroopTrack the youth number is technically incorrect and they won’t know to subtract out the Den Chiefs.

All of our Den Chiefs have at least one parent listed in TroopTrack. Removing the youth tag breaks the tie to the Boy Scout’s parent (the parent goes from being listed as “parent” to “adult”) and would prevent the the parent from receiving any emails sent directly to the Boy Scout - which in my understanding violates YPT.

I don’t know if it is feasible to have a category specifically for Den Chiefs, but in my opinion, they fall in a gray area between “youth” and “adult” within the Pack.

3

This is a great question. We are going to use Den Chiefs this year and would very much appreciate input from others about setting these up in TroopTrack.

  1. I thought about creating a new den just for them to keep them separate, but this poses numerous communication challenges.

  2. They aren’t technically members of the Pack so the numbers need to stay separate.

  3. Leaving them out of TT isn’t an option either. We have to be able to track their participation, service hours, etc. and I’m not willing to track it outside of TT (no time for double dipping).

Any Suggestions? Anyone?

4

Summarizing my requirements for how I want Den Chiefs to be treated:

  • Included in communications to the specific den so we assign the den chief to the den
  • Included in all pack communications - so either need to be in the “scout” or “adult” magic mailing lists (for us either work the same because only parents have emails addresses)
  • Not included in den reports and achievement lists
  • Do not receive emails to “leaders” mailing list
  • All emails sent to them also goes to their parent who may not be in the pack

The best I can come up with is to make them an adult and assign them to the den. But I cannot send emails to both them and their parent. I’ve tried adding the parent to the secondary email field but it appears communications don’t go to the secondary email.

Thanks for the help.

2 Likes
5

Bumping this from a year ago to see if there are any more thoughts or better way to handle it. Thanks.

6

@hheiber - You may want to change the category of this post to an “idea” so it gets proper visibility within TroopTrack.

I am having this exact struggle right now. Due to YPT, I have my Den Chiefs marked as youths and assigned to their respective Dens. I agree TroopTrack should have built-in logic that excludes Den Chiefs from certain reports, advancement lists, adult leadership emails, etc.

7

Saw this was bumped and I’m still struggling with it as well.

Regarding the secondary email thing, emails can be “turned on” for the secondary email account but it has to be done by the user which means relying on the Boy Scout to turn it on. There isn’t a way for an administrator to activate that secondary email account. It’s a bit of a separate issue but if administrators had that capability (either to actually do it or confirm that it was done) then Den Chiefs could be marked as “adults” in the Pack (although I’d prefer a secondary category for them entirely) and YPT could still be adhered to by including a parent in the secondary email.

8

There is also an overall troop setting that allows parents to be copied on all email received by a scout. A workaround so that den chiefs get leader emails would be to add them to the authorized recipients and authorized senders on a magic or custom mailing list. Then they should still get the emails.

If any of the above doesn’t work, let us know.

9

How do you turn on Secondary Email? I looked in my account and cannot find the option. If I did this, I would set up the primary as the adult and give them the option and instructions to add the scout email as the secondary.

Thanks.

10

How do you customize magic mailing lists? I don’t see any option to add additional email addresses to a magic mailing list (for example add a den chief and parent email to a specific den magic mailing list).

Thanks.

11

Click on your name in the black banner across the top of the page. A drop down menu will open and you should see “Email Preferences” listed. Click on that. A box will pop up and the last item is “Send copies of all emails sent to me to my secondary email address too” Put a check mark next to that item. Your secondary email account will now receive all the emails that your primary account receives.

This preference is user controlled so you can’t force onto everyone in the unit or individuals. You can request they turn it on, but you are taking them at their word that they will.

12

Thanks. I was looking under the Profile and Settings where it says: “Change your user name, password, or email preferences”. That statement is confusing because there are no email preferences you can change in the update screen.

Thanks.

13

I misspoke. Magic mailing lists cannot be edited. However, you can create a custom mailing list that can be sent from and to the people you would like, essentially serving the same purpose. Sorry about the confusion!