Getting Started as a Unit Leader

This guide walks you through your first hour with the platform as a new unit leader. By the end you will have claimed your unit, invited your Key 3, imported your charter roster, and set the basics — so your committee sees a real, populated dashboard the next time they log in.

Before you start

You will move faster with these handy:

• Your unit’s BSA charter number (on your most recent charter packet)
• The names and email addresses of your Committee Chair and Chartered Organization Representative
• A current roster export from ScoutBook or your council registrar (CSV or XLSX)
• The chartered organization’s mailing address

Tip

The platform never shares your roster outside your unit. All data lives behind multi-tenant isolation — only people with an active assignment in your troop, pack, or crew can see it.

Claim your unit

1. Sign in for the first time. Use the email address that received your welcome message. Microsoft Entra walks you through a one-time verification.
2. Pick your unit. If your council has already provisioned you, your unit appears on the landing page — select it to continue into your dashboard.
3. Confirm your role. The platform asks whether you are a Scoutmaster, Cubmaster, Crew Advisor, or Skipper, which sets the default features you see.

Note

Don’t see your unit? Your council may not have provisioned it yet. Contact support and we will get you connected.

Invite your Key 3

Your Key 3 — Unit Leader, Committee Chair, and Chartered Organization Rep — should all have logins on day one. The platform lets each Key 3 member act independently, so attendance, advancement, and finance work do not all funnel through one person.

Open People → Members in the left menu. As a brand-new leader you will land on an empty directory with an Invite First Member button front and center.

Click Invite First Member (or, once you have members, the Invite Member button in the page header) to open the invite form. Fill in the email address, an optional first and last name, and pick a role:

• Adult Leader — Scoutmaster, Assistant Scoutmaster, Den Leader, or any registered adult. This is the role to use for your Committee Chair and Chartered Org Rep.
• Parent — a parent or guardian.
• Admin — full unit-management access.

Only a leader who manages roles (a unit administrator) can invite someone as an Admin. When any other leader tries, the invitation isn’t sent and they see: “Only a leader who manages roles can invite someone as Admin. Invite them as a parent or member, and a unit administrator can give them their role from Roles.”

Inviting someone who is already in your unit with an account doesn’t add them a second time. For a leader who manages roles, it changes their role to the one you picked (the Unit Setup checklist’s leadership invite relies on this). Anyone else sees “This person is already a member of your unit and has an active account.”, and the person’s role stays as it was — a unit administrator changes it from Roles.

There is no Scout option: Scouts are never invited by email. Invite the parent, and once they have signed in they add their Scout from My Family. This keeps every message that reaches a youth in front of that youth’s own parent.

You can add an optional personal message, then Send Invitation. The person receives a sign-up link by email; once they create an account with that address, they are added to your unit with the role you chose. Pending invites appear in a collapsible Pending Invitations panel on the Members page, where you can resend or cancel them.

Invite the whole Key 3 at once

Rather than send invites one at a time, use Bulk Invite on the People → Members page to invite your Committee Chair, Chartered Org Rep, and assistant leaders together. The wizard at /members/bulk-invite lets you paste a few rows of CSV — or upload a file — map the columns, review each row, and send them all in one pass. See the next section.

Bulk-invite your committee and assistants

For more than a handful of people, Bulk Invite (on People → Members) is faster than the single-invite form. It is a five-step wizard: Upload → Map Columns → Validate → Preview & Send → Results.

1. Upload or paste. Drag in a CSV or XLSX file, or paste rows directly. Use the Download Template button to grab a pre-formatted file with email, firstName, lastName, role, and phone columns.
2. Map columns. The wizard auto-detects your headers; adjust any that did not line up. You must map at least the Email column to continue.
3. Validate. Each row is checked for a valid, non-duplicate email. The wizard normalizes role names (for example, “ASM” or “Scoutmaster” become Leader) and flags anything questionable so you can fix or remove it.
4. Preview & Send. Review the final list, add an optional welcome message for everyone, and send. Error rows are excluded automatically.
5. Results. See how many invites sent, were skipped, or failed, with a per-row breakdown.

Note

Invitations expire after 30 days. If someone misses theirs, resend it from the Pending Invitations panel on the Members page.

Configure unit settings

Open Settings → Unit Profile and fill in the General tab:

• Unit name and unit number (the unit type is set at creation and cannot be changed here)
• Charter organization and charter expiration date — we send proactive recharter reminders to your Key 3 as that date approaches
• Meeting day and time (drives default event scheduling)
• Meeting location (street address, city, state, ZIP — used in calendar invites)
• Contact email and phone, and your unit website

You can also turn on a public-facing page for your unit from this tab. None of this is locked — come back and adjust it any time. For the full walkthrough, see Unit Settings.

Dues are set up elsewhere

The General tab does not have a “collect dues through the platform” toggle. Dues and payment processing live on their own pages: configure dues amounts and schedules at Settings → Dues (/settings/dues), and connect Stripe from the Payments tab. See Finance & Payments for the complete setup.

Run an import

Once your leaders are in, import the rest of your roster. Head to Member Import, drop in your CSV, and review the preview before committing — the importer maps columns automatically. Imported members start as Unclaimed until each parent or scout signs up and links their account. Full walkthrough: Member Import.

Tip

Bulk Invite and Member Import are different tools. Bulk Invite emails sign-up links to people you want to onboard now (your Key 3 and assistants). Member Import loads your full roster — including youth — as records you can manage right away, inviting families to claim their accounts over time.

The unit dashboard

Signing in lands you on the Dashboard, the unit’s at-a-glance view: KPI cards across the top, then what is coming up and what recently happened. It is the page most leaders keep open.

On Summit and Peak, the dashboard can also show recommendation cards for leaders: Scouts to check in with, suggestions for your next planning meeting, leadership succession, leader follow-up and who could step up. They are display only, and you can dismiss or snooze rows on every card except the planning-meeting one. See Dashboard Recommendations.

The setup checklist

A brand-new unit has a guided checklist at Unit Setup (/unit-setup) — invite members, configure dues, set up positions, connect a calendar — each item showing whether it is done. Working down it is the fastest route to a unit that actually functions, and it is worth revisiting after recharter when leadership changes.

The checklist also asks each unit to Add an SYT date for your unit’s leaders. Until at least one Scoutmaster, assistant or Committee Chair has a current Safeguarding Youth Training date on file, Scouts aged 13–17 with no parent linked can’t be messaged. The step turns green at two such leaders, so each one’s own messages can go out with the other copied. Add my SYT date opens the Training page with the form ready; see Adding your unit’s SYT dates.

What to do next

• Schedule your first event in Event Planning.
• Record a recent advancement in Advancement Workflow.
• Send your first announcement in Communications.
• Get ahead of recharter season with Recharter.

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Need help? Contact support — we usually respond within 1 business day.