Scout SuiteHow-to guides
The parts worth walking through properly
The in-app tour points at buttons. These guides are for the handful of things that deserve more than that — how a whole feature fits together, start to finish.
People
Waiting lists, parents, moving on, and Explorer Units.
Explorer Units and Groups
When to create an Explorer Unit of its own, when to add an Explorers section to a Scout group (a partnered unit), and how uniforms, members and settings differ in each case.
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Moving on and transfers
How linking, moving section, transferring to another Scout Suite Group or Explorer Unit, and the leaving pack work when a young person moves on.
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Using the parent portal
How the parent portal works from a parent's point of view — accepting an invite, signing up for events, paying invoices, setting up Direct Debit, declaring Gift Aid, consent, details, and awarded badges.
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Waiting list on the Group website
How a parent joins the Group waiting list from a WordPress page — the Scout Suite form shortcode on the site you already run, and the child landing on the leader waiting list.
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Running a waiting list
How the group waiting list works in Scout Suite — sharing a public signup link, seeing the queue, and offering a place so the child becomes a young person.
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Getting parents online
How leaders invite parents to the parent portal — marking a primary contact with an email, then sending the invitation from Parent Invite Manager or the child's record.
Watch the walkthroughProgramme
Terms, badges, events, camp, and the reports that follow.
Building a programme
How programme planning works in Scout Suite, from building an activity library to badges completing themselves from attendance.
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Running an event
How camps, trips and other one-off events work in Scout Suite — capacity and waitlists, custom signup questions, deposits and balance payments, consent, and the paperwork you take on the day.
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Awarding badges
How to award finished badges to several young people at once from a section's Badge Progress, instead of opening each profile in turn.
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Packing for camp
How equipment weight tracking and container-based checkout work in Scout Suite — weigh an item once, then see what's actually going in the trailer before it's loaded.
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Programme to badge: signing off what actually got done
How linking a badge requirement to a session works end to end in Scout Suite — from planning the term, through auto sign-off on attendance, to catching someone up afterwards.
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Reports
How the Membership and Chief Scout's Award reports work in Scout Suite — both read straight from real section data, not a spreadsheet someone has to keep updating.
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Uniform designer
How Scout Suite's uniform designer places every badge in the right spot on a section's uniform — no account needed, free to use on its own.
Watch the walkthroughMoney
Subs, Gift Aid, and reconciling the bank.
Collecting subs
How membership subs work in Scout Suite — connecting card and Direct Debit, building a schedule, sending invoices, and letting payments mark themselves paid.
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Claiming Gift Aid
How Gift Aid works in Scout Suite — parents declare in the portal, the treasurer puts eligible donations into a claim, downloads an R68 file, and files it with HMRC themselves.
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Reconciling the bank
How bank reconciliation works in Scout Suite — linking an account, importing transactions, explaining each line, attaching receipts, and checking a statement balances.
Watch the walkthroughSafety & HQ
Risk, incidents, GDPR, the building, and the kit in it.
Tracking equipment
How equipment tracking works in Scout Suite — adding kit, printing or registering tags, binding them, then scanning to check out, check in, and stocktake.
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Mapping your HQ
How to put a building on the map from Locations — a UK postcode lookup, a pin you can drag onto the hut, and why that matters for the group website.
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Writing a risk assessment
How risk assessments work in Scout Suite — from a template or a blank page, through hazards and controls, review and approval, to a PDF and a link on the event.
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Recording an incident
How incident recording works in Scout Suite — logging what happened, adding witnesses, photos and follow-ups, then investigating, reviewing, closing or escalating.
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Building maintenance
How EICR, gas safety and fire log compliance for your meeting place work in Scout Suite — real due dates, an auditable fire log, and certificates stored against the task they prove.
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GDPR & compliance
How Subject Access Requests, data breaches, and the audit trail work under Safety → GDPR & Compliance — the paperwork a data protection lead actually has to produce.
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Risk register
How the Risk Register works in Scout Suite — top-level organisational risk, scored before and after controls, with a real owner picked from your adults and contacts, ready for a trustees' meeting.
Watch the walkthroughPhones & messages
The group number, call flows, inbox, and meeting recordings.
Setting up group phones
How a group UK number and leader eSIMs work in Scout Suite — buying the number, optional WhatsApp, ordering and installing eSIMs, then pointing the line at a call flow.
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Building a call flow
How call flows work in Scout Suite — greetings, keypad menus and ringing leaders, then attaching the group number so inbound calls actually follow the plan.
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Recording a meeting
How leader meetings work in Scout Suite — creating a meeting, uploading or recording audio, and getting a transcript, summary and minutes without a separate generate step.
Watch the walkthroughSending messages
How group communications work in Scout Suite — email to parents, SMS with optional WhatsApp-then-SMS fallback, templates, Facebook posts, and the inbox for replies.
Read the guideSetup
Districts, WordPress, OSM, SSO, the API, privacy mode, and the assistant.
Installing the WordPress plugin
How to get the free Scout Suite WordPress plugin from GitHub, upload it to your site, activate it, and enter the Org ID and API key.
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Your Group on the district website
How Scout Suite fills Find a Group and the events calendar on a WordPress district site — Groups, HQ pins and public events written in from Scout Suite, not typed into WordPress twice.
Watch the walkthroughSyncing from OSM
How OSM sync works in Scout Suite — connecting Online Scout Manager, choosing what to bring across, running a preflight, then a one-way sync that treats OSM as the source of truth while it's on.
Read the guideSetting up SSO
How group single sign-on works in Scout Suite — adding an OIDC or SAML provider for your group's email domain, then copying the redirect URI into your identity provider.
Read the guideUsing the API
How the Scout Suite developer portal works — API keys for server access, MCP tokens for AI tools like Cursor, and OAuth apps that sign users in with Scout Suite.
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AI assistant
How Scout Suite's AI assistant answers questions about your own group's live data and general Scout policy, instead of behaving like a generic chatbot bolted onto the side.
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Counties and districts
How a District or County sits above its Groups in Scout Suite — one dashboard across every Group underneath it, and the invite flow that links a Group in.
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Privacy mode
How Privacy Mode blurs young people's names, emails and photos across the whole app from one switch in the account menu, with a hover-to-reveal and a pin-open option.
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