Scout SuiteHow-to guide
Turning on notifications
Scout Suite can show a notification on your phone, tablet or computer when your Group sends you something, so you don't have to keep checking. Tap it and the right page opens. You choose whether to have them, on each device, and you can switch off the kinds you don't want.
Turn them on
Open your account menu, then Profile, then Notifications. Under Notifications on this device, tap Turn on notifications. Your browser then asks whether Scout Suite may show notifications: choose Allow.
You may also see Get a nudge when your Group sends you a notice? on the Notices page of the Membership Portal. Turn on there does the same thing. Not now hides it for 30 days. Scout Suite never asks your browser by itself: it only asks when you tap.
On an iPhone or iPad: add Scout Suite to your Home Screen first
An iPhone or iPad only shows notifications from a website that has been added to the Home Screen (iOS 16.4 or later). In Safari: open Scout Suite, tap the Share button (the square with an arrow pointing up, at the bottom of the screen, or at the top on an iPad), scroll down and tap Add to Home Screen, then tap Add.
Now open Scout Suite from its new icon on your Home Screen, sign in if asked, and go to Profile, Notifications and tap Turn on notifications. If you open the page in Safari instead, it shows these steps rather than the button.
The Scout Suite phone app doesn't show notifications yet. Until it does, use the Home Screen icon for notifications.
Choose what you hear about
Under What you get, switch off anything you don't want: Notices, Events or Payments. Volunteers also see Replies to my messages, for when a parent replies to a text, WhatsApp message or email they sent. Your choices apply to every device you've turned on.
Some messages are always sent, whatever the switch says, because you need to know: money you owe, a payment received, a change to your Direct Debit, and an event place that's no longer available. The page says which.
Check it works
Once notifications are on, Send a test notification sends one to the device you're using. It should arrive within a few seconds.
If nothing arrives, check that your phone isn't in a Focus or Do Not Disturb mode, and that notifications for your browser (or for the Scout Suite Home Screen icon) are allowed in your phone's settings. If This browser's setting says Blocked, allow notifications for Scout Suite in your browser's site settings, then come back and tap Turn on notifications.
What the lock screen shows
A lock screen can be seen by anyone, so a notification only ever says something short, like A new notice from 1st Example, A payment is due or A parent replied. It never shows a young person's name, an amount, or anything about health or behaviour. The full message is in Scout Suite after you sign in.
To deliver a notification, your browser's maker runs the service that carries it to your device (Apple for Safari, Google for Chrome, Mozilla for Firefox, Microsoft for Edge). Scout Suite sends that service your device's notification address and the short lock-screen text, encrypted, and nothing else.
Signing out and shared phones
Signing out turns notifications off for your account on every device, and clears what Scout Suite kept on this phone for working offline, so the next person to use it sees nothing of yours. A device you're still signed in to turns itself back on when you next open Scout Suite on it, within a day.
Your devices lists every phone or computer you've turned on. Turn off stops one of them, for example a phone you no longer use.
People
More in this topic
Waiting lists, parents, moving on, and Explorer Units.