Changes to our beta website

Our beta website will soon replace scouts.org.uk to become our main website. Since its launch in May, we have been improving it to make it much better than our old website.

It’s easier to use on a wider range of devices (particularly mobile) and the addition of tools such as the Programme Planning feature and an improved Group Finder should make it easier for volunteers and parents to find what they need more quickly.

In advance of the changeover, we have made further updates to our beta website that we’d like to update you on.

Firstly, you may have noticed a change to our navigation bar – we’ve removed the downward chevrons to create space on either side of the menu items, we’ve added descriptions to each of our dropdown menu items and we’ve added a link to the Scouts Shop.

Also on the navigation bar is a new, improved Search feature. Search now looks for results from the main website and also includes results from members.scouts.org.uk, showing the URL beneath the result to make it easy to find what you need. We are working on moving the content into the main website – you can see it starting to build up under the Volunteers tab. In the meantime, members’ resources remains a separate site and is still available for your use.

We’ve also included a button allowing you to “sign in” – currently the button is greyed-out as we’re working on an implementation of single sign-on which we’re going to be rolling out in the next month. This will allow you to sign in to the programme planning tool, to access and save programmes made on any device. We can’t wait to share more about single sign-on with you.

In addition to the cosmetic changes, we have updated Group Finder to include meeting day information, to help prospective volunteers and parents find groups active on days that suit them, and this includes Explorer Units.

Over the past few weeks we have been working to connect Compass to Group Finder to allow the editing of information within the Group Finder. However, it is now clear that we are not able to fully connect up the contact details element of Group Finder with Compass. We are still able to use the meeting times, schedules and location from Compass to populate Group Finder’s new search-by-day functionality.

In regard to the Group Finder data, we have extracted and cleaned the contact information and group location from the current Group Finder, as well as taking the meeting schedule and locations details from census and we have uploaded this to Compass and our new database for the Group Finder.

Alongside these database changes, we have also automated the “Want to Join” process so the form filled in by prospective volunteers and parents can be sent directly to the appropriate contact without displaying individuals contact details. We think these changes help to make Group Finder more secure and easier to use.

We’d like to thank you for all your feedback and support since our beta website’s launch in May which has helped to improve it and ensure it’s ready to become our new, main website this month, and we’re excited to tell you more about our upcoming features when they’re ready.