Badges often involve work done at home — cooking, gardening, a personal challenge — where a leader isn't there to see it. Parents can submit evidence through the parent portal, and leaders review it requirement by requirement. If something's missing, a leader can ask the parent to fix just that part and resubmit, without starting over.
What parents submit
When a parent opens a badge from their child's progress page, they pick which requirements they've got evidence for and then get one card per requirement. Each card has its own notes field. A separate Evidence files (optional) area at the bottom covers the whole submission — useful when one photo speaks to more than one requirement.
Parents can close the submission half-way through. Their draft is saved automatically and the next time they open that badge they'll see a Pick up where you left off, or start over banner so they can carry on.
Opening the review queue
Leaders review pending evidence in one place:
- Click Badges in the sidebar.
- Click Review Evidence in the sub-navigation.
The queue shows every submission waiting on a decision across your sections. Use the section filter to narrow it down.
Reviewing a submission
Click a row and the review sheet opens from the right (or from the bottom on a phone).
You'll see one row per requirement, with the parent's notes and any files pinned to that row. If the parent added shared files that cover more than one requirement, those appear in a Shared evidence block above the list.
For each requirement, pick one of three decisions:
| Decision | What happens |
|---|---|
| Approve | Marks that requirement as complete and feeds into the member's badge progress. This is the default on every row, so the happy path is a single click. |
| Return | Asks the parent for more info on just that requirement. A reason box appears — this is required, so the parent knows what to fix. |
| Re-map | Moves the evidence to a different requirement on the same badge (for when the parent picked the wrong one). A dropdown of the badge's other requirements appears. |
There's also an Overall feedback (optional) field at the bottom of the sheet for a note about the submission as a whole.
The submit button label always reflects what you're about to do — for example, Submit review on a single submission, or Submit & next when you're working through a queue. It updates as you change decisions so you always know what will happen when you click it.
Approve all in one click
If the whole submission looks good, click Approve all at the top of the sheet to set every requirement to Approve in one go. You can still change individual rows afterwards.
Keyboard shortcuts
The sheet is built for quick turnaround on a laptop. With a row focused:
| Key | What it does |
|---|---|
A | Set the focused row to Approve |
R | Set the focused row to Return and move focus to the reason box |
M | Set the focused row to Re-map |
Cmd/Ctrl + Enter | Submit the review |
When a parent resubmits
Returning a requirement sends the parent one email covering the whole review round — what was approved, what was re-mapped, and what needs more info. They see a Needs more info card on their parent dashboard that links straight into a resubmit flow for just the returned requirements.
When a parent resubmits and you re-open the submission:
- Previously approved and re-mapped rows are locked as done — they show with a tick or a re-mapped label so you can see at a glance what's already settled.
- Only the requirements you returned reappear as needing a decision.
- The previous attempt is collapsed above each re-opened row, so you can see what the parent had before and what they've added this time.
You can go through as many rounds as needed until every requirement is either approved or re-mapped.
Bulk-approving from the queue
For submissions where everything's clearly fine, you don't need to open each one:
- Tick the checkboxes on the queue rows you want to approve.
- Click Approve all selected in the bulk bar.
Bulk approve is the only bulk action on this queue — Return and Re-map need a decision-per-requirement, so they're only available inside the review sheet.
What parents see through the round
One email per round — not a separate email for every requirement. The subject and body reflect the outcome, and the call to action only appears if the parent has something to do next:
| Round outcome | What the parent gets |
|---|---|
| All approved / re-mapped | A short "your evidence has been accepted" email. No action needed. |
| At least one returned | An email listing each requirement, the decision, and the reason on returned ones. The only button is a link back into the resubmit flow. |
Parents also see the status on their child's badge page — every requirement shows as approved, re-mapped, or "needs more info" — so they can check where things are without opening the email.
Weekly digest of what's waiting
Leaders who've opted into the weekly digest email get a count of the individual requirements still pending (not just submissions) — so a submission with three outstanding requirements shows as three, which is a more honest unit of work than one "review pending" entry.
What's next
- How Badge Tracking Works — the bigger picture of how requirements feed into badge completion.
- Awarding Badges — signing off and ordering badges once evidence is approved.
- Viewing Your Child's Badge Progress — the parent-facing side of this same flow.
Was this article helpful?
What's next?
Related guidesHow Badge Tracking Works
An overview of how Scoutworks handles badge progress tracking, from requirement completion to awarding badges.
Read articleAwarding Badges
How to sign off badge requirements and award badges to members individually or in bulk.
Read articleViewing Your Child's Badge Progress
How to see your child's badges, submit evidence requirement by requirement, and fix anything a leader has asked you to add more to.
Read article