Planning Section Moves with the Transition Planner

Every year the same job comes round. Some young people are too old for their section. Some families are waiting for a place. Somebody has to work out who goes where, and when, and whether each section can take them. The Transition Planner is where you do that — for the whole group, on one page, before anything actually happens.

Where to find it#

Open Members in the sidebar, then click Transition Planner.

The page has five tabs: Plan, Roster, History, Reports and Settings. You land on Plan.

There is no setup to do first. The planner works from the moment you open it.

Nothing moves until you say so#

This is the most important thing on the page, so read it before anything else.

Agreeing a move does not move the young person. It records that you have decided. Their section does not change. No email goes out. No roster changes.

A young person only changes section when you select their row, click Move now, and confirm. That is the only action that moves anybody.

The confirmation tells you exactly what will happen before you commit:

The button says the outcome rather than the word "apply" — for example Move 12 young people on 1 September. The count is the number who will actually move, not the number you ticked.

Undoing a move#

Moved somebody by mistake? You can put it back. Scoutworks keeps a copy of the young person's record as it was just before the move, so undoing it restores what was there rather than running a second move in the opposite direction.

You have 30 days.

Where to start#

The plan only carries a move while there is still something to do about it, so a finished move drops off it. That is why a finished move is undone from the young person's own record — which is where most leaders look first anyway.

Both routes open the same confirmation, Undo this move?. It names the section they go back to — "Amelia goes back to Beavers. The move comes off the plan, and their record and their subscription go back to how they were." Press Undo the move to confirm.

What can be undone#

Scoutworks works this out for you. Undo this move only appears on a move you can actually put back — so when it is missing, one of these is why.

What undoing restores#

• Their section. They go back to the section they came from, and the section they were moved into comes away.
• The date they started their section. It goes back to what it was, so a badge that counts time in section is not affected.
• The plan. The move comes off the plan.
• Their subscription. Where the move pointed it at the new section, it points back. No money moves — undoing never cancels a Direct Debit, changes a plan, or takes a payment. If the fee no longer fits the section they have gone back to, that stays a decision for you in Finance.

The move itself is not deleted. Both it and the undo stay on the young person's timeline and in History, so the record still says what happened.

Telling the family#

The confirmation carries a switch: Email their family to say it is not happening. It is off by default. Most leaders undo a move because a parent has already been in touch, and a second automatic email about their child's section is rarely welcome.

Turn it on when the welcome email has gone out and you have not spoken to the family since. Undoing a move does not pull back an email already on its way, so this switch is how you correct it. See Letting parents know when a member moves sections.

If you fix it on their record instead#

Taking the new section off a young person's record by hand is the obvious thing to do, and it now works: while they are in the moving-on period, removing that section stops the move and takes it off the plan. Before, the move stayed armed and put itself back when the moving-on period ran out.

What Scoutworks suggests#

Scoutworks reads every young person's age and every section's capacity, then suggests the moves it thinks you need. Waiting-list applicants are included, so a place freed by somebody moving up can be filled in the same plan.

Anybody part-way through a moving-on period is left out. Their move is already running, and suggesting it again would put the same child on the plan twice.

Each row starts as Suggested. You decide what to do with it.

Each row also says where the young person came from. Moving up is an existing member ageing out of their section. Joining is somebody taking a place from the waiting list.

The Why column explains the suggestion — the priority tier a waiting-list family sorted into, a young person who ages out just after your date, or a section with no room left. Turn the column on from the display menu if you want it visible all the time.

When there are fewer places than young people who need one, everybody competing sits in a single queue ordered by your Settings → Priority Rules. That includes your own members: a young person moving up carries the Ageing Out tier, applied automatically, and it is the only tier an existing member ever holds. Where you put that tier decides whether the last place in a full section goes to one of your own or to a waiting-list family.

Somebody moving up is never turned away — they cannot stay where they are. If the priority order gives their place to somebody else, they still move and the row is flagged Over capacity.

For the full detail of how places are decided, see How Recommended Places Are Calculated.

When suggestions go out of date#

Suggestions depend on your sections, your capacities, your members and your waiting list. When one of those changes, the suggestions may no longer match.

Most of the time Scoutworks rebuilds them quietly and you never notice. It only asks you when a rebuild would disagree with something you decided — a move you agreed, a row you pinned, or somebody you added by hand.

When that happens, the Refresh plan button in the toolbar turns amber, with a dot on its icon. Hover or focus it and it tells you why: These suggestions are out of date, what kind of change caused it, and when they were last worked out.

A refresh only replaces suggestions nobody has touched. Anything you pinned, agreed, or added by hand is left exactly as it is.

You do not have to wait for the amber. Refresh plan works at any time — useful after you have made room yourself. If you set a row to Not moving to free a place, nobody is offered that place until the plan is worked out again.

Pinning a decision#

Pin a row when you have made up your mind and you do not want a refresh to change it.

Click the pin icon in the Pinned column, or use Pin in the row menu. A pinned row is never rewritten by a refresh.

You do not need to pin everything. A row is already protected once you agree it, set it to not moving, add it by hand, change its destination, or type a movement date. Pinning is for a row you want to leave as Suggested but still keep safe.

To find them again, open the filters and switch on Only pinned.

Movement dates#

Every move carries a date. It is the day you plan the move to happen, and it drives a lot: the order of the plan, how urgent a row looks, when the moving-on period starts, and the date the family sees in their offer email.

Set a default for the group#

Most groups move everybody on the same day of the year. Set that once in the planner's Settings tab → Planning Defaults → Default movement date. Pick a day and a month — 1 September is the usual choice.

Scoutworks then dates each move to the first time that day comes round after the young person ages out. A child who ages out in June moves that September. A child who ages out in October moves the September after.

The date repeats every year, so it has to exist every year. That is why February stops at the 28th, and why the 31st is not offered for a 30-day month.

If you set no default, each move is dated to the day the young person ages out.

Change the date for one young person#

Real life does not follow the calendar. A child may be ready early, or need to wait for a sibling.

Change one row's date in three ways:

• Click the Movement date cell in the table and pick a date.
• Open the row and set the date on the Plan pane of the detail sheet.
• Select several rows and use Set movement date in the actions bar.

There is a box called Why you changed the suggestion. It is optional, but worth filling in — whoever reviews the plan later sees that the change was a judgement call rather than a suggestion.

Typing a date also protects the row. A refresh leaves it alone.

How far ahead the plan looks#

The control above the plan sets the horizon. It decides who is in the plan, not just how the page looks — narrow it and young people disappear from the list.

Choose Next 3 months, Next 6 months, Next 12 months, This school year (1 September to 31 August), or Custom dates.

Two kinds of row ignore the horizon on purpose: a move with no date yet, and a move whose date has already gone by. A missed move is the most pressing thing on the plan, so no horizon hides it — it stays in the list wearing an Overdue badge, however narrow your dates are. Set the movement-date filter to Overdue to gather them together, or use Overdue on this page in the select-all menu to tick them in one go.

Set the horizon every leader starts with in the planner's Settings tab → Planning Defaults → Plan horizon default. Each leader can widen it themselves and save that as their own view.

Adding someone by hand#

The suggestions come from age and waiting-list order. Those rules cannot see everything.

Click Add to plan — or press N — to add anybody yourself. Use it for:

• a child moving early or late by agreement with the family;
• a waiting-list family who should join this move rather than wait for the next intake;
• a mid-year joiner or a returning member the rules skipped;
• siblings you want to keep together.

The picker searches your whole roster and your waiting list at once, so you do not have to know which list a child is on. Anyone who already has a row in the plan is left out.

It shows the first 100 people and tells you when it has. If somebody you expected is not on the list, type their name — the search runs over everybody, not just the hundred on screen.

Choose the section they move into, set a date, and add an optional reason. Rows you add this way are never overwritten by a refresh.

If the section is already full, Scoutworks says so plainly and still lets you add them. You know things the rules do not. The row is flagged Over capacity so you can find it again.

A section with no capacity limit set is reported as no limit set. That is not a warning. It is a normal, common setting.

To take a row back out, use Remove from the plan in the row menu. It works until the move has run.

Offering a place to the family#

You can email a family a place offer and let them accept or decline. It works the same whether the young person is already a member or is on the waiting list.

Select the rows and click Send place offer. Before anything is sent you see who will be contacted and the actual email that will go to them. Families get 7 days to answer by default.

The email tells the parent which section their child is moving to, the movement date, when the section meets, and who the leaders are. It asks them to accept or decline by the deadline. You can add your own message.

Back on the plan, each row shows what the family said:

An expired offer is not a refusal. Nobody said no — the clock ran out. Send it again to reopen it.

Do you have to send an offer?#

No, and the two kinds of row behave differently on purpose.

• A young person moving up does not need an offer. Most moves are agreed with the family in person, and a row with no offer sent runs normally. An offer only holds a move back once you have asked and the family has declined or not yet replied.
• A waiting-list applicant joining only runs once the family has accepted. A place nobody has said yes to is not a place taken up.

For offers made straight from the waiting list, see Processing Waiting List Applications.

Doing several at once#

Tick the rows you want and the actions bar appears at the bottom. It works across sections, so you can agree a whole year of moves in one go.

If your selection includes a row you are not allowed to change, Scoutworks names it rather than dropping it silently. You always know what happened to every row you ticked.

Table or board#

Use the toggle in the toolbar to switch between two views of the same plan.

Table is the working view. It has columns for the young person, where they move from and to, the movement date, status, timing, place offer and pinned. Edit a cell in place. Choose which columns you see from the display menu. Save a set of filters and columns as your own named view.

Board gives you one column per destination section and one card per young person. Each column shows its own numbers, and a rail beside them holds everyone the rules could not place. Move a card by dragging it, by picking it up with the keyboard, or with Move to… on the card. All three do the same thing.

If a drop takes a section past its limit, the card still lands and Scoutworks tells you.

On a phone the plan becomes a card list, and the board becomes a tap-to-move sheet.

One young person's plan#

Click any row to open their sheet. It has four panes.

Typed fields — the destination, the date, the reason — save together with the Save button. Decisions such as pinning, agreeing and sending an offer act straight away.

Notes work slightly differently for the two kinds of row. A member gets an ongoing, dated note trail, and a note you add here also appears on their own member record. A waiting-list applicant has a single notes box you edit in place.

Section numbers over time#

The chart at the top of the Plan tab shows where each section is heading once your agreed moves have run. Agree a move and the line changes. It forecasts your plan, not just everybody's ages.

Everywhere the planner counts a section — the chart, the capacity figures above the table, the destination picker — it counts young people only. A young leader helping in a section does not use up one of its places.

A section with no capacity limit set is not drawn on the chart. There is nothing to measure it against, and showing it as full would be wrong — more than half of all sections have no limit set. Those sections are listed below the chart instead, with their headcount now, their forecast headcount at the end of the horizon, and the change between the two.

Before you plan#

Scoutworks also tells you what it could not do. A panel called Before you plan appears above the table whenever there is something to say. When everything is fine, it does not appear at all.

It lists, worst first:

Every warning names the young people involved, not just a count. These warnings always cover the whole group, whatever your section filter says — you need to know a child has nowhere to go even when it is not your section.

Nowhere to go and not ready yet are the pair worth understanding. Time fixes the second on its own — a birthday arrives, or the start date the family asked for comes round. Time never fixes the first. A missing Explorers section is still missing next year, so everybody blocked by it sits together, whether they are already in your group or still on the waiting list.

Who can use it#

Group admins and leaders both open the Transition Planner. Neither is sent to a different page.

Group admins can change any row in the group.

Leaders see every row in the group. They can change a row when one of their own sections is either the section the young person leaves or the section they join. That is deliberate. A leader moving a child up has to see the section receiving them, and the leader on the receiving side has to see who is coming.

Where a leader cannot act, the row still shows in full — the checkbox and the controls are simply switched off, and the reason names the sections involved. For example: "Beavers is not one of your sections, so only an admin can change this move."

You are never told only that you lack permission. You are told who to ask.

The moving-on period#

Moving up is a big step. The moving-on period gives a young person a gentle handover — they join their new section while staying in the old one for a few weeks, then move across fully.

It is switched on by default, with a three-week period. Change the length or turn it off in the planner's Settings tab → Moving-On Period.

During the period the young person appears in both sections and counts towards both. You can take attendance in either.

The period starts on the movement date. When it runs out, Scoutworks finishes the move on its own — they leave their old section, and it goes into their history.

If somebody settles in quickly, you do not have to wait. The Moving on panel on the Plan tab lists everyone part-way through, with how long each has left. Click Finish now to complete a move there and then.

The other tabs#

Roster shows how each section will look once your agreed moves have run, with names. The chart on the Plan tab tells you whether Cubs will overflow; this tells you who is in Cubs when it does. Each young person is marked Staying, Joining, Moving up, or Needs placement.

History is the full record of what has happened — every move run, every offer sent and answered, every date changed, every row pinned or added by hand. Filter it by the kind of action, or search for a name.

Reports holds the Projected section roster. Download it as an Excel workbook with a sheet per section, or as a PDF ready to print for a leaders' meeting.

Settings#

The Settings tab holds four cards.

What parents see#

When a child moves between sections, parents do not approve or decline — that decision is yours. They receive a warm welcome email by default: confirmation of the move, the first meeting of the new section, an introduction to the leaders, and a link into their portal. Turn that email off for a whole batch with the I have already told these families switch on the confirmation. See Letting parents know when a member moves sections.

When you send a place offer, the family does get a say. They receive an email with the section, the movement date, the meeting time and the leaders, and a deadline to accept or decline.

When a waiting-list family is enrolled, the parent receives an email with a Complete member info button so they can fill in their child's profile — emergency contacts, medical information and consent forms. If the child is a returning member, their original record is reactivated, so their badges and history come back with them.

What's next#

• How Recommended Places Are Calculated — how Scoutworks decides where to place each child.
• Letting parents know when a member moves sections — the welcome email, and how to turn it off.
• Processing Waiting List Applications — offering places straight from the waiting list.
• Managing Sections — set up the sections young people move between.