Open the Transition Planner and a plan is already there. Scoutworks has read every young person's age, every section's limit and your whole waiting list, and worked out who should go where.
This article explains how it decided. Some of it you can see on the page. Most of it you cannot, and that is the part worth reading — especially if a place went to somebody you did not expect.
Every suggestion is a suggestion. Nothing moves until you agree it and press Move now.
One queue, in your order
Two kinds of young person compete for the same places:
- Moving up — somebody already in your group who is too old for their section by their movement date.
- Joining — somebody on your waiting list who is ready to start.
They do not go in separate rounds. Everybody who needs a place sits in one queue, sorted by the priority tiers you set in Settings → Priority Rules. The tier at the top of that list is served first, all the way down.
That order is yours. Drag Leader's Child above Ageing Out and a leader's child really does take the last Cub place ahead of a Beaver moving up.
The tiers, and what earns them
Every group gets the same six tiers. You choose the order and which ones are on; Scoutworks decides who qualifies for each.
| Tier | Who it can apply to | How it is earned |
|---|---|---|
| Leader's Child | Applicants | A parent on the application is recorded as a Leader, Volunteer or Commissioner |
| Ageing Out | Your own members, and applicants who are already in your group | Applied automatically. Nothing to set |
| Sibling | Applicants | A brother or sister is already a member of your group |
| Local | Applicants | Home address within your chosen radius — 5 km unless you change it |
| Helper Parent | Applicants | A parent helped at 3 or more events in the last 6 months. Off by default |
| Standard | Applicants | Everybody else. The floor — always considered last |
An applicant is checked against your enabled tiers in your order and gets the first one that fits. A leader's child who also lives locally is a Leader's Child, because that tier sits higher. Reorder the tiers and applicants are re-sorted accordingly.
Standard is a safety net. Even if you switch it off, an applicant who qualifies for nothing else still lands there rather than being dropped into a real tier.
The only tier your own members ever hold
This is the part that surprises people.
A young person already in your group carries exactly one tier: Ageing Out. It is applied automatically to everybody moving up a section. There is nothing to choose and no tier picker on a member record — which is why members in the plan do not show a tier of their own the way applicants do.
The other five tiers only ever apply to waiting-list applicants. A member cannot be a Sibling or a Leader's Child in the plan, even when they plainly are one in real life.
Why you cannot rename Ageing Out
Every other tier can be renamed to whatever suits your group. Ageing Out cannot — it carries a padlock and a Set by Scoutworks label instead of the rename pencil.
The reason is that this tier is applied silently, to every young person moving up, without a leader ever choosing it. If you renamed it "Our own children" or "September moves", it would still be the tier quietly applied to every member in the plan — and nobody looking at the settings screen would know that. The name stays fixed so that what you read is what is happening.
What you can change is the two things that matter: where it sits in the order, and whether it is on at all.
What moving it actually does
| Where you put Ageing Out | What happens |
|---|---|
| Top (the default) | Young people moving up take every contested place before any applicant is considered |
| Below another tier | An applicant in that higher tier takes the place first. The member still moves — their row is flagged Over capacity |
| Switched off | Members moving up rank below every tier you have set up. They still move; they simply stop winning the countable places |
A young person moving up always gets a row. They cannot stay where they are, so there is no version of this where they are left out. All the tier decides is who takes the places that count — and therefore who ends up flagged Over capacity, and who ends up waiting.
An applicant who loses out is different: they can wait, so they appear under Ready with no place instead.
Places you have already promised
Applicants you have already offered a place to, or who have already accepted one, are set aside before the queue is run at all — regardless of capacity and regardless of tier.
A place your group has promised a family is not Scoutworks' to take back. Those rows appear as Agreed rather than Suggested, and they count against the section from the start, so everybody else is ranked against what is genuinely left.
Breaking a tie
Two young people in the same tier are separated like this:
Moving up beats joining. At equal priority, somebody already in your group goes first. They have to move; an applicant can wait.
Between two members moving up:
- Anyone already past the age boundary, before anyone in the 30-day grace period
- Then oldest first
Between two applicants:
- Status — accepted, then received or contacted, then offered
- Then their position in the waiting list queue
- Then application date, earliest first
Where each young person is sent
Somebody moving up
They go to the next section up: Squirrels → Beavers → Cubs → Scouts → Explorers.
- One section in that age group? They go there.
- More than one? They go to the one with the most room. If two are level, the alphabetically first section wins, and the Why column says so.
- None at all? They appear under Young people with nowhere to go. No plan can fix this — the group has to start a section or agree a handover with a neighbouring group.
Somebody joining
They are matched to the age band they fall into on the movement date:
| Section | Age band |
|---|---|
| Squirrels | 4–6 |
| Beavers | 6–8 |
| Cubs | 8–10½ |
| Scouts | 10½–14 |
| Explorers | 14–18 |
If the family chose a preferred section when they applied, Scoutworks honours it when there is room. It is a preference, not a promise:
- Preferred section has room → they go there.
- Preferred section is full → the section in the same age band with the most room.
- Preference does not match their age → ignored, and the Why column says so.
- No preference → the section with the most room.
The 30-day grace period
Some young people do not quite age out by their movement date, but do within the month after it. They are still included, marked with a clock icon and a note saying how many days late they are — for example "ages out 12 days after the movement date".
That gives you the choice: move them with everybody else, or leave them to the next round. At 31 days they drop out entirely. The cut-off is exactly 30 calendar days.
Ages are worked out in years, months and days from the date of birth. A young person whose 8th birthday falls exactly on the movement date is ageing out. Cubs' upper limit of 10½ means 10 years and 6 months.
How the numbers are counted
Everyone leaving is counted first
Before a single place is handed out, every young person moving up is removed from their current section's count.
This is invisible on screen and it matters a lot. A Scout leaving for Explorers frees their Scout place immediately, so a Cub moving up can take it in the same plan — and the answer no longer depends on which section Scoutworks happened to look at first. Somebody moving up vacates their place whether or not their destination has room, so this is always safe to do.
Section limits
Set them in Transition Planner → Settings → Section Capacities.
| Limit | What it means |
|---|---|
| Empty | No limit. More than half of all sections are set this way, and it is a perfectly normal setting |
| A number | The most the section holds |
| 0 | Closed to new starters |
A section with no limit never blocks anybody, and never appears in the "why could she not get in" list — there is nothing to be full of.
When a section is full
| Situation | What happens |
|---|---|
| Somebody moving up needs a full section | They are placed anyway and flagged Over capacity. The overflow is counted once, not twice |
| An applicant's preferred section is full | Other sections in the same age band are tried. If all are full, they show under Ready with no place |
Scoutworks will not quietly overfill a section with new starters. It will tell you when a member moving up pushes a section past its limit, and leave the decision to you.
Applicants with no tier
An applicant with no tier is ranked last — below every tier you have configured. So is everybody moving up if you have switched Ageing Out off.
The planner tells you when this is happening, under … with no priority tier, and names them. Set a tier on the waiting list and they take their proper place next time the plan is worked out.
Setting a tier by hand
Scoutworks works out an applicant's tier for you, but you can overrule it. On the waiting list, use Change Priority on a single row, or select several and use Priority in the bulk actions bar. You can record a reason, and the override stands until you clear it — clearing it hands the applicant back to the automatic rules.
When somebody cannot be placed
The Before you plan panel above the table shows everything Scoutworks could not do. It names the young people every time, not just a count, and it always covers the whole group — you need to know a young person has nowhere to go even when it is not your section.
| What it says | What it means |
|---|---|
| … with nowhere to go | Your group runs no section in the age band these young people need. Both members and applicants appear here, because it is the same problem |
| … ready with no place | Every place in their age band went to somebody ranked higher. Open it to see each section, how full it is, and which one the family actually asked for |
| … families split up | Same surname, same age band, different sections. Usually siblings, and usually one drop-off and one pick-up |
| … possible duplicates | An applicant looks like somebody already in the plan, so they are left out while the duplicate stands |
| … not ready yet | Too young, or the family asked for a later start. Nothing to do — they come back into the plan on their own |
| … with no priority tier | They were ranked last. Set a tier on the waiting list to fix the order |
Nowhere to go and not ready yet are the pair worth understanding. Time fixes the second one 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 anyone blocked by it — member or applicant — sits in the same group with the same advice.
Working the plan out again
Click Refresh plan in the toolbar at any time. It is always there — you do not have to wait for Scoutworks to notice something has changed.
A refresh reads your sections, limits, members and waiting list as they stand now, and rewrites only the suggestions nobody has touched. Anything you have agreed, pinned, set aside, added by hand, re-dated or re-directed is left exactly as it is.
Suggestions go out of date when you change a member, a section, a section limit, a waiting-list application, or the plan itself. Most of the time Scoutworks rebuilds them quietly. It only stops and asks when a rebuild would disagree with a decision you made — then the Refresh plan button turns amber, and its tooltip reads These suggestions are out of date.
Common questions
"Why did a leader's child get the last place ahead of one of our own Cubs?"
Because Leader's Child sits above Ageing Out in your Priority Rules. That is the setting doing its job. Move Ageing Out back to the top if you would rather your own members always won.
"We promised the Smiths a place in Monday Cubs — but it's full."
A preferred section is honoured only when it has room. Either raise Monday Cubs' limit before refreshing, or change that one row's destination by hand. A row you set by hand is never overwritten.
"Jamie has additional needs and isn't ready to move up."
Set Jamie's row to Not moving. It stays that way through every refresh. There is no separate "hold back" flag, and Remove from the plan is not the right tool — a refresh may suggest the move again.
"We move everyone in September, not on individual birthdays."
Set a group-wide movement date in Transition Planner → Settings → Planning Defaults, and use Add to plan for anybody who should move with the cohort but is not quite old enough. Rows you add by hand survive every refresh.
"Two best friends' parents want them in the same section."
There is no "place together" rule. Place one where they land and move the other with Change section. If a split looks like siblings, the families split up warning catches it for you.
"Twins are both on the waiting list but only one place is left."
The higher-placed twin takes it and the other is offered an alternative section, or shows under Ready with no place. Either way the sibling warning flags the split.
"I set a section's limit to 0 — why are members still being moved into it?"
A limit of 0 closes the section to new starters. It cannot stop somebody who is too old for their current section from moving up — they have to go somewhere. They are placed and flagged Over capacity.
"50 on the waiting list and 3 Beaver places."
The top three by priority are placed. The other 47 appear under Ready with no place, each with their tier, their queue position, and the sections that turned them away — so you can see exactly who missed out without opening the waiting list.
The rules in short
- Suggestions, not actions. Nothing moves until you agree it and run it.
- One queue, in your order. Your Priority Rules rank everybody competing for a place, members and applicants alike.
- Ageing Out is the only tier your own members hold. It is applied automatically, and its name is fixed so that stays obvious.
- Somebody moving up always gets a row. Priority decides who takes the countable places, not who moves.
- Promised places are safe. Offered and accepted applicants are set aside before anything is ranked.
- Departures are counted first, so a place freed by one move can be filled by another in the same plan.
- A preferred section is a preference. Priority comes first.
- New starters never quietly overfill a section, but a member moving up will, and you are told.
- Nothing is hidden. Everyone who could not be placed is named, with the reason and the sections involved.
What's next
- Planning Section Moves with the Transition Planner — the day-to-day workflow.
- Waiting List Configuration — set the tier order and turn tiers on or off.
- Processing Waiting List Applications — triage, tiers and offers on the waiting list itself.
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What's next?
Related guidesPlanning Section Moves with the Transition Planner
How to plan who moves section and when, agree moves without anything happening yet, and see what each move does to your section numbers.
Read articleWaiting List Configuration
How to set the priority tiers that rank your waiting list and decide who gets a place, and how to share your waiting list form with families.
Read articleProcessing Waiting List Applications
How to triage applications, send offers, and convert accepted applicants into members.
Read articleSetting Up Your Waiting List
How to enable, configure, and share your group's public waiting list form.
Read article