Managing Parents and Guardians

Adding parents to a member#

Open a member's profile and click the Parents tab. To add a parent or guardian:

1. Click Add New Parent.
2. Fill in the dialog:
   • Email address — this becomes their login email
   • First name and Last name
   • Relationship — Mother, Father, Guardian, Parent, or Other
3. Save.

A member can have multiple parents linked. Each parent gets their own portal access and sees the member's details, events, badge progress, and payments.

Linking to a parent who already has a Scoutworks account#

As you type the email, Scoutworks checks whether it matches an account that already exists. What happens next depends on whether that parent is already in your group.

Already a parent in your group — for example, you're adding the sibling of an existing member. A blue banner shows the matching parent. Click Use this info to auto-fill the name and phone, then save as normal. No extra confirmation needed because you can already see this parent's other child in your group.

Already a parent in a different Scout group — for example, a family has children in two groups and one parent runs both. An amber banner appears explaining that the email belongs to an existing Scoutworks account. Click Link existing account… to open a confirmation dialog.

The confirmation dialog tells you:

• The parent's name and email
• That linking will give them access to this child's record, including medical info and consents
• How many other Scout groups and children the parent is already linked to — as numbers only, never names

You need to tick I have permission to link their account before the Link to existing account button enables. Linking notifies the parent by email and adds your child to their existing portal.

Editing parent details#

Click the edit button next to any linked parent to update their name, phone, or relationship. Whether you can change their email depends on whether they have an account yet.

For parents with an account, you'll see the email field greyed out with a small note: "Only the account owner can change this email — ask the parent to update it from their Profile page." This protects parents from having their sign-in details changed without their say-so. If a parent has lost access to their old email and password, ask them to contact you and reset the account from scratch.

For parents with No account yet, the email field is editable. Adding an email here invites the parent to set up an account — see the account states section below.

Inviting parents to the portal#

Linking a parent is not the same as inviting them. To give parents access to the portal:

• Individual: Use the member row kebab menu → Invite Parents.
• Bulk: Select multiple members on the Members page → click Invite Parents in the bulk actions bar.

Invited parents receive an email with a link to create their account. Once they set a password, they can log in and see their child's profile, events, badges, and payment requests.

How to tell if a parent has an account#

When you open a parent's profile from a member's record, a small badge in the dialog header tells you where they are in the sign-up journey:

You see the same coarse state in the Parents tab on the Members page — see the full invitation-status table below for the more detailed breakdown.

The Parents tab on the Members page#

The Members page has a page-level Parents tab that lists every parent linked to a member in your group. It's the quickest way to see who has access, who is still pending, and who hasn't been invited yet.

From this tab you can:

• See every parent's name, email, phone, linked children, and current invitation status.
• Filter and search to find one parent or all parents in a specific section.
• Use Member Actions → Message All Parents to email every parent in the group.
• Select multiple parents and use the bulk actions bar at the bottom of the page.

Parent invitation statuses#

Each row on the Parents tab shows a status so you can tell at a glance where a parent is in the sign-up process:

Re-inviting a parent who hasn't accepted#

Parents sometimes miss the original invitation email — it lands in spam, gets buried, or they mean to come back to it and forget. You can resend the invitation without having to recreate anything.

On the Parents tab, click the three-dot menu on the parent's row. What you see depends on their status:

• Not invited → click Send Invitation to send them their first invitation.
• Pending → click Resend Invitation to send the email again.
• No email → click Add Email first to add a valid email address, then you'll be able to send the invitation.

You'll see a "Invitation sent" confirmation and the status will stay or move to Pending until the parent sets their password.

The invitation email contains a link that takes the parent to a page where they create their password. Once they do, their status changes to Active and they can sign in to the parent portal.

Re-inviting several parents at once#

If a batch of parents are still Pending or Not invited — for example after a big import at the start of term — you don't need to click through each one:

1. Tick the checkboxes next to the parents you want to re-invite.
2. The bulk actions bar appears at the bottom of the page.
3. Click Send Invitations (N) — the number shows how many of the selected parents can actually be invited (parents without an email are skipped automatically).
4. Confirm the list in the dialog and click send.

You'll get one confirmation at the end: either "N invitations sent" or a breakdown of any that failed so you can follow up.

Completing missing information#

If you have added members but are missing parent details, medical information, or consent forms, you can send parents a link to complete the information themselves:

• The CompleteMemberInfoPage link takes parents to a form where they fill in any missing fields for their child.
• Send this link via the Message Parents action.

This saves leaders from chasing paperwork and ensures the data comes directly from the parent.

What's next#

• Editing Member Information — update member details directly.
• Getting Started as a Parent — what parents see when they first log in.
• Managing Your Profile — how the account owner changes their own email or password.