Keeping a section out of the waiting list and capacity planning

Most of your sections are ones you're actively recruiting into. When a family joins the waiting list, you want that section to be one of the choices, and you want it counted when you plan how many places you'll have next term. But some sections aren't like that. The clearest example is a Young Leader section: the young people in it have moved up through your group, not joined from a waiting list, and you're not recruiting into it. Left as-is, a section like this turns up on your public waiting-list form and pads out your capacity forecasts with numbers that don't mean anything.

Scoutworks lets you switch a single section off for the waiting list, for the Transition Planner, or for both — while leaving it completely untouched everywhere else. The section still appears in your Members area and Teams area exactly as before.

Where to find this#

The settings live on each individual section. Go to Settings → Group & Sections and open Section Management, then click the section you want to change to open its edit panel. Under Schedule & Capacity you'll find two switches, just below Maximum Capacity.

Two switches, not one#

They look alike and they sit together, but they control different things. Turning one off does not turn the other off.

Every section has both switched on by default, so nothing changes for your existing sections unless you choose otherwise.

Include in waiting list#

Switch this off and the section is left out of:

The section is still in the Transition Planner. Young people still age out of it and are still moved up into it, and it still counts towards your forecasts — because they are still real young people in a real section.

Include in capacity planning#

Switch this off and the section stops being somewhere young people can be sent. It disappears from the Transition Planner's suggestions, from the projected roster and from the capacity chart, and nobody is ever suggested into it.

The young people already in it are a different matter. They are still read, they still age out on schedule, and they are still suggested onwards into whichever section comes next — so switching a section off does not quietly park the young people inside it.

Everything else carries on as normal either way. The section, its members, its leaders, its events, and its badges are all untouched. It still shows in your Members area and your Teams area exactly as it did before.

A common example: Young Leader sections#

This is what most groups reach for after setting up a Young Leader section. If your Explorers are run at district level and you've created a section in your group just to house the Young Leaders who help at your meetings, that section isn't one you recruit into — so it doesn't belong on your waiting-list form or in your capacity numbers. Switch both off.

Your leaders can still open those young people's records to check medical details and emergency contacts on the night, while your waiting list and forecasts stay focused on the sections you're growing.

Groups sometimes want only one of the two. A section that is full and closed to new applications, but whose young people still move up next year, wants Include in waiting list off and Include in capacity planning left on.

What's next#

• Managing Sections — creating and editing sections, and the other settings on each one.
• Setting Up Explorer Sections — creating Explorer and Young Leader sections, including a shared section to house young leaders.
• Waiting List Configuration — setting up how your waiting list works.
• Planning Section Moves with the Transition Planner — what the capacity-planning switch changes.