Youth phone numbers are entered by parents and not displayed.
Chat groups must have 2 adults before youth can be added.
If the adult count falls below 2 for any group, youth members can no longer post new messages or read messages.
It is important that the adult group members acually monitor the messages. The Group page Audit Report lists the last time each adult reviewed messages for the group.
Chatmasters can delete inappropriate messages and members can be placed on moderation.
There is a profanity filter to block the most obvious profanity but it will not catch everything; adults should monitor messages.
Members
Family relationships are maintained with the members; children can be added to parents, or parents added to children.
Only parents can enter phone numbers for their children; youth phone numbers are dispayed as "On File"; adult phone numbers are not visible to youth.
The Read-only flag prevents the member from posting anywhere, even if they are a member of a group.
The Chatmaster flag gives adminstrative rights to maintain events, groups, and members.
The On Moderation flag sends posted messages to the Moderators group before posting; not intended for common usage.
The Copy In Parents flag causes parents to be added in Read-only mode to groups the child is in; removing the youth from a group does not undo the parent membership in the group.
Groups
Unit Group: Every member is automatically added.
Moderators: Every member added with the Chatmaster flag is automatically added.
Event Groups: Can be created with the event or later from the Group page, RSVP Yes adds members to the event group, youth members only if there are 2 adults
Patrol Groups: Can be created for each patrol. 2 adults are required, usually added as Read-only members.
Other Groups: A Committee, Scoutmasters, or combined Leaders group might be useful.
Message Deletion
Chatmasters can douple-tap a message to get the delete popup, on confirmation the message is deleted.
By the time a Chatmaster sees the message, it may already be out on devices and saved by users via screenshot or other methods.
ScoutChat sends purge requests out to the devices but there is no guarantee that the purge process will be successful.
The Chatmasters can keep an eye on things by choosing different times of day to cover; the night-owl just before bed, the early riser first thing, a retired person mid-day, and another at dinnertime.
Moderation
If a member is placed on moderation, their posts go to the Moderators group. If approved, they are forwarded to the target group.
Moderators can Approve a message, or Block it. A blocked message can be retained for documentation, Unblocked, or Deleted.
Approved messages are sent to the posted group with the orignal time-stamp.
Moderation is a very heavy control method. Members are told they are on moderation the first time they post, and there is obvious delay.
Chat Technology
When a user posts a new message it appears the message is copied to the viewing window, but that is not what happens.
A posted message is sent to the cloud server and stored on the database, then the server broadcasts message to currently connected users.
The messages missed while disconnected can be pulled from the server when a member reconnects.
Messages are time-stamped in UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) when they arrive on the server; time-stamps are converted and shown in local time.
Events
Events can be defined for meetings, outings, service projects, etc. Members can RSVP Yes, No, or Maybe.
Shifts can be defined for events that need them, and members can take available shifts.
Things to bring (equipment or food) can be defined if needed, and members can commit to bring an item.
Adult family members can RSVP for other members of their family.
Notifications
The frequency of notifications can be changed on the Settings tab.
Notifications are sent for chat activity and for event reminders. They can also be sent to the entire unit or individual adults by Chatmasters.
Windows Access
ScoutChat will soon be available as a Windows computer app.
Members must get ScoutChat on their phone before using the Windows computer app.
Members must set their Windows computer app password on the Settings tab of the ScoutChat phone app.
The ScoutChat Windows computer app will prompt for the password.
Members are notified when their account is accessed from Windows.