SOAR

SOAR Customers,

Some of your members may be seeing a Security Warning (SSL) when accessing your SOAR scouting website. We wanted to provide you details on why it is occurring and options for them to address it.

This message DOES NOT affect the security of your SOAR website. It is just a warning message. Your SOAR website is still secured with SSL certificates even though a member might be getting a warning. This does not affect email features of your website.

When you access a website, your browser encrypts the data being sent and returned using a protocol called SSL (Secure Sockets Layer). This is done to prevent eavesdropping on the information and stealing things like passwords and sensitive information.

In a recent update to Scoutbook they changed some of the fields in the Export format. For data privacy reasons they removed Gender, Middle Name, and Date of Birth fields from all Exports.

The DOB field disabled the SOAR Scoutbook Import feature because it is one of the primary fields used to verify matching upon import.

The good news is that Scoutbook added a new field to all Export formats - User ID. This is a unique identifier for each person in Scoutbook and will make matching members on future SOAR Scoutbook Imports much more exact.

We have updated the SOAR Scoutbook Import feature to work around the removal of Date of Birth and to add matching for User ID. The feature is now available again for customer use after a period of successful customer testing.

Adobe Flash technology is being discontinued. That technology powered a few of our Site Themes that provided custom fonts for use beyond standard web safe fonts.

We have upgrade those Site Themes to standard CSS fonts.

The one thing we couldn't do is a 1-1 matching on past font choices and new fonts.

If you are using one of the following Site Themes, you should go to Admin/Site Themes sections and select new choices for "SIFR" fonts for your site. They will default to a common font until then.

• Three Column Fixed SIFR
• Two Column Rounded SIFR
• Fun Logo (Packs only)
  

Scoutbook decided to remove a number of fields from their export formats without warning. See here for full details:
- https://discussions.scouting.org/t/february-24-2021-scoutbook-updates/225917

One of them was the DOB (date of birth) column which we used to confirm member matches on import. The lack of this column is the new Scoutbook export files is now preventing import from Scoutbook to SOAR.

We will be working to have an updated Scoutbook Import working by the end of the week without the DOB column.

Over the last few days, many Google services have experienced significant problems.

It seems that Gmail specifically is still having issues as of today.

Email sent through your Email Lists may be creating "bounce messages" back to you, with Gmail addresses that are actually valid.

You can read more details here.

There is nothing you, or SOAR, can do at this point. We simply need to wait until Google services are restored.

We just wanted to give you a heads up in case you start seeing these "bounce message" and that you may need to make alternate communication plans for anyone with a Gmail address for the next couple days.

A number of BSA PDF forms now have file sizes greater than 10MB.

To support customer use of these on their SOAR websites, we have increased the maximum file upload size to 15 MB per file. This is for the Files section of your website and for any attachments to content.

We still recommend using a "link" vs. "local copy" strategy for BSA forms. Putting a link in your website to BSA forms on the national website will ensure you are always using the latest version of forms as they update them. Putting a copy of BSA forms on your own SOAR website means you might not be using the latest and

Google has added a new "compromised password" feature into new releases of the Chrome Browser.

Based on this new feature you or your member that use the Chrome Browser may receive a "Check you password" warning on your SOAR website.

This DOES NOT mean your SOAR website has been hacked. What is DOES mean is the specific username/password combination used has been found in previously hacked websites.

The person that received that message should change the password for the username on your SOAR website, and probably all other locations where that same password is used.

We have update the "captcha" on the Contact Us form on your website.

This is used to prevent people form automating submissions to the Contact Us form and sending you spam.

The updates should reduce the amount of spam you have been receiving through this form.

We have added two new Rank options for Dens in SOAR myPack.

• Girls
• Combined

These will be helpful when you are using your SOAR website for both Boy and Girl Dens. When a Pack starts adding girl scouts to their Pack, they may need to have a combined Den at the beginning until they have enough girl scouts in each Rank to form separate Dens. You can use these two Ranks to help show this in the the Pack Roster.

We have worked with Optimum to resolve the issue with email being delayed to optonline.net email addresses.

You should not encounter any more delivery issues to these addresses.

SOAR Support