A new website theme has been added to change the look-and-feel of your website. This includes:

• Optional animation
• Menu sub-names (like scouts.org.uk)
• Updated 2019 home page event/news/photo styling
• Sectional home page layouts
• New "What We Do" and "Moving Up" pages for each section
• Document and External link icons on links lists

You can update your website's theme from Global Settings or Group Details. If you have a group package 1 website, we'll update your website theme for you in the next week.

You may now change the layout of the footer bar at the bottom of all the pages on your website.

There are six Footer Layout templates to pick from. These can be selected in Global Settings/Group Details.

Once changed, you can amend the text/HTML in the footer bar.

To compliment the 2021 theme, new Links List control styles have been added, to reflect The Scout's branding.

You can see these on the updated sectional home pages, and use them on your own pages too.

A social media link button has been added to the right-hand side of the breadcrumb bar, just below the menu bar.

When clicked, the website visitor can share the page link on facebook, twitter, etc.

If you've added your own social media accounts and/or other website links, in Global Settings/Group Details, links to these will also be shown.

As we moved to Amber level, the Coronavirus message was removed from the default home page text.

If your website has a personalised message, you may want to update or remove it locally.

If you'd like to upload a high-resolution image to show on your home page, ticking the HiRes field in File Management will optimise the image quality for Image Banners.

To make it easier to assign images and documents to Image Banner and Links List controls a File Selector button has been added.

We've re-designed the way you create your own pages to make it quicker, easier and more flexible.

Your pages will be optimised for mobile, tablet, laptop and desktop devices, and include up-to-date Scout branded page controls.

Click on the image above to watch this tutorial video and see how it will work for you.

The Page Management admin page has been re-designed. You can now:

• Change main menu titles and disable menus.
• Change the display order of drop-down menu lines.
• Add sub-titles for each drop-down menu line.
• Show private pages on menus, but ask users to login before the page will open. Just tick the Show If Private field.

Site Admin users will also see a new [+ New Page] button at the bottom of every menu to speed up page creation.

More blank pages have been added to the members menu and each sectional sub-menu, so you can create as many pages as you'd like.

If you've created events or news articles without attaching a header image, the various event/news lists now show a suitable Scout branded image based on the scope of the event or article. Cub events will show a Cub image, adult training will show a Wood Badge image, etc.

Wherever you see a table control, you can now change the style to display an expandable list. E.g. On the District/County Adult Vacancies page.

You can also add an "Expandable List" control in the Page Designer.

To help you stay up-to-date and on-brand, more Scout branded images have been added to the inventory, for you to add to your events, news articles and pages.

In March, The Scouts closed down the member website and replaced those pages with refreshed pages on the main www.scouts.org.uk website.

As you may know, your website contains links to Scout website pages for resources and information.

To help you keep your website up to date, we identified all members.scouts.org.uk links, across all Scouts Online websites, and updated the vast majority of these links for you, to point to new www.scouts.org.uk pages.

Where it wasn't possible to change a link for you, we contacted you individually for manual updating.

When the 2019 home page design is paired with the 2021 branding, a postcode field is displayed.

When a postcode is entered and the Go button clicked, the groups page will open, showing the nearest 10 groups on the map and in the groups list, sorted by distance.

If a website visitor selects a Group or Unit in a Youth Application form, they can now only select the sections that the group/unit has.

Also, if a role (E.g. Beaver Scout) is selected, only groups with that section are shown.

This prevents Explorer Units from receiving application forms for Beaver Scouts.

If any of your groups has the OSM Parent Portal Features add-on for their Waiting List section, they will have a waiting list join form link URL for prospective members to use to apply.

If you add that website link address to the "Join Us Form URL" field in the group's, "Group" section, a [Join Us] button will appear in their Group Details page.

The Youth Application page and sectional Join Us pages will also show a direct link to the group's OSM waiting list form page, above the standard application form.

Two "Picture Card" team list styles have been added to the Meet The Team and other team lists.

To try them out, just edit a Team List control and select one of the new styles.

We've also added the ability to change the settings for the Team List on the Adult Resources page.

To aid adult recruitment, a Volunteer text panel has been added to the bottom of the Groups page.

You may personalise this whole panel to your own requirements.

I'm continuing to create more YouTube videos to help you get the most out of your Scouts Online website.

You can find a full list of the videos HERE or a targeted set of videos for Districts, Counties, Areas and Regions HERE.

OSM have changed the way that Online Scout Manager authorises your Scouts Online website to share data has changed.

The legacy method will be discontinued in July 2021, so if you've not already done it, you will need to re-authorise your OSM Integration.

Please have a look at the video above to see how to authorise your website and keep up to date with newer integration points.

I'm continuing to create more YouTube videos to help you get the most out of your Scouts Online website.

You can find a full list of the videos HERE or a targeted set of videos for Scout Groups HERE.