Black Pug Tips

Black Pug is the online event & camp registration system Far East Council uses for managing Council and District events.  It offers 24x7 event registration and payment availability to all unit leaders.  Here are some tips for making better use of Black Pug.

First Things First - create a user account.

Create your Black Pug account by opening their event website in your favorite browser to https://scoutingevent.com/?OrgKey=BSA803&reservationFromEmail=true&myRoster and click on Register to create a new account.  You can also create a user account the first time you register for an event.  Anytime you register as a Guest, Black Pug will offer the choice of logging in with your existing account or creating a new account.

Why create a Black Pug account?

1. Since our Council uses Black Pug, your account will be tied to your unit's roster in Black Pug.  Be sure to use the name and addresses you put on your registration.

2. You can save a manually uploaded unit roster into your account if you choose.

3. Access to a unit roster allows you to register unit members simply by picking them from the roster, and Black Pug will automatically fill in the related member information, like their name.  Black Pug will then be able to verify Scout ranks and the ages of youth members attending the event.

4. Your account can be used to register at any event of any Council that uses Black Pug.  And your unit roster follows you.  Note:  Council staff do not have any access to your Black Pug account, only information about the event in which you've registered your unit.

5. When registering for multiple summer camps or weeks at the same summer camp, all registrations will be accessible from your Black Pug login.  This makes moving people between registrations simple.

6. You can list and access all your current and past registrations from your account without knowing the registration number.

7. You can access the Black Pug Forum to learn more about using the system.

Using your Black Pug Account

You can use your account to easily find events you've signed up for, create and maintain your personal roster, make changes to your registration for an event, and make payments on balances due.  You can also see details of events you've registered for and access the FEC calendar of events.

Be sure to keep your account profile up to date, including your address, phone number, unit type, and unit number.

Here is a YouTube video on My Account Basics.  Click here to access the My Account Login.

Unit Rosters - Automatic

Since our Council syncs with Black Pug, you can access your unit's roster when registering members of your unit.  This allows you to select the desired member to register instead of entering their information manually.  This allows Black Pug to verify a Scout's age or rank when registering for age/rank-restricted activities.  You will have access only if Black Pug can match your information in Black Pug to your information on the charter.

Unit Rosters - Manual

You can can also upload your own roster.  If your unit is small, you can manually add each member to your personal roster.  If your unit uses Scoutbook or Troopmaster, you can download your roster from them and upload them as your personal roster.  Once created, your personal roster will be available anytime you register for an event in Black Pug, regardless of the Council sponsoring the event.

After downloading your roster from Scoutbook or Troopmaster, open the csv file in Excel or another spreadsheet program.  Add a column named "Person Type".  For youth enter "Youth" and adults’ "Adult".  Be sure to save the changed file as a csv file.  Upload the updated file to Black Pug.  Note, Scoutbook provides two roster download files - one for Scouts and one for adults.  

Click here for a Personal Roster tutorial

Registering for Events

Events can be found in several ways.  From the FEC website https://www.fareastcouncil.org/ homepage, navigate to Calendar on the menu.  Select the event category you are interested in to see a list of events matching the selected category.  You can also go to https://scoutingevent.com/803 to see all events available.  Click on the desired event to access the event's full description, find contacts, and list of sessions available,  If not already logged in, Black Pug will offer the choice to register as Guest or to log into your account.

The first step is to enter the information for the person making the reservation.  Guests will have to enter all information, logged in users will have some information pre-filled in.  

Here are YouTube videos on starting a event registration and completing an event registration.  Some events will include classes to be enrolled in, such as Merit Badge classes at summer camp.  Here is a tutorial on selecting classes.

You can reopen your registration to add or change people and check your account balance.  If you have a Black Pug account, just login to access it under Activities.  If you've chosen to register as a Guest, go here to Lookup Registration. 

Black Pug Help

When working with your registration, Black Pug offers contextual help. Just look for the orange tab in the lower right of the page marked Support. There will be pertinent YouTube videos listed.

Parent Portal

Some events will have Parent Portal enabled. The person making the registration can use it to allow parents to make payments for their Scouts and to see event information on their Scouts. Parents may be allowed to sign up their Scouts, make payments for their Scouts, or sign their Scouts up for classes; the unit leader will determine what the parent may do in Black Pug.

For unit leaders view this YouTube: Unit Leader Guide
For parents, view this YouTube: Parent Guide

Reports Available

Each registration has its own list of available reports.  View your registration and click on the Reports tab to see and run the reports available for that event. Most events will include a roster of participants, account summary, and payment details.

Summer camp reports include Troop Roster of people attending camp, blue cards - multiple formats, class schedules, payment allocations, incomplete merit badges, and more.

Uploading Files

If you need to upload a file as part of your event registration, here are some tips.

The best file type in most cases is PDF.  Many computers now support Print to PDF as a printer option when printing from an application.  When you specify the file's name, please be sure to include your name and what the document is.

If you need to providing BSA training certificates from my.scouting.org.  Log into my.scouting.org and on the menu click on My Training.  Click on Completions to get a list of all BSA classes you've completed.  In the search box enter the training you want.  Click on the desired training and click on Certificate at the top of the page.  The certificate will open in a new window, click on Print, select PDF as the printer, and provide a good name such as name-ypt.pdf.  You are now ready to upload the certificate to Black Pug.

If you uploaded the wrong file, just click on Upload File again and upload the correct file.  Black Pug will replace any existing file with the latest one uploaded.