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Service Unit Resources

Thank you for taking on a volunteer leadership role at the service unit level. Your contribution ultimately makes a big difference in the lives of other Girl Scouts. We know that you may need certain resources in order to get the job done.  You can do it, and we are here to help!

We've launched a virtual file drawer of documents, guides, and information that will assist you as a Service Unit leader! We're starting small, but this section will be constantly updated as new and relevant materials are available. Have ideas about what should be included here? Please let us know!

 

  Archived Issues of The GSCTX Insider
2020 Issues
2019 Issues
2018 Issues
2017 Issues
2016 Issues

 

  Criminal Background Checks (CBCs)

With Volunteer Systems, many aspects of our Criminal Background Check (CBC) process have changed. An extensive Criminal Background FAQ document is now available to explain the process. In conjunction with this document, we have also published a “CBC Quick Start” guide, which gives instructions on how to get a CBC completed – whether someone is a volunteer, an adult member without a volunteer role, or not a member at all. Questions? Please reach out to Customer Care.

  Membership Registration Resources
Fall Recruitment Table Assets

Use these materials and resources at fall recruitment tables! 

Printable Materials

  • Girl Flyer (English and Spanish)
  • Volunteer Flyer 
  • Interest cards 
  • Sign In Sheet 
  • Table top Banner
  • Fillable Stickers (Black & White and Color) 
    Use these fillable stickers to print customized member recruitment event information on Avery address lables, 1” x2  5.8”, 30 labels/sheet (#5160). To add your custom copy, download the template, open the with Adobe Acrobat Reader (free software), and type into the “live” area of the sticker. Content can be copy and pasted from label to label within the template.

Digital Materials

Communicating G.I.R.L. and the Value of Girl Scouts
Step-by-Step Online Renewal Instructions
2020 Paper Membership Registration Forms

Online registration is always preferred. However, for members where internet access is limited or for Spanish-speaking households, paper forms are available:

  2019-20
Membership Registration Summary		 2019-20
Girl Registration		 2019-20
Adult Registration
English printable pdf
Spanish printable pdf
 

 

  Service Unit Position Descriptions
Service Unit Director

Purpose of Position: To develop, promote, manage, and maintain Girl Scouting in a designated geographical area called a Service Unit.

Click here for the complete position description.

Service Unit Registrar

Purpose of Position: To ensure that girls and adults have opportunities to participate in the Girl Scout Leadership Experience by coordinating recruitment events, organizing troops and assisting with making sure that girls are placed in troops with the SU jurisdiction.

Click here for the complete position description.

Service Unit Treasurer

Purpose of Position: Maintain accurate financial records of the Service Unit and oversee compliance of GSCTX financial procedures of Troops within the Service Unit.

Click here for the complete position description.

Service Unit Event Director

Purpose of Position: Manage Service Unit Event Coordinators and/or lead committees in organizing the events to help girls develop to their fullest potential and become competent, resourceful women.

Click here for the complete position description.

Service Unit Fall Product Manager

Purpose of Position: To ensure the opportunity for individual growth and enrichment of girls throgh participation in Fall Product Sales and to support Troop Fall Product Coordinators in carrying out the duties of their positions.

Click here for the complete position description.

Service Unit Cookie Manager

Purpose of Position: To support and communicate important program information to the Troop Cookie Coordinators, distribute product from our shipping agent to the troops, and to contract for Cookie Booths if no Booth Manager exists in your Service Unit.

Click here for the complete position description.

Service Unit Cookie Booth Manager

Purpose of Position: To ensure equitable distribution of booths to all Girl Scouts and Girl Scout Troops during the Annual Cookie Program.

Click here for the complete position description.

Service Unit Troop/School Organizer

Purpose of Position: To coordinate recruitment events, organize troops and place girls within the Service Unit area.

Click here for the complete position description.

Service Unit Troop Coach

Purpose of Position: To provide ongoing program assistance and support to Troop Leaders in the Service Unit to ensure programs of the highest quality.

Click here for the complete position description.

Service Unit Event Coordinator

Purpose of Position: Coordinate Service Unit program events and/or lead committees in organizing events to help girls develop to their fullest potential and become competent, resourceful women.

Click here for the complete position description.

Service Unit Friends of Girl Scouting Coordinator

Purpose of Position: Work with Service Unit Girl Scouts Troop Leaders and Troop FOGS Coordinators to ensure that FOGS (Friends of Girl Scouting) goals and activities are carried out and achieved according to Girl Scouts program, policies, and standards.

Click here for the complete position description.

Service Unit Scout House Manager

Purpose of Position: To assist Girl Scouts of Central Texas in the maintenance of the Girl Scout House that is located in the Service Unit area.

Click here for the complete position description.

Service Unit Recognitions Coordinator

Purpose of Position: To coordinate and provide guidance to the Service Unit when nominating volunteers for Service Unit, GSCTX and GSUSA Awards

Click here for the complete position description.

Other Service Unit Team Member Positions

Here are position descriptions for several other positions commonly held in Service Units. These positions will fall under the "Service Unit Team Member" volunteer job role in Volunteer Systems:

 

  Service Unit Reports

Service Unit leaders, especially Service Unit Directors (SUDs) and Service Unit Registrars (SURs) receive reports periodically to assist in the management of the service unit. 

Service Unit Roster Report

Who sends this report? The report is no longer sent - starting October 2018, every volunteer holding the volunteer campaign role of SUD, SUR, and SUT in Volunteer Systems will be able to access the roster report through "Looker," GSUSA's data center, with their own username and password.

Who receives this report? At this time, only the roles of SUD, SUR, and SUT will have access the rosters. We will not be extending access to other Service Unit volunteer roles, as adding access to another volunteer role (e.g. Service Unit Team member) would mean doing this for all service units, not just the one requesting it.

Why the change to Looker?

  • Looker is a "mobile native" application, which means that it will easily work from any tablet or mobile device - the previous Service Unit Roster was only best viewed using a computer
  • Because Looker is a web-based application, users can be on Macs or PCs, and don't have to have Microsoft Excel in order to view their rosters - the previous Service Unit Roster was only best viewed PC running Microsoft Excel
  • Looker employs much more data visualization, enabling users to "see" the data in tables and graphs - the previous Service Unit Roster report was a basic spreadsheet
  • Data is moved from Volunteer Systems each night into Looker, so reports contain the latest information - the previous Service Unit Roster reports were emailed by GSUSA every two weeks, so data was never up-to-date for our volunteers
  • Looker reports won't be emailed, they are accessible at any time simply by logging in - the previous Service Unit Roster was problematic as an email, as some volunteers never received reports, due to their provider blocking them. In addition, emails were encrypted, and many volunteers had issues with the passwords needed to open them
  • Access to the Looker reports is automatically granted simply by being listed as a SUD, SUR, or SUT in volunteer systems. With the previous Service Unit Roster, requesting access to the report was usually a manual process of sending a note to GSCTX staff/Customer Care to "get on the list"
  • Removing access to the Looker reports will also be an automatic process: when someone steps down from their role as SUD, SUR, or SUT - with the previous Service Unit Roster Report, this was a manual process of sending a note to someone at council.
Unsure Report

Who sends this report? GSCTX via Volunteer Systems/Salesforce

Who receives this report? By default, all identified SUDs and SURs; other Service Team leaders may receive the report, by request

When does the report get delivered by email? Every two weeks, on Mondays

Report information: This report lists all girls and adults that have registered but were unable to choose a troop, and may still need assistance with placement. This report uses zip codes to determine which service unit report receives which unsure members. Service Units should use the information to reach out to these new members and assist with placement into a troop home.

Note: If there is no attachment to the report email, then this means you do not have any unsure members that week. Also - any responses to these reports should be sent by a SUD or SUR to the Customer Care email (so an attachment can be sent) with "Unsure Report" in the subject line. The Customer Care team will be happy to transfer anyone who has a placement into their new troop home.

Girl Opportunity Catalog Report

Who sends this report? GSCTX via Volunteer Systems/Salesforce

Who receives this report? By default, all identified SUDs and SURs; other Service Team leaders may receive the report, by request

When does the report get delivered by email? Quarterly (approximately Jan 1, Apr 1, Jul 1, Oct 1)

Report information: This report displays each troop in the Service Unit, the meeting information (location, frequency, meeting days, etc.), what grades/program grade levels are served in the troop. More importantly, the report indicates whether the troop is displayed in the catalog, how many troop leaders are assigned to the troop, how many girls are in the troop and how many available spots are in the troop.

Service Units should utilize this information to determine if they have enough openings for girls to register into in their service unit and work with their Membership Development Executive to make adjustments.

Ineligible CBC Report

Who sends this report? GSCTX via Volunteer Systems/Salesforce

Who receives this report? By default, all identified SUDs

When does the report get delivered by email? Quarterly (approximately Jan 16, Apr 16, Jul 16, Oct 16)

Report information: Every Service Unit Director is notified when a restriction is placed on an individual in a service unit, based on findings from a criminal background check report.

However, as leadership changes over time in a service unit, it's a good idea to resend this information periodically.

When viewing the report, please note that the date listed on the end of the restriction is the “expiration” date. This does not mean after this date an individual is automatically eligible. An individual may submit to run another background check after the expiration date. If no new issues are found on his or her record, only then will they be “cleared”. Many dates you see have long expired. This means that these people are most likely no longer associated with GSCTX and therefore a second background check was never performed. GSCTX keeps the restriction information on file should they ever return and wish to participate as a volunteer in Girl Scouts again.

Finally, keep in mind that the service unit associated with each of these records is the “last known” service unit association. Again, in many cases, these individuals may not be in Girl Scouts, may have moved, etc.

Training Records Report

Who sends this report? GSCTX via Personify/eBiz

Who receives this report? By default, all identified SUDs; other Service Team leaders may receive the report, by request

When does the report get delivered by email? Every two months, on or about the 16th of the month

Report information: Training records continue to live in Personify/eBiz until GSUSA has a solution in Volunteer Systems to house training records. Reporting on these records is challenging because troops no longer belong to the correct service units in Personify. This is not important for using eBiz to register for programs and training events, but makes it difficult to send reports to each service unit as was done in the past. The solution is for us to send all training records for members to all SUDs. Records will consist of the adult’s name, their zip code, the training they have taken, and the date the training happened. This report will bridge the gap until a more permanent and efficient solution is presented by GSUSA.

Awards Report

Who sends this report? GSCTX via Personify/eBiz

Who receives this report? By default, all identified SUDs; other Service Team leaders may receive the report, by request

When does the report get delivered by email? Quarterly (Dec 14, Mar 14, Jun 14, Sep 14)

Report information: Awards records continue to live in Personify/eBiz until GSUSA has a permanent solution in Volunteer Systems to house awards records. Reporting on these records is challenging because troops no longer belong to the correct service units in Personify. This is not important for using eBiz to register for programs and training events, but makes it difficult to send reports to each service unit as was done in the past. The solution is for us to send all awards records for members to all SUDs. Records will consist of the recipient's name, their zip code, the award, and the date of the award. This report will bridge the gap until a more permanent and efficient solution is presented by GSUSA.

Issues with Opening Reports

Service Unit Roster Report

  • In order to be able to login to Looker to view the Service Unit Roster, you must be listed as a SUD, SUR, or SUT in Volunteer Systems. If you require assistance, please contact Customer Care.

Unsure, Ineligible CBC, or Girl Opportunity Catalog Reports

  • When opening certain reports such as the Unsure or Ineligible CBC report, you may get a warning that the file and extension don’t match and the file may be corrupt. This is a Salesforce reporting glitch, and since this report is coming from a trusted source, simply click “Yes” to view the file.

  • If you are having issue with Microsoft Excel opening the report, do the following:
    1. Download the file to your computer by selecting Save As from drop down of the attached file.

    2. Right click the downloaded file and select Properties.

    3. Click Unblock next to the “This file came from another computer and might be blocked to help protect this computer." warning.

    4. After doing this, the file can be opened (you may still get the warning about the file extension and formatting not matching – click “Yes”).

  • For those on a Macintosh, it doesn’t seem that the automated reports can be opened using the native Numbers software. With the exception of the SU Roster report, we can send a .csv file instead and this seems to fix the problem. Please contact Customer Care for assistance.

Training or Awards Reports:

  • If you use Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft is sometimes flagging these reports with the following warning: [This sender failed our fraud detection checks and may not be who they appear to be. Learn about spoofing at http://aka.ms/LearnAboutSpoofing]. You can ignore this warning. The warning occurs because the report is being sent by a GSUSA server but we have the "return" email address as customercare@gsctx.org. Microsoft wants the server to match the return address. In this case, we want people to contact GSCTX, not GSUSA if they are having a problem with a report.
How to Sort Data in Reports

We have had several questions on how to sort the reports being generated by Volunteer Systems (such as the Unsure or Ineligible reports), as trying to do a simple sort gives an error. The good news is that the reports can be sorted, but it takes a couple extra steps. Here are the steps using Microsoft Excel:

1. Click in the little rectangle to the left of A and above 1 in the upper left corner of the worksheet. This will select all cells. Then right-click on your mouse and go to Format-Cells> Alignment. The 'merge cells' box may be filled in. Click it once and a checkmark will appear. Click it again to make the checkmark disappear. Click OK.

Screenshot showing how to unmerge an entire document

2. Again, click on the rectangle to highlight the whole worksheet, or alternatively, type Ctrl-A. Click on 'Sort and Filter' and then click on 'Custom Sort' from the dropdown box.

Example report showing how to custom sort

3. Click the "My Data has headers" checkbox. Add levels in the order you want to sort your data.

Example spreadsheet showing how to custom sort

4. You should now see everything sorted -- and you can play around with the sorting per your preferences.