Your troop has made you an account. Nobody is going to walk you through it, so here is the short version: seven things, in the order that saves you the most trouble later. Do the first two even if you do nothing else.
Every troop has its own address, something like troopplanner.com/troop/troop-162-va/. Find yours, then bookmark it. That is your front door from now on.
No password? You do not need one. Ask for a link by email and it signs you straight in.
This is the one that matters. Tap your name in the top bar and read the Contact Information box.
If that address is wrong or out of date, nothing reaches you: no event reminders, no password resets, no login links. Almost every "the troop never tells me anything" turns out to be a typo here.
While you are on that page, check the emergency contacts and any allergies too. A leader reaches for those on a campout, at the worst possible moment.
Two minutes, and you never type a password again. Your face or your fingerprint signs you in instead.
It matters more than it sounds. The people who stop using TroopPlanner mostly stop because signing in was annoying on a phone.
Copy the calendar address from your page and add it to whatever calendar you already live in. Troop events then appear next to work and everything else, and new ones turn up on their own.
Do this and you will stop being surprised by campouts.
Find the next thing on the calendar and say whether you are coming. One tap. You can change it later.
Say no when the answer is no. Leaders plan food, tents and rides from these numbers, and a blank is worth much less to them than a no.
Parents get a link in the menu named after each of their children. Scouts get one called My Advancement. Open it once so you know where it is.
You do not need to understand all of it today. Knowing the page exists is enough.
There is a phone version built in, and adding it to your home screen takes one go through a menu. No app store, nothing to install.
This is where you will actually use TroopPlanner — in a parking lot, at a meeting, halfway up a hill.
A parent's account is tied to their children by a link on the roster. Almost everything a parent can do depends on that link existing.
People expect these and none of them is true.
| You might expect | Actually |
|---|---|
| Download an app | There is nothing in any app store. The phone version is the website, added to your home screen. |
| Type an invitation code | There is no code. Your troop created the account; you only prove the email address is yours. |
| Enter card or bank details | TroopPlanner never asks for them and cannot take a payment. Where money appears, it is a record of what the troop already holds. |
| Make an account for each child | Your Scouts have their own accounts, but you reach their information through yours. One sign-in covers the family. |
| Understand the whole thing | Most families use two screens: the calendar and their Scout's progress. The rest is there when you need it. |
Find your troop, sign in, and bookmark the page you land on.