Digital Support

All Groups and Districts can register for a Zoom Pro licence through UKHQ - Click Here for information.

We have produced some quidance for the County Team when using the county licence, however, it may be useful to Groups and Districts using their licence. This guidance can be accessed here:

We have a dedicated Service Desk to support you with our digital service. Whether you need help with one of the tools or to request changes.

All you need to do is follow the link below and raise a new support ticket, someone will then get in touch to support you.

If you would like to be recognised to support use of technology tools in your Group, District or across the County, please raise a ticket on the Service Desk and introduce yourself. We’d love to keep you involved in developing and supporting the use of technology across the membership.

Everyone has been provided with a Scouts email address. This helps us mitigate risks that trustees face should we not manage our information or account access in the most appropriate way and provides a more professional and reassuring presence in our public contact.

E-Mail for Communication

The email will initially be set up in line with your compass record using either firstname.lastname@lincolnshirescouts.org.uk or knownas@lincolnshirescouts.org.uk  if a member of the county team, district emails will be given a local identity and you can request an alias and identifier if you would prefer by registering and making a request via the Service Desk . All alias emails will be linked to your base account to make sure that we can manage accounts from Compass data to automate creation and deletion of accounts.

You will also soon be able to request team email addresses and reply from groups rather than your own email where needed. New contacts or prospectors are able to find group contacts more easily – we can publish group email contacts without fear that individuals will change making it less intensive for administration and updates.

Once created these email addresses are available within the county email address book for people to find and select … and if they don’t know your alias or your team name. They will know they can always find you as firstname.lastname@lincolnshirescouts.org.uk making all of us more accessible (For example, if you'd like to contact a leader or volunteer you met at an event and struggled to find a contact).

PLEASE NOTE: Although individuals will be listed in the County Directory they may not all be using this as their primary means of contact.

E-Mail to Reduce Risk

The County Executive have recognised a risk where information relating to Scouting is held in personal email accounts and may reduce GDPR or information commissioner compliance. In addition, we have had instances where people join Scouting and are unable to contact families professionally or when they leave Scouting and we cannot retrieve historic contact or prevent further unsupported contact.

To mitigate risk for county trustees, I have agreed that a county email should be used. District and Group trustees will also be considering management of similar risks and may be looking for a solution – to minimise costs and reduce duplicate effort on a solution, the county provision will be offered as a mitigation.

An email will be set up for every member but your use of it is optional, unless suggested otherwise by your own trustee board.

Use of County email is optional unless directed by your trustee board. Unused accounts will be disabled after a period of non use. Your county email will also be your sign in requirement for the online suite of Microsoft 365 products, access to Workplace if you wish to use a closed social media based approach for keeping in touch with other Lincolnshire scouters.

E-Mail as a Key to other Services

Your email address or approved alias is the way in which you can:

• Register on the Service Desk for technical support
• Access Microsoft 365 services
• Access Workplace

What if I don't want to us E-Mail?

You don’t have to use email at all … but if you do use email we’d prefer it if this was easily identifiable as a scouting email and there are benefits if you do take this up.

Email is a really useful tool for non-urgent or mass communication and where you need to follow up with a written record of a verbal conversation. A scout email provides a positive image under the current brand and perception aims of the Skills for Life strategy building awareness and trust. It identifies you as part of the Scouts organisation. This makes it a lot easier to advise non-members who we communicate with that they can be confident that those emails originate officially, importantly we can also advise them not to trust communications that do not come from an official Scouting address.

Registering under county email gives access to Microsoft 365 online so may reduce costs for adult volunteers who maintain a home licence. We are happy that this facility is used for non-Scouting purposes but members should be aware that they may not be accessible if you unexpectedly leave Scouting and your email is forfeited without prior arrangement.

Important Information

A county email does not mean we can see what you are sending or monitor who you are communicating with. Administrators will only see if you have an account and whether it has been used in the recent months (if not used over a period of time, accounts will be deleted to optimise licence use)

I know that checking another email is an issue but please don’t be tempted to forward to another email address … this reduces the risk mitigation of keeping all Scouting information within the one account.

If you are not sure how to get the county email easily onto a computer desktop or linked on your smartphone – message and one of the administrators or district tech support will assist you. Once available, I hope you will find it easy to access and check. We can also set up text notifications from your email to a mobile phone (of any kind) to let you know  when you might need to look at your incoming messages rather than having to keep on top of checking every day.

County provision provides an umbrella defence against SPAM and malware. It may not completely hold all this back, particularly if users register their address on opt-in sites but will help filter unsolicited mails.

There are many reasons why we wouldn’t provide a county email - cost, admin as people start/move/leave, lack of use, misuse but all of these are less impactive than the benefits. Whether you take advantage of those benefits now is up to you.

Microsoft Teams

Teams is a video and chat-based workspace that brings together chat, files, people, and tools in one place. This will enable you to communicate both within and beyond the membership. Perhaps useful for parent meetings, virtual section broadcasts and conference and video calling.

Information will be sent to your new and current email (registered on Compass) on how to access your Teams.

You are welcome to use this provision for personal situations if this will also help you maintain contact with your important people during this isolating period. However, you must observe Scouting values and POR, even for personal matters.

Microsoft Teams Information & Support

Microsoft 365 Information & Support

Your login details for this are your email / Microsoft 365 username and password.

There's also a mobile app, similar to Facebook, so you can access Workplace and Workplace Chat on your mobile.

This page will be populated with all the different ways of working that you find work well for you and those you contact via the digital tools.

Did you know?

You can set your meetings in your Outlook calendar to be hosted in Teams? Look for the ‘New Teams Meeting’ on your Home banner and a link to join on Teams will be automatically included in your invite.

You can join the online meeting from the meeting reminder.

You can hold a video conference on Workplace. Open a chat and click on the video call, just like you would on Facebook Messenger.