The branded colour palette was updated to change some of the purple, green and blue colours. The main, additional and grey scale colours are shown above. The Scouts Online 2018 branding has been created to use these colours to replace the 2015 scheme.

There's a new set of photographs for you to use in your marketing and publicity campaigns.

A complete set of these images is available for you to use on your website in the Scouts Online Files /SA_Images/Section /2018 folders.

A selection of these images have been added to the default image banner settings throughout your website, so your website was automatically updated in May 2018 - without you needing to do a thing.

As well as a new Scouts logo and updates to the sectional logos, new country specific logos have been introduced for 2018.

The new logos are accessible from the Admin/File Manager. Select Scouts Online files and navigate to the SA_Logos/2018 folder. You can also create your own local logo on the Scouts Brand Centre.

The logo displayed at the top/left of your website can be overridden from Admin/Global Settings or Section Details on group websites. You could use your country logo or upload a local badge or logo. Just set the Logo URL field as required.

The Nunito Sans font sets have been introduced. These are freely available from Google. These fonts are included in the Scouts Online 2018 branding.

You can move the whole of your Scouts Online website across to the new branded colours, fonts and logos from a single settings field.

Simply login as a Site Admin user, navigate to Admin/Group Details or Admin/Global Settings and change the Website Theme field to 2018 branding.

For Group Package 1 sites, please contact us to switching across.

The default settings for all contact forms were changed to show a 'tick to consent' message, with a link to a Privacy Policy and a tick box. The resulting contact form email shows whether the website visitor ticked this or not.

You can change the consent text by logging in as a Site Admin user and editing it on any of the contact forms. Editing it once will change the consent text on all contact forms throughout your website.

A basic default privacy policy has been added to your website. This is linked from the consent text on each contact form.

It is strongly recommended that you update this to cover your local procedures. You can open this page from /Management/PrivacyPolicy.aspx

There is a new page to cover the double opt-in requirement and assist with the data quality aspect of GDPR. You can access this page from /Management/ConfirmYourDetails.aspx

You can change the default settings of your contact forms to redirect website visitor to this page so that they can confirm their details.

A new [save & send email] button has been added to Admin/News / Blogs page.

Clicking this button opens up a new page, shown below, which allows you to specify a small number of distribution email addresses and then send an email containing your news story along with any images attached to it.

This was primarily designed to send your news story through OSM's leader and member distribution email addresses. You will need to enter your own email address in the From Email field so that OSM can approve the distribution. You may also need to add your email client's email address.

Distribution email addresses may be setup in Global Settings or Section Details on group websites.

This facility could also be used with another email distribution service or you could just send the news story to your own email address and manually forward it on to your leaders and parents.

A YouTube video has been added to the Scout Network home page. This will show on all sites with a Scout Network section and may be overridden by editing the YouTube control.

The Scout Association has removed the YLs video from YouTube so it is no longer available for your District/County website. If you can find a suitable YouTube video, you can add it to your YL page.

The personal contact form, shown on each members' Meet The Team profile, has been changed to ensure the website visitor includes their email address or telephone number in their message text.

This enhancement will go-live in September.

Some groups hold sectional meetings in more than one location.

The About / Find Us page has been changed to display a streetview, map and address for each of the group's locations.

A new field has been added to the OSM Integration Setup.

When your website is setup to transfer join form information directly to OSM, you may now choose to receive a simple form notification email rather than a detailed email containing all the join form details.

Website visitors now use a wide variety of devices to view websites. Your website, which was originally designed in line with www.scouts.org.uk, is currently best viewed from a desktop or laptop device with a wide screen. When viewed on a mobile phone or tablet, the page content may be small and difficult to read and navigate.

Mobile friendly websites move content around and adjust content widths to display full sized text to maximise the user experience for visitors using devices of all sizes.

All website pages and controls have been re-engineered to adjust the position and width of content depending on the device being used.

When using a desktop or laptop device, the changes will be almost un-noticeable.

When using a device with a smaller screen, content will be repositioned to show the main information first and any content usually shown on the right-hand side of the page, below it. The width of page content is also adjusted to fit/span across the screen.

More details of these changes are shown below.

The main menu bar will show a home button (similar to scouts.org.uk) on all devices.

The menu bar will also 'sticks' to the top of the page. When you move down the page, the menu bar will remain visible. This makes it easier to navigate around your website.

To simplify and standardise usage for touch screens and mobile devices alike, users will now click a menu button to open the drop-down-menus and another click to select the page.

When viewed on a small device, the main menu bar will just show a home button and a menu button.

Clicking the menu button will open a drop-down-menu containing all the sub-menus and pages, similar to the screen shot above.

A few of the controls have changed to display across the full width of the paragraph displayed. This maximises viewing on all devices.

The image banner control has been updated to use a new carrousel script which includes next/previous buttons.

The cookie message has been moved from the header bar to appear just below the menu bar. This ensures that it's visible on all devices and irrespective of whether the user has moved down the page.

User definable pages have been changed too. As well as showing some instructions at the top for Site Admin users, the content will become responsive.

Some page content may need to be changed, especially if exact widths have been specified. If you have any user definable/non-standard pages, please check their formatting after the enhancement is live.

If you need any help moving things around, please contact us.

On larger screens, the left-hand sectional menu will move with the browser as you move down the page. This makes it easier to navigate your sectional pages.

On smaller screens, the content on the sectional pages will move around to maximise readability. The left-hand menu will move to the bottom of the screen.

The section menu will show a section home button and a section menu button, similar to the main menu. The menu will be minimised when the page loads. When the user clicks the sectional menu button, the menu will open up, as below:

All contact forms have been re-formatted to maximise usability across devices. The field names and data fields will be arranged differently depending on the device's screen width resolution, as below:

The forms will appear very similar to before on desktop and laptop screens, using two columns in most cases.

On medium sized screens, the forms will display all the fields in a single column.

On small screens, the field names and data fields will be shown on separate lines to make it easier to read and fill in.

The field names are also shown in bold to further highlight the field usage.

Some tables displayed in the management pages will show a reduced number of columns when viewed on a smaller device. There is no difference in the functionality. This simply makes it easier to manage your website from other devices.