The Eagle Scout Service Project is tough enough. Confusing paperwork shouldn’t make it even harder.

Fortunately for aspirant Eagle Scouts — and the parents and Scouters supporting them — the Eagle Scout Service Project Workbook (No. 512-927) is regularly refreshed to make it easier to use and understand.

That latest upgrade came on May 20, 2014. Find the new workbook (and tons of other useful documents) on the BSA Advancement Resources page.

The previous version of the workbook is no longer available, though Scouts who have already downloaded the previous workbook may continue to use it — even if their proposal hasn’t yet been approved.

What changed? Nothing earth-shattering, just lots of subtle improvements.

Mike Lo Vecchio of the BSA’s Content Management Team tells me the informational parts have been reorganized, and functionality has been improved. Wording has been clarified in several areas.

Here are the six key improvements:

All general information including the Message to Scouts and Parents or Guardians and the Excerpts and Summaries from the Guide to Advancement is now contained in the front of the workbook. The Contact Information page is included with the proposal. Note the instructions at the top of the page which indicate that only information that is reasonably required needs to be included. In some cases, functionality has been included to allow certain information from title pages and from the Contact Information page to auto-populate fields elsewhere in the workbook. Some additional tables have been included (e. g. Other Needs) and functionality improved to allow certain fields to expand to accept additional text. Note in some cases, field expansion is not unlimited since only a reasonable amount of information is needed for those answers. A project description and impact section has been added at the beginning of the project report. The Navigating the Eagle Scout Service Project – Information for Project Beneficiaries document has been added to the back of the workbook. It is intended that the Eagle Scout candidate will provide this document to their project beneficiary and discuss it with them when they approach the beneficiary with their project idea. Note that there is a box on the proposal for the beneficiary to indicate that they received a copy of the document.

Still see something in the workbook you’d improve if you could? Lo Vecchio says recommendations for changes or other improvements should be sent to: advancement.team@scouting.org.