The pitching guide for the patrol tents lives in someone's loft, three house moves away from anyone who'd think to look for it. The stove instructions went in the bin with the box a few summer camps ago. The parts list for the trailer is a photo on a phone belonging to a leader who left the group two years back.
Paper manuals do not survive contact with a Scout store.
Why it matters
Kit gets repaired, pitched and packed away by people who did not buy it, did not unbox it, and were not there the one time someone explained how the awkward guy-rope clip works. The person who knows how a thing goes together is not always the person holding it at camp on a wet Friday evening.
A manual that lives in a filing cabinet at someone's house helps nobody at the point it's actually needed. A manual attached to the item's own record is there whenever someone opens it — whether that's a Quartermaster doing a stock check in October or a Leader stuck outside a tent bag in the rain.
What you can attach
Wogglebox+ groups can attach PDF documents directly to an inventory item, sorted by type so a long list stays easy to scan:
- Manuals — the instructions that came with the thing, or the ones you found afterwards
- Parts lists — what's supposed to be in the bag, and what it's called when you're ordering a replacement
- Pitching guides — the steps nobody remembers after the first attempt
- Safety sheets — anything with a warning on it that shouldn't be optional reading
- Activity instructions — set-up steps for kit used in specific sessions
- Warranties — proof of purchase and cover, kept with the item it applies to
- Other — for anything that doesn't fit the rest
Each file is a PDF, up to 5 MB, with up to 10 documents attached to a single item.
How it works in practice
Open the item's record, attach the PDF, give it a short title and pick a type. That's it — no separate document library to maintain, no folder structure to agree on as a team. The document lives with the item it describes for as long as the item exists.
Anyone in the group can open or download an attached document from the item record, including members on the free tier. Attaching a document is a Wogglebox+ feature; reading one is not.
Where to find the PDFs
Most manufacturers still publish manuals on their own websites, even for kit that's a few years old — it's often quicker to search for the model name than to dig through a loft. For paper manuals with no digital original, a phone scanning app works fine. Scan at a lower resolution than the app defaults to; a pitching guide is still perfectly readable well under the 5 MB limit, and a smaller file uploads faster on a patchy hall Wi-Fi connection.
Attaching is Wogglebox+; reading is not
This is worth stating plainly, because it's an unusual split and easy to misread: attaching and managing documents is a Wogglebox+ feature, restricted to Group Admins and Quartermasters. Viewing and downloading an attached document is open to every member, on every tier — including free groups, and including a group whose Plus has lapsed. A guide that's already attached doesn't become unreachable because a subscription did.
The honest way to put it: Wogglebox+ groups attach the guides; everyone in the group can read them.
Guides & Documents covers PDFs only for now, with no search-inside-document, no versioning and no per-unit documents for serialised kit — a title and a type is the extent of the organisation on offer, deliberately kept simple.
Frequently asked questions
Can free-tier Scout groups view attached documents?
Yes. Viewing and downloading a document already attached to an item is available to every member, on every tier. Only attaching new documents requires Wogglebox+.
What file types can I attach?
PDF only, for now. There's no support for Word documents, images-as-documents, or scanned photos treated as a document — a phone scanning app that outputs a PDF is the simplest route for paper originals.
Is there a limit on document size or how many I can attach?
Each file can be up to 5 MB, with up to 10 documents attached to a single item. Both limits are generous enough for a typical manual or pitching guide once scanned sensibly.
Can I attach a different manual to each serialised unit of the same item?
Not currently — documents attach to the parent item record, not to individual serialised units. If your group needs unit-level documents, that's a genuine gap rather than a hidden feature, and worth raising as a feature request.
Does this replace Online Scout Manager?
No. Wogglebox complements OSM rather than replacing it — Guides & Documents is part of the equipment side of the platform, alongside inventory, bookings, repairs and inspections.
Final thought
None of this is complicated — a title, a type, a PDF, attached to the item it belongs to. The point isn't cleverness, it's that the person who needs the pitching guide is standing next to the tent, not at home with a filing cabinet. See the full equipment guide for how Guides & Documents sits alongside the rest of Wogglebox's inventory tools, or the pricing page for what's included on Wogglebox+.