What's Recent

Blackbaud ID with multi-factor authentication

To strengthen the security of your information, all locally authenticated users are now required to login to their Award and Stewardship Management sites using Blackbaud ID (BBID) with Multi-factor Authentication (MFA). Those who login via an institutional single sign-on (SSO) are unaffected by this change. For those with an institutional SSO, BBID with MFA will only be required for any locally authenticated users that do not use your SSO to access your site (such as references, reviewers, or donor contacts).

To learn more about MFA or Blackbaud ID (BBID), view the multi-factor authentication (MFA) FAQ.

Additional resources:

• How to create a BBID

• FAQ and help tips

• Enable users to authenticate using your organization identity provider and SSO

• Remote identity API - steps to allow users associated with your institution to log in via your SSO

Expanded accessibility requirements

Enhanced Award Management and Stewardship Management pages to work with assistive technology to meet WCAG 2.0 AA accessibility standards. Elements such as focus order, toggles, skip navigation, arrow key navigation and controls such as drop-downs, tooltips, and date pickers were enhanced so they’re now operable with the keyboard.

US privacy law compliance

We take a global approach to data privacy compliance to help you reduce risks and maintain constituent trust. Our solutions support your compliance with GDPR, New Zealand, Australian, Canadian, and current US data privacy laws (where applicable). Review the latest features and updates within Award & Stewardship Management to meet these evolving requirements.

Optimized visibility and usability of funds

Improved visibility and usage of funds across the solution in multiple ways. You can now identify if there are existing fund snapshots for a particular fund or a subset of funds directly from the fund grid to prevent individual fund reviews; snapshot formatting now delineates between fund sections to improve information consumption; fund descriptions are now surfaced on snapshots for both the donor portal and reports.

Broadened accessibility remediation

Enhanced Award Management and Stewardship Management pages to work with assistive technology to meet WCAG 2.0 AA accessibility standards. Removed Keyboard traps, revised headings, enhanced question modals, and resized text without the loss of functionality.

Expanded Qualified to Apply

Qualified to Apply prevents ineligible applicants from applying to opportunities in which they are not qualified. Ineligible applicants will not see the Apply button for opportunities in which they do not qualify if this feature is enabled. Expanded the feature to enable system admins to apply the feature en masse on opportunity portfolios.

Editable Customer UID field

System Administrators can now edit the Customer UID field, which is the primary mechanism used to merge duplicate records. This allows administrators greater flexibility and permissions needed to invalidate incorrect records and preserve applications, reference requests or reviews on correct accounts without Support intervention.

Modernized user experience

By leveraging components of Blackbaud’s next-generation user experience (UX) framework, the solution is being modernized to be consistent with Blackbaud products. Additionally, these improvements ease navigation within some of the most highly utilized areas of the product including the Omnibar, hover selectors, Cycle Management Audit, Bulletins, Donor Cover Letters and the Stewardship Dashboard.

Enhanced Award Mode functionality

With enhancements to Award Mode, administrators can now view archived opportunities separate from active applications and filter opportunities.

Mobile responsive Omnibar

The Omnibar is now mobile responsive for administrators to navigate functionality of the solution while using devices.

Modified cold storage functionality

Archived opportunities more than 365 days old are moved to cold storage with a frozen date associated with them. To prevent auto match opportunities from losing applications, General Applications do not move to cold storage if there is an auto match opportunity that has an end-date within the General Application’s archival time frame.

Stewardship Standalone cleanup

To improve the user experience and provide greater functionality clarification, the ​Apply Now Button has been removed from Stewardship Standalone opportunities. Stewardship Standalone requires admins invite students into opportunities to submit an impact statement as Standalone sites do not allow students to directly apply for opportunities. The visibility of this button caused confusion and did not function as users would expect in providing information to impact statements.

Minimum Word Count

The Minimum Word Count feature only applies to text-based fields, instead of applying to fields relying on file uploads.

Enhanced Stewardship snapshots

To ease data display, fund information is no longer shown as persistent data without delineation between quarters of financial information.

Qualified to apply: Mass update tool

Enables system administrators the capability to enable or disable the Qualified to apply feature en masse for one or more opportunities. To learn more about the feature and this tool, see Work with portfolios.

Visual changes for ease of use and navigation

Applicants have visual clarity to easily identify opportunities in which they’re eligible or ineligible. Applicants who meet opportunity qualifications continue to see the Apply button. The Apply button is hidden for applicants who do not meet opportunity qualifications with a label that indicates they are not currently qualified.

Opportunities hidden from ineligible applicant view

Applicants have visual clarity to easily identify opportunities in which they’re eligible or ineligible. Applicants who meet opportunity qualifications continue to see the Apply button. The Apply button is hidden for applicants who do not meet opportunity qualifications with a label that indicates they are not currently qualified.

Search icon added to help widget

Based on user feedback, each topic now has the search icon added in the top right corner of the help widget. This allows users to do a search without exiting the widget.

Specify a renewal start date for opportunities

Admins can now specify a renewal start date at the portfolio level. Earlier, renewal applications were being created for awards on opportunities that started prior to this date. Going forward, renewal applications will only get created for awards created on opportunities after the specified date. See Set up renewal portfolios.

Qualified to apply

Prevents ineligible students (applicants) from applying to opportunities for which they are not qualified. See Work with portfolios.

Fund periods added to post-acceptance and fund disbursement grids

Fund periods were added to the bulk actions Post-Acceptance Application and Fund Disbursement grids for administrators when creating saved grid views and reports.

Grid view headers corrected

Opportunity grids do not reference portfolio with Project IDs. while Fund grids reference Project IDs for consistency.

Custom role improvements

Administrators who create custom roles for individuals at their organization or institution now have improved permissions that equip them to make more edits to records associated with those custom roles.

Banner Messaging

Enhanced banner messaging assists administrators in identifying errors with uploaded files, specifically if they contain illegal characters.

File deletion capability

Stewardship Management administrators now have the ability to delete uploaded documents from manual file upload fund fields. This replaces the need for replacing an uploaded file if the file is not needed in donor reports.

Mass archiving deletion

Administrators can archive questions in bulk using the Form field import tool. When there are no associated opportunities in an import field, upload and unused questions will be archived.

Improvements to manually triggered emails

Recipient emails that are manually triggered as reminders by Stewardship Standalone administrators include invitation links when requested from the impact statements grid.

Donor ad-hoc emails

To improve the process in Stewardship Management, administrators now have the ability to send ad-hoc emails from the Donor Contacts grid.

History log headers

History logs now have section headers to better distinguish between information and activities.

Delivery offset improvements

Delivery offsets formerly set to send notifications on the application deadline date were previously being sent weeks ahead of the deadline. Delivery offsets now function as expected: 0 days= notifications are sent on the deadline day; 1 day= notifications get sent one day prior to the deadline, for example.

Upload cropped images to mobile devices

If applicants are using their mobile device to upload an image with their applications, they can now select an area of the image to crop and submit it successfully in the mobile view.

Multifactor authentication

Individual users signing in with local or allow-list authentication can enable multifactor authentication for their account for added security. See Enable multifactor authentication (MFA).

Expiration of local user passwords

Local authentication passwords are set to expire after one year from the time they are set. Users are redirected to a new page after they log in to update their password if it has expired. Password expiration applies to both local and allow-list authentication.

Scopes column added to system report for questions

Scopes column is available with the System Report for Questions. The Questions report lists all questions in your system, along with details, such as id, label, type, associated opportunities etc. The addition of the Scopes column will help users identify where a specific question is being used.

Additional details on user messages grid

Added the Display Name column to the User Messages grid. With this update, users will no longer need to rely on email address alone to identify the list of recipients to whom email will be sent.

Freeze Date for archived opportunities

Any archived opportunities that are more than 365 days old are moved to cold storage with a freeze date associated with them. For opportunities that are currently active, the freeze date will be a year from the date the opportunity is archived. This feature is now in General Availability (GA). See the blog article for additional information about the freeze date.

Note: The opportunities that are already archived — for a year or more — will show a freeze date of September 29, 2021.

DMARC DNS Setup Options

If your organization already has DMARC configured, you can now use the new DMARC DNS Setup option for email authentication. This option allows your organization to establish policies for handling legitimate emails that originate from the email service provider that otherwise would be marked as spam. See this help article for more information.

Additional Formatting for Bulletins

New reviewer visibility setting

When deciding which questions to make visible to reviewers, you'll now see a new option, Visibility based on Opportunity settings.

This option allows you to set reviewer visibility on an Opportunity-by-Opportunity basis. See this help article for more details.

Additional Formatting for Bulletins

We've updated the bulletin text editor to make it easier to customize bulletins to donors.

Navigate to Stewardship > Bulletins to try the new formatting options, including an Insert option to upload images directly to your bulletin and the ability to edit alignment for text and images.

Note: Existing bulletins have been migrated to use the updated text editor.

New cycle management audit dashboard

Cycle management preserves historical records and prepares your system for a new round of applications.

Cycle management also involves checking a lot of different places in your system. To make your cycle management experience simpler, system admins can now access a dashboard at Site, Cycle Management Audit.

Use this dashboard to prepare your system prior to requesting cycle management.

Note: For more context on cycle management, see Cycle management .

Simpler editing for disbursements

To streamline the editing process, we re-designed the Edit Disbursement page and added a few usability enhancements.

Most importantly, you can make multiple rounds of edits. Any changes you make to the Display data—so long as you've saved them—will be preserved for future rounds of edits.

Source data is the original disbursement data, brought in from either your user import or completed post-acceptance applications. When your source data differs from display data—due to changes in the display or updates to your source—you'll see a triangle warning icon (▲). To update your display data to match source data, select .

Display data is what a donor sees on a disbursement (once it's published). If you're editing the display data and want to discard your changes, select .

Note: For more guidance, see Publish disbursements.

Auto-resize images to prevent errors in donor reports

Occasionally, award recipients would upload images that were too large for a donor report. These images would then break the default formatting and make the report unusable.

Now, your system automatically resizes these images to preserve formatting (and reduce errors).

Changes to how you access archived data

To streamline your experience and improve system performance, we're changing how you access archived data.

Improvements to recipient and disbursement fields

To simplify donor reporting, recipient and disbursement fields contain more information:

• Disbursement fields:

  • Field ID: Makes it easier to identify specific fields

  • External Label: Now shows how the field was created (System, Form, Manually), as well as the current question text

• Recipient fields:

  • External Label: Now shows how the field was created (System, Form, Manually), as well as the current question text

  • Import Header: Shows the import header to increase visibility into the field's source

  • Source: Provides a link to the related disbursement field

On an individual fund page, you'll also see Field IDs on the Disbursement tab.

Delete old or unused bulletins

To clean up your Bulletins page, you can now delete unpublished bulletins. For more detail, see Delete a bulletin.

Add donor contacts directly from a Fund page

When editing a fund, you can now add donor contacts.

Tip: For easier contact identification, set the Name field in your Contact Import Settings. For more detail, see Configure imports.

New merge fields for cover letters

You can now add personalized merge fields for an Address Block and a Contact Salutation.

You'll need to define these fields before you use them in a published cover letter. For more detail, see Set up cover letter merge fields .

Reminder to save updated questions and qualifications

To reduce frustration and duplicate work, we've added a warning message to all Questions and Qualifications pages.

You'll only see this message if you make changes and try to leave the page without saving.

New information available from the Financial Edge NXT API

If you set up an integration with Financial Edge NXT, you're now able to bring over the following information:

• Project ID

• Project description

• Beginning and ending balances

• Fiscal year and fiscal period

At the moment, you're not able to bring over information about project credits or debits. For more information, see Blackbaud APIs.

Status notifications for combined donor reports

When you generate a combined donor report, you'll now receive an email notification if the report fails. For more details, see Download multiple donor reports .

More tailored experience in the Donor Portal

Donor contacts will only see the Financials tab if their funds have published fund snapshots. For more details, see Publish fund snapshots.

Cover letters now available

Create cover letters to share communications personalized to your donors, such as a letter from your president or another official.

For more detail, see Cover letters.

Download multiple reports simultaneously

To save time when printing donor reports, you can now download multiple donor reports at the same time from the All Contacts grid.

For more information, see Download multiple reports simultaneously.

Qualifications are more accessible

To make qualifications more accessible to color-blind admins, we've added a new Not Qualified icon.

This icon will appear:

• At the top of unqualified applications

• Next to failing qualifications

• At the bottom of a failed qualification group

Delete individual donor reports

Sometimes, you'll create donor reports with the wrong information or without including necessary materials.

To solve this problem, you can now delete individual donor reports.

Note: To make sure donors still have access to old reports, you can't delete reports that have already been emailed.

Learn how to use our help docs

For helpful tips and tricks on using our help documentation, see this community post.

Explore role-based task guides

For in-depth guidance and step-by-step instructions, check out our new role-based task guides.

In particular, you might be interested in our task guide for Manage reviews.

We'll be creating (and announcing) more guides in the coming weeks!

You'll be notified of new product changes

About once a month, you'll see this page open automatically to announce new features.

We're still adding features in between our formal announcements, so check back periodically by selecting What's new at the top of any Help topic.

To stay up to date on new features, you can also subscribe to the community announcements.

Filter opportunities by opportunity status

If you go to Opportunity, Portfolios, Opportunities, you can now filter opportunities by Opportunity Status.

Choose whether you want to see the following options:

• All

• Published

• Not Started

• Ended

• Archived

Access user accounts from the Applications grid

You can now access user accounts directly from Opportunity, Applicants.

On any applicant record, select View User to go to that applicant's user account.

System grids are more flexible

To help locate specific records on system grids, you can now include up to 100 “or” filters on each column.

Improve donor reporting with fund descriptions

To provide additional information to donors, you can now add lengthy descriptions to Stewardship funds.

To add a description field to your funds:

1. If you have an existing description field, go to step 5.

2. Create a new column in your fund import file.

   Note: To access your current import file, go to Site, Settings, Stewardship Fund Imports. Then, select the top value in the Imported At column.

3. Go to Site, Settings, Stewardship Fund Imports.

4. Run a fund import with your updated file.

5. On the Site, Settings, Stewardship Fund Imports page, select the Configuration tab.

6. Under Fund Import Settings, find Fund Description.

7. Select a fund description field.

   

8. Select Update Import Fields.

   Note: If you selected an unmapped header, your system creates a new field that is contact visible and extended text.

Once you've set up a fund description field, you'll see it by going to Site, Settings, Fund Fields and looking under Summary Information.

User navigation is now more accessible

To improve system accessibility, a dotted blue outline now appears around your area of focus. This change affects all users in your system (admins, donor contacts, etc.).

Question help text is now more accessible

To improve system accessibility, question help text now appears directly beneath a question field (instead of in a tool tip). This change also required adjustments to our formatting rules. When editing help text, visit the Help tab to learn more about these formatting changes.

Show Anticipated Total Amount to applicants

When creating renewable awards, you now have the option to display Anticipated Total Amount to applicants. This amount is how much an applicant can expect to receive over the full duration of the award. This amount appears on initial opportunities, as well as any future renewal iterations.

Allow Blank Answers to Disqualify

If an Opportunity uses a qualification of Must not be blank for a question found on the General Application or any Conditional Applications, applicants with a blank answer for that value will be considered disqualified and will not see that Opportunity listed under Recommended Opportunities.

Expose Internal End Date on All Relevant Opportunities

Now, all Opportunity types (Apply-to, Renewals, Flexible, and Auto-match) include a Public End Date as well as an Internal End Date:

• For Apply-to, Renewal, and Flexible Opportunities:

  • The Internal End Date tells the opportunity when to stop pulling answers from the General Application and any relevant Conditional Applications. If you use an import offset, the Internal End Date determines when to freeze import data.

  • The Public End Date affects applicants only. After this date (which is visible to applicants), applicants can no longer apply

• For Auto-match opportunities, the Internal End Date will continue to function as it did previously.

Update to Questions Report

The Questions system report now includes a column showing whether each question is used on an Apply-to application or Post-acceptance application.

Update to Opportunity Portfolio Report

The Opportunity Portfolio Report now includes a column for the Project ID.

Set default avatar photo

Admins can now set a default avatar photo for any recipient without a photo. On the Site, Settings, Styles page, admins have the option of uploading a school logo, for example, or another image that should be used by default. If no default is set and the recipient doesn't provide a photo, the recipient's initials will appear instead.

Fund Names added to the Contacts grid

The contacts grid now displays a new column, Fund Names, to help sort and filter your list of contacts. The Fund Names column lists all funds associated with a donor contact.

Recipients Grid now includes Fund Names and Avatar status

The recipients grid now displays two new columns to help sort and filter your list of recipients, Fund Names and Avatar Set. The Fund Names column lists all funds from which a recipient received an award, and the Avatar Set column indicates whether or not an avatar is set for the recipient.

Updated Description for Disbursement Edits

On the Stewardship Disbursement/Statement Updates page, we've updated the explanation that displays on the screen to better clarify how updates are handled.

Add a Custom Favicon

Stewardship System Administrators can now add a custom favicon under Site, Settings, Styles.

(Beta) Anticipated Total Amount

On renewing portfolios, admins can now define the Anticipated Total Amount an applicant would expect to receive over the full term of a scholarship when compliance terms are met.

Coming soon in a future release - Applicants will see the Anticipated Total Amount when the option is marked Applicant Visible. The amount will display on renewal grids and be available for use in the Fund Disbursements API.

Choose File Types for Upload

Admins can now control which file types are allowed for upload on a question response. When creating or editing a question with the File Upload type, choose from a list of the eight most-commonly uploaded file types found in Award Management. When no file type is selected, applicants can upload any supported file type.

Note: File types not supported today, such as .html, remain restricted for security reasons.

Application API

Query application data with the new Application API. Pull data from one or multiple grids at once, including General, Conditional, and Opportunity Applications. Keep your data together in one report or identify specific fields to filter your data.

You can use this new API in a variety of ways. For example, you can compare all applicants with those who received a scholarship, identify applicants by application status or custom category, or run an analysis on applicants to assign a score and reimport the score to use with reviewer groups.

Learn more about this API on the API Documentation page on your site (Site, Settings, Import & Export Tools, API Documentation).

Qualifications Report -- System Admins now have access to a report of all Qualifications set on Conditional Applications or specific Opportunities. Use the Qualifications report to track qualifications currently in use, and make updates as needed. This report is under Site, Files, System Reports and available to System Admins only.

Merge Funds in History -- In Stewardship, to ensure easier troubleshooting around which funds are present, the history of a fund now shows details about any funds that were merged into it.

• Last Activated and Last Inactivated Columns —To provide administrators with visibility into when an applicant's status has changed — and to help them decide if communications need to be sent to an applicant who was previously marked Inactive but later became Active again — we've added two new columns to bulk actions grids. If you're using the Inactive Applicant Header with your user import, you'll now see a Last Activated and a Last Inactivated column in grids that include applicant information. The Last Activated column show when an applicant was set to an active status and the Last Inactivated column shows when an applicant was set to an inactive status. If the applicant was never marked inactive, the Last Inactivatedcolumn is blank.

• Stewardship Visible Fields —Marking a form field Stewardship Visible now automatically makes that field available on funds in Stewardship Management, so you no longer need to manually mark the field Available on Funds. Fields that are available on funds display on the Disbursement Fields tab for funds that are tied to a portfolio to which the specific form field is tied. Conditional application fields only show on funds tied to the conditional application's portfolios, and general application fields show on all funds. To make it easier for Stewardship Admins to determine which fields to show to donors, you'll still need to mark fields as Contact Visible to display to a donor in the Donor Portal or on the PDF report.

• Merge Funds in History —To ensure easier troubleshooting around which funds are present, the history of a fund now shows details about any funds that were merged into it.