What's Recent

bbdevdays is a virtual conference for developers of every skill level. Spend three days exploring ways to automate and extend your Blackbaud solutions with Blackbaud pros and your peers. Register to join us virtually June 3-5 and build your session agenda here.

We have new video content up on our channel for you to check out this week! Head on over to learn about Application Forms and while you’re there, make sure to have a look at all our Short video content, including our weekly recaps of these What’s New releases!

We've made further improvements to your Student Attendance experience. On flyout, the Description list now includes Advisor, Residence, and Student Email columns. We've also replaced School Level with Grade Level. Please note, if a student does not have one of the above options, the column won't show.

The rollout for the visual upgrade to Managing Official Notes continues. The upgrade began on April 15 and will continue to be applied in waves over the next few releases. For a visual overview of the new experience, check out our video here.

On May 20, 2025*, the payment amounts shown to payers are now unique to them based on their responsibility as configured in their students’ billing profile. Billing clerks have access to these payer-specific values, helping to better service account requests.

For example, in a situation where two parents have split payment responsibility over their child’s balance equally, each parent now sees their respective portion when viewing the Amount due on their Current bill, rather than the total account-wide amount due.

Additional changes include:

For payers:

• Auto-Pay now supports multiple Auto-Pay plans for the same student in separated family situations, enabling families to split the amount due between multiple payers.

• Statements now feature a Credit balance field within the Changes for section, indicating how much credit affects the current Amount due field.

   

For Billing clerks:

Sums found under Activity on billing profiles now produces a flyout with a list of transactions constituting the total sum.

* These changes may not be available to your school on May 20, 2025; throughout the course of several weeks, the update will be released in waves, resulting in some schools receiving the change before others. This update may release to your school at any time outside the traditional Tuesday release cadence.

We’ve added a new section to the Add payments to group window called Payment details. Within the section, payments can be applied to overall balances, payment plans, and specific charges.

This change also sees the Auto-apply payments button moved to the Payment details section from its original position found under Defaults.

To get started with Adding payments to a group, within hover over Billing on the navigation and select Billing management. Select Recent payments, and on the page that loads, select Add payment, and choose Add payments to a group.

We’ve added a new section to the Add credits to group window called Credit details. Within the section, credit can be applied to overall balances, payment plans, and specific charges.

This change also sees the Auto-apply credits button moved to the Credit details section from its original position found under Defaults.

To get started with Adding credits to a group, within hover over Billing on the navigation and select Billing management. Select Recent credits, and on the page that loads, select Add credit and choose Add credits to a group.

Now, when generating late fees for a group of students, the Preview charges step breaks student full names into two new columns, First name and Last name, enabling Billing clerks to sort by Last name. First name defaults to the students' preferred name, if available.

From an existing user’s profile, you can add relationships that are new users. Now, you can also enter the preferred last names of those new users. This applies to Core, Enrollment management, Academics, Billing management, and school directories.

Previously, you could only enter the legal last name from the add relationships interface. With this update, you no longer need to go to the new user’s profile to enter the preferred last name after you create the relationship.

With this release, we’ve added two new exports. You can now Export the list of Roles (from Core, Security, Roles) and the list of Tasks (from Core, Security, Roles, Tasks).

Consider using an export to review user permissions and responsibilities. Many schools review these during the summer between academic years. Open an exported file (.csv) in a third-party spreadsheet application, such as Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets.

Additional exports are on the way. For example, you’ll soon be able to export the tasks and members for a selected role, too. Stay tuned!

June 3-5, join us at our virtual developer’s conference, when participants of all skill levels will come together and explore ways to extend their Blackbaud solutions. With over 125 sessions, a hackathon, and new networking opportunities, you’ll leave with connections and strategies to drive new outcomes with Blackbaud Education Management.

In Blackbaud’s most recent Product Update Briefings, product managers shared a comprehensive view of new features available now, exclusive previews of upcoming releases, and detailed companion guides to maximize your impact. If you weren’t able to join us live, consider viewing a recording on-demand. You can also visit the archive of more past updates.

We have new video content up on our channel for you to check out this week! Head on over to learn about Application Forms and while you’re there, make sure to have a look at all our Short video content, including our weekly recaps of these What’s New releases!

Join us May 6–9 for Blackbaud’s bi-annual Product Update Briefings. Get a comprehensive view of new features available now, exclusive previews of upcoming releases, and detailed companion guides to maximize your impact. Whether you are strategic staff planning for the future or a hands-on user eager for a consolidated update, these sessions are designed to keep you informed and prepared.

Register to attend for Higher Education Solutions/Connected Campus (US ONLY) on Wed, May 7 at 12 PM ET.

bbdevdays is a virtual conference for developers of every skill level. Spend three days exploring ways to automate and extend your Blackbaud solutions with Blackbaud pros and your peers. Register here to join us virtually June 3-5!

In case you missed it in previous What’s New release letters, we’ve been creating YouTube Shorts style videos on the official BlackbaudSupport channel. These are short, 1-minute videos that cover all sorts of topics, answering questions, and even throwing in some fun content, like trying to recap these release letters in under 60 seconds.

So, if you haven’t yet taken a look, make sure to head on over to our channel and press play!

We’re continuing the roll out for this visual upgrade to the Official Notes experience which began on April 15 and will continue to be applied in waves over the next few releases. The new experience can be found from Academics, Communications, Official Notes, and then Manage official notes.

Want to see it in action? Have a look at our overview video here.

With this release, when grade access is enabled for the Coach role, coaches can access grades only for students on their teams for the current academic year.

Previously, when a list manager selected to show the Student school enrollment column on a Users list, then the row for each user showed all their years with an enrollment, separated by a comma.

With this update, we’ve renamed the column to Has school enrollment. It now shows Yes or No instead of years.

For information about specific years, choose Filters. From the Access category, choose School enrollment. With this filter, you’ll choose whether to show:

• Has any of these specific ones,

• Has all of these specific ones,

• Has none of these specific ones.

Then click + Select school enrollment to choose the specific years. Select and Apply filters to the list.

This update makes data simpler when viewed at a glance, especially when a user has enrollments for multiple years.

Previously, when a list manager selected to show the Student school enrollment column on a Users list, then the row for each user showed all their years with an enrollment, separated by a comma.

With this update, we’ve renamed the column to Has school enrollment. It now shows Yes or No instead of years.

For information about specific years, choose Filters. From the Access category, choose School enrollment. With this filter, you’ll choose whether to show:

• Has any of these specific ones,

• Has all of these specific ones,

• Has none of these specific ones.

Then click + Select school enrollment to choose the specific years. Select and Apply filters to the list.

This update makes data simpler when viewed at a glance, especially when a user has enrollments for multiple years.

Admissions officers now have an additional option when sharing Files and Forms to Core which will allow them to share files and forms only after a candidate has enrolled as a student. This will limit the files and forms being shared to only those who have a student rule, which will include incoming students, current students, past students and alums.

Join us May 6–9 for Blackbaud’s bi-annual Product Update Briefings. Get a comprehensive view of new features available now, exclusive previews of upcoming releases, and detailed companion guides to maximize your impact. Whether you are strategic staff planning for the future or a hands-on user eager for a consolidated update, these sessions are designed to keep you informed and prepared.

Register to attend for Higher Education Solutions/Connected Campus (US ONLY) on Wed, May 7 at 12 PM ET.

bbdevdays is a virtual conference for developers of every skill level. Spend three days exploring ways to automate and extend your Blackbaud solutions with Blackbaud pros and your peers. Register here to join us virtually June 3-5!

bbcon registration is live! Lock in our lowest price to join us for the biggest event of the year just for Blackbaud customers in Philadelphia October 6–8. Imagine being in the room with peers and industry leaders as they share top insights, strategies, and product innovations to guide your path forward. Now’s your chance to make it happen!

You'll save $779 by registering early, so secure our very best price today! Register and Save.

In case you missed it in previous What’s New release letters, we’ve been creating YouTube Shorts style videos on the official BlackbaudSupport channel. These are short, 1-minute videos that cover all sorts of topics, answering questions, and even throwing in some fun content, like trying to recap these release letters in under 60 seconds.

So, if you haven’t yet taken a look, make sure to head on over to our channel and press play!

We’re continuing the roll out for this update which began on April 15th. In case you missed it, we're making a visual upgrade to the Official Notes experience by moving it out of Podium and into a modern SKY appearance to improve consistency and usability. You'll still be able to access it from Academics, Communications, Official Notes, and then Manage official notes (formerly Approve official notes). In addition, the Official notes ready to approve and Official Notes No approval required links from the Academics Home page will also load here.

The list displays all Official notes, where you can edit or delete them as necessary using the context menu. Use the Filter or Column options to refine the data being displayed and the Search field to find something specific. Please note that there is no added functionality and that all your existing security will be respected.

Want to see it in action? Have a look at our overview video here.

Now, when adding enrollment deposits to a group of students, all future billing years with enrollment deposits defined are available for selection.

bbcon registration is live! Lock in our lowest price to join us for the biggest event of the year just for Blackbaud customers in Philadelphia October 6–8. Imagine being in the room with peers and industry leaders as they share top insights, strategies, and product innovations to guide your path forward. Now’s your chance to make it happen!

You'll save $779 by registering early, so secure our very best price today! Register and Save.

bbdevdays is a virtual conference for developers of every skill level. Spend three days exploring ways to automate and extend your Blackbaud solutions with Blackbaud pros and your peers. Register here to join us virtually June 3-5!

In case you missed it in previous What’s New release letters, we've started creating YouTube Shorts videos on the official BlackbaudSupport channel. These are short, under 60 second videos hitting on all sorts of topics, answering questions, and even throwing in some fun content like trying to recap these release letters in under 60 seconds.

So, if you haven’t yet taken a look, make sure to head on over to our channel and press play!

bbdevdays is a virtual conference for developers of every skill level. Spend three days exploring ways to automate and extend your Blackbaud solutions with Blackbaud pros and your peers. Register here to join us virtually June 3-5!

In case you missed it in previous What’s New release letters, we've started creating YouTube Shorts videos on the official BlackbaudSupport channel. These are short, under 60 second videos hitting on all sorts of topics, answering questions, and even throwing in some fun content like trying to recap these release letters in under 60 seconds.

So, if you haven’t yet taken a look, make sure to head on over to our channel and press play!

Starting on April 15, we'll be upgrading your Official Notes experience by moving it out of Podium and into a modern SKY appearance, which improves consistency and usability. You'll still be able to access it from Academics, Communications, Official Notes, and then Manage official notes (formerly Approve official notes). In addition, the Official notes ready to approve and Official Notes No approval required links from the Academics Home page will also load here.

The list displays all Official notes, including drafts, where you can edit or delete them as necessary using the context menu. Use the Filter or Column options to refine the data being displayed and the search field to find something specific. Please note that there is no added functionality and that all your existing security will be respected.

Faculty can now access their Preferences from the calendar view of the Assignment Center and the Assignments tab on class pages.

We’re excited to announce that the omnibar will be generally available to all schools very soon. We temporarily delayed the release from late March to later in April to ensure a seamless experience in Blackbaud Education Management.

Soon, your school’s back-office users will have seamless navigation across Blackbaud’s connected systems. A shared, streamlined navigation will connect your school solutions, including Blackbaud Billing Management™, Blackbaud Enrollment Management System™, and Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT®. Manage your school end-to-end, including tuition, financial aid, enrollment contracts, and relevant posts to the General ledger. Quickly answer questions about alum activity engagement by hopping from Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT® into the student record in Academics. You’ll drive more impact with fewer clicks.

• When it becomes generally available, it’ll be enabled by default for members of the platform manager, system admin, admissions manager, admissions staff, re-enrollment manager, and billing clerk roles. It’ll also be enabled for their clones.

• A role manager will be able to go to Core, Security, Roles, Tasks to review and edit all roles with the Omnibar task.

• The Omnibar is not accessible during impersonation. When you impersonate a user, the Omnibar will be hidden by the Impersonation banner. To show the Omnibar, stop impersonating.

• The Omnibar won't appear for “portal” persona experiences, such as Student, Faculty, Parent, Alumni, and Friend.

• It won’t change anyone’s access to functionality or data. All items that users access from the new Omnibar are things they can already access via their other login pages to the corresponding solutions.

We’ll announce when it’s available later this month. So, stay tuned to What’s New.

Tip: Want to see it in action? View the recording of the webinar hosted by product managers Jessi Walters and John Vogel.

On April 15, we will delete invalid payment gateways from school databases. These non-Blackbaud merchant services gateways stopped receiving payments on January 1, 2025, and are now obsolete as a result.

Admissions managers can now view more details on the Test Scores tile from the Candidate record. New information includes Score, Percentile, Scale, and Stanines. Previously, admissions managers needed to select the test to see additional details.

Admissions managers have more Filter and Column options to select when working with the Contract List. Last generated date shows the specific timestamp for when the contract was last generated. Contract ID can help admissions managers use it to match transactions between EMS and Blackbaud Merchant Services.

For information about recently added endpoints and other updates, view the School API and OneRoster API changelog.

bbdevdays is a virtual conference for developers of every skill level. Spend three days exploring ways to automate and extend your Blackbaud solutions with Blackbaud pros and your peers. Register here to join us virtually June 3-5!

In case you missed it in previous What’s New release letters, we've started creating YouTube Shorts videos on the official BlackbaudSupport channel. These are short, under 60 second videos hitting on all sorts of topics, answering questions, and even throwing in some fun content like trying to recap these release letters in under 60 seconds.

So, if you haven’t yet taken a look, make sure to head on over to our channel and press play!

Continuing with our recent updates to many locations within Blackbaud Education management, we've given the Activity and Advisory section pages a modern SKY appearance and interface. You can access these areas by going to Academics, Scheduling, and then Course selection and schedules. From here, switch the page to either Activity or Advisory to see the new content.

Both sections use the SKY UI list format, displaying all available activity types with the ability to create more. Edit an existing Activity to add leaders and members right from here as well. The same can be done for Advisories, as they can be edited to add Advisors and Advisees as needed. For more on these changes, make sure to visit our online help center.

In the narrative view of the new faculty grade entry experience, faculty can now navigate between students using Previous student and Next student.

Payers can now enable Auto-Pay during the contract enrollment process when the specific payment plan is flagged to allow for Auto-Pay sign-ups. Auto-Pay, once flagged to be available, can either be required or optional.

Billing clerks can enable Auto-Pay on payment plans by toggling Allow payers to enroll in auto-pay through contracts on each designated payment plan and then choosing from the subsequent drop-down whether Auto-Pay is required or optional for that plan.

With this release, we’ve updated additional user interfaces to a modern SKY appearance, which improves consistency and usability. Users with access will notice the updated look when they manage settings for Ethnicity types, Gender, and Pronouns. These are found in Core, Users, User profile settings. It’s now easier to see which types are in use. Plus, you can now Reorder ethnicities.

On April 15, we will delete invalid payment gateways from school databases. These non-Blackbaud merchant services gateways stopped receiving payments on January 1, 2025, and are now obsolete as a result.

Continuing with our recent updates to the Attendance Hub, Student Attendance has been updated to a modern SKY appearance and interface. While it can still be found from Academics, Attendance, and then Student Attendance from the Related Links, selecting it will open a calendar-like UI defaulting to the current day. You can manually select a different date from Go To or use Today to go back to the current date.

You have the option to record absences and filter the students that are currently listed by Group, Level, or Reason. Select a student to pull up their schedule for the current date or use the arrows to change the day. Finally, use Reports to access Pre-Excused Absences by Student or Absences History by Date.

After opening an assignment from within the gradebook, faculty can now navigate between students in the evaluation page using Previous student and Next student.

Religion types (found in Core, Users, User profile settings) have been updated to a modern SKY appearance, which improves consistency and usability. Users with access can now Add, Edit, Delete, and Reorder religion types from this page. They can also easily see which ones are in use.

Coaches and Athletic Group Managers can now set Time to TBA when adding games. Calendars and team pages will display the start time as TBA.

Game times cannot be set to TBA through Athletic Schedule data imports. However, Data Managers can import games with a blank Time. Then TBA can be selected manually on games as needed.

If you’ve successfully navigated change, tried fresh strategies, or discovered new ways to maximize your Blackbaud solution, we want to hear from you!

Submit your proposal to speak through March 21.

bbdevdays is a virtual conference for developers of every skill level. Spend three days exploring ways to automate and extend your Blackbaud solutions with Blackbaud pros and your peers. Register here to join us virtually June 3-5!

We're excited to share all of the new details on our latest Video Content in this week's Journal entry. We've started creating YouTube Shorts videos on the official BlackbaudSupport channel so go check that out after reading about this change in this week's journal entry.

Any media files attached to an assessment question are now included when adding the question to a question bank. Additionally, files attached to a banked question are now included when adding that banked question to an assessment.

Billing clerks can now rollover specified payment plans from any previous year to a future year, thereby reapplying the payment plan to matched student accounts for the new year.

To get started, selectRollover Payment Plans under Taskson theBilling Management Overview page. Once theRollover Payment Plans window opens, choose the year to copy payment plans from and then the year to apply them to. The payment plans configured for the previous year are then listed; select which plans to rollover, and then select Next.

During the Preview step, the students listed have payment plans in the previous year that match the selection. The matched payment plans from the previous year are reapplied to the future year.

When adding payments, Payroll deduction is now available as a new Payment method source.

List managers can now select to show Student’s school enrollment as a Column in User lists. Find it in the Enrollment category of your list options.

You can also Filter by enrollment year. Find it in the Access section of your list filter options. Then select to show whether a student has any, all, or none of specific enrollment years. Finally, choose the enrollment years and apply the filters. For example, select to show only users with school enrollments from the 2023-2024 school year.

Previously, schools primarily accessed this information via Reports. This update enables schools to now review the information from modern SKY lists.

In this update, the user interface has been updated for Races, Emergency Contact intro, and Relationship types pages of the User profile settings to a modern look and feel thanks to SKY UX.

In addition, schools can now order Races, which was not previously possible. Races are displayed alphabetically but can be reordered by dragging the values or selecting Top, which will automatically push the value to the beginning of the list. Select Save to update the list.

When adding a new relationship from the Core Contact card or 360 Profile, the Relationship Types are now sorted in alphabetical order.

For information about recently added endpoints and other updates, view the School API and OneRoster API changelog.

If you’ve successfully navigated change, tried fresh strategies, or discovered new ways to maximize your Blackbaud solution, we want to hear from you!

Submit your proposal to speak through March 14.

Are you passionate about non-profit technology, Blackbaud Education Management, and eager to share your knowledge and connect with your peers? bbdevdays 2025 is looking for speakers like you!

Submit your session proposal by March 15, 2025. Selections will be announced on April 8, 2025.

We're excited to share all of the new details on our latest Video Content in this week's Journal entry. We've started creating YouTube Shorts videos on the official BlackbaudSupport channel so go check that out after reading about this change in this week's journal entry.

This week's journal talks about our new short video series: Release Letter in 60 Seconds...or Less. Not only is it a fun new way to learn about the what's new letter, but you'll get a visual of each new feature as well. Have a look!.

On the Grading or Skills tab of a course record, the Grade plan group dropdown now offers only Grade plan groups associated with the course’s school level.

We’ve added the ability for Billing clerks to reschedule when payment plan installments are due. Rescheduled payment plan installment due dates must always be before the due date of the following installment.

To get started, either from a Billing profile or the Payment Plans list, select a payment plan to open its record. On the record, under Plan dates, select the context menu for an installment payment and choose Edit due date. Change the due date to any date prior to the following installment’s due date.

Platform managers can still create clones of Alumni and Class agent roles. However, as of this release, you can no longer clone other “constituent” roles, including All school and Grandparent roles. If your school has existing clones for these constituent roles, those clones remain unchanged. You can continue to add or remove members from the existing cloned roles.

This change only affects your ability to create new clones for those constituent roles. This improves consistency and is necessary to prepare for future updates. Other role types, such as “application” and “employee/volunteer” roles remain unchanged; you can continue to clone them.

Users with the rights to impersonate others can now do so from a school directory. Search the directory and open the Contact card of a user. A new button appears at the bottom of the profile header, similar to the one on Core user profiles. Select Impersonate user. To impersonate another user, you must have security task 37 (Impersonate user) enabled for one of your roles.

Additionally, the option to Impersonate user now appears in the headings of user profiles in Billing management, Enrollment management, and Academics.

This update prepares the user interface for additional future updates and makes it easier to access impersonation.

With this release, Learning Profile Managers and Learning Profile Staff can now upload file attachments to learning profiles. Learning profile documents may contain sensitive information, so the files, as well as the upload option, are not accessible when impersonating. Additionally, the files are only accessible to users with the Learning Profile Manager or Learning Profile Staff roles.

Users can upload files when adding a new learning profile for a student. They can also upload files to existing learning profiles from a student’s Performance tab by selecting the context menu next to the learning profile, then Edit.

The Learning profile tile on a student’s Performance tab also indicates whether any files are associated with a learning profile. To view the files, Learning Profile Managers and Staff select the context menu next to the learning profile, then View files.

Learning Profile Managers and Learning Profile Staff can select graphs in the Learning Center to open flyouts with additional details, such as student grade levels, links to student profiles, and links to edit a student’s learning profile. These flyouts are not accessible while impersonating.

In the narrative view of the new faculty grade report grade entry experience, faculty can now calculate standard grades. Previously, Calculate was only available from the grid view.

charges.charge_comments is a new optional field referenceable in the request body of POST Charge batch (Create) (PREVIEW) to include comments for a charge. charges.charge_comments is a string with a max character limit of 1000.

Note: Our Billing Management API is currently only available to select schools and vendors.

We’ve added support for adding distributions on a specific date when configuring posting procedures for miscellaneous fees.

Are you curious to learn more about the Omnibar before it’s enabled for your school community? Join Product Managers Jessi Walters and John Vogel on March 5, 2025 for a webinar from 2:00-3:00 PM EST. You’ll learn how the Omnibar and Blackbaud ID connect Education to your other Blackbaud solutions and account management. We'll cover blackbaud.com user management, permissions, organization branding, and FAQs regarding the Omnibar in Education Management.

Register to join the webinar.

The user interface previously called Custom labels & text is now Custom text. Platform managers still find it in Core, Settings. The Custom labels tab, which previously appeared in this area, was removed because its functionality was rarely used and it inconsistently affected labels in Academics, Extracurricular, and portal pages.

The Custom text/messages and Browse groups text tabs remain; the general workflow and function of these two tabs is also unchanged. However, we’ve updated them to a modern SKY appearance, which improves consistency and improves usability.

With this update, we've made deleting infractions from the Infractions list easier. Previously, admins would need to first open the infraction and change the Status to Delete and then save it. Now, simply open the context menu for the infraction and select the Delete option to remove it.

When setting the Assigned and Due dates for assignments, faculty can select the calendar icon and hover over a date the class meets to display the class meeting times. This assists teachers in selecting dates and times that coincide with class meetings.

Batch ID is a new field available on the Process history list and on the details page for each process. The Batch ID only populates with a record if the associated batch included transactions added outside of Blackbaud Billing management using SKY API. Use the Batch ID as an additional dimension to identify a group of records when auditing.

To view Process history, as a Billing clerk, hover over Billing on the navigation in Billing management and select Process history.

Are you curious to learn more about the Omnibar before it’s enabled for your school community? Join Product Managers Jessi Walters and John Vogel on March 5, 2025 for a webinar from 2:00-3:00 PM EST. You’ll learn how the Omnibar and Blackbaud ID connect Education to your other Blackbaud solutions and account management. We'll cover blackbaud.com user management, permissions, organization branding, and FAQs regarding the Omnibar in Education Management.

Register to join the webinar.

When a user searches a school directory, the results now include preferred last names that also met the user’s search criteria. This helps users find individuals whose preferred last name differs from their legal last name.

Note: The search still respects your privacy settings, including your school’s profile publish access settings. Thus, if a user’s preferred last name isn’t published to others, then it will be omitted from the search results.

A couple weeks ago, we updated the List admin area to enable list administrators to view and manage basic and advanced lists created by *Deleted user.

Now, any list created by *Deleted user also appears in your My list tab, if you have access to manage the list. Thus, if a platform manager gives another user access to view and run a list created by a *Deleted user, the users can access it without needing to also go to List admin.

Committees that are inactive are automatically hidden by default from Admissions, Committee Review. To display inactive committees, we've added a Show inactive toggle as well.

If you’ve successfully navigated change, tried fresh strategies, or discovered new ways to maximize your Blackbaud solution, we want to hear from you!

Submit your proposal to speak through March 14.

Are you passionate about non-profit technology, Blackbaud Education Management, and eager to share your knowledge and connect with your peers? bbdevdays 2025 is looking for speakers like you!

Submit your session proposal by March 15, 2025. Selections will be announced on April 8, 2025.

Admins can now view Display settings inside a new modal view from Attendance. Previously, selecting Display settings loaded a full page. In addition, we added the ability to set the options by school, whereas previously there was a single setting that applied to all levels.

Payers will now be greeted with a refreshed, modern user experience when visiting the payer portal. Our design changes reflect a philosophy consistent across many of Blackbaud’s products, guaranteeing a cohesive user experience from one product to the next and ensuring seamless usability. To emphasize, these improvements are purely cosmetic and do not result in changes to either functionality or workflow

Please stay tuned for additional exciting releases in the same vein, coming soon.

The Status column is a new, optional column available when viewing the Process history on the Transactions list, enabling Billing clerks to identify transactions that may have been deleted or reversed.

Miscellaneous fees, when set to post each month, are now able to post fees to a specific deferred revenue account initially. To do so, after selecting Each month on, enable Post fees to our deferred revenue initially and enter the Account name and description.

Enrollment deposits can now be set up to post to either a single set of GL accounts, or to multiple accounts based on specific student criteria. These new settings mirror the way tuition currently operates. When posting to multiple accounts based on specific criteria, criteria includes: board type, grade level, International / domestic, Payment plan, Program, Degree, Classification.

Previously, if the city and state for an individual’s address wasn’t published to a school directory, then the corresponding map pin would not be located accurately and could cause confusion. Now, a pin will only be shown on the map if both the city and state are published via Profile access. Furthermore, if Address line 1 is hidden via Profile access, then the map will place the pin in the center of the city.

In a continued effort to improve security and product functionality, our team will be updating URLs and domains used by our application to perform multiple processes. Please see the updated list of domains and URLs to be added to your allow list in the Content filter domains and IP addresses added to allow list article.

For information about recently added endpoints and other updates, view the School API and OneRoster API changelog.

If you’ve successfully navigated change, tried fresh strategies, or discovered new ways to maximize your Blackbaud solution, we want to hear from you!

Submit your proposal to speak through March 14.

Are you passionate about non-profit technology, Blackbaud Education Management, and eager to share your knowledge and connect with your peers? bbdevdays 2025 is looking for speakers like you!

bbdevdays is a virtual conference designed for developers of all skill levels and will be held on June 3-5, 2025. Over the course of three days, participants explore innovative ways to automate and extend their Blackbaud solutions alongside Blackbaud pros, partners, and peers. All speakers receive a free Developer’s Pass, which includes early access to session registration and our conference T-shirt.

What we're looking for:

We are seeking engaging sessions ranging from 5 to 60 minutes that cover a variety of topics, including:

• Automations: Discuss how you meet your most complex challenges and drive better outcomes by automating key business processes.

• SKY API & SKY Add-ins: Highlight innovative solutions and customizations using SKY API’s and Add-ins.

• SDK Extensions/Infinity Customizations: Demonstrate how to leverage the Blackbaud CRM™ SDK and Page Designer for powerful customizations.

• Digital Marketing & Peer-to-Peer: Provide insights into HTML/CSS/S-tags, templating, tracking and analytics.

• Business Intelligence: Showcase uses of data warehousing and BI reporting.

Submit your session proposal by March 15, 2025. Selections will be announced on April 8, 2025.

Make sure to head over to the Blackbaud Education Journal as this week we're taking a deeper look at the recent changes to the newly named Attendance Reasons.

Platform Managers can now enable the question generator for faculty to utilize when building questions for their online assessments. Faculty enter a topic, number of questions to generate, question type, and details to determine question difficulty. The question generator then uses generative artificial intelligence (Generative AI) to create questions that faculty can add to their question banks and assessments.

Note:

• This AI does not index or crawl any existing question information and information entered in the generator is not used for training the AI.

• Faculty have full control over which generated questions are added to their question banks and assessments and they can edit those questions as needed.

• The question generator does not replace the question building process and is intended to be used as a starting point in building assessment questions. The tool may provide incorrect information and faculty need to review generated questions for accuracy and appropriateness.

Platform Managers enable the question generator by school level.

1. In Core, select Security, Artificial intelligence.

2. Select the context menu next to Question generator, then select Edit.

3. Select the school levels to enable.

4. Select Save.

Platform Managers can also review Question generator usage in Core.

1. In Core, select Security, Artificial intelligence.

2. Under Feature, select Question generator.

3. Review usage details by faculty member, such as Topic, Grade level, Learning level, and Question difficulty.

4. Select a link under Questions selected to view the specific questions a faculty member added to their question bank or assessment.

Faculty experience

Faculty can generate questions from their question banks or within the assessment builder. Once generated questions are added to a question bank or assessment, faculty can edit them as needed.

Tips for generating questions:

• Topics may be broad, but more specific topics tend to generate more usable questions.

• Learning levels are based on Bloom's Taxonomy and increase in complexity and difficulty as you go down the list of available options. In theory:

  • Remembering, Understanding, and Applying learning levels are better suited to Multiple Choice, Fill in the Blank, and True/False questions.

  • Analyzing, Evaluating, and Creating learning levels are a better fit for Essay questions.

• The difficulty of the generated questions is determined by a combination of the Learning level and Question difficulty selected.

Generate questions from a question bank

1. In My Day, Questions banks, select the bank.

2. Select a sub-bank from the list on the left.

3. Select Add, then Using question generator.

4. Enter a Topic.

5. Select a Learning level:

   • Remembering

   • Understanding

   • Applying

   • Analyzing

   • Evaluating

   • Creating

6. Select a Question difficulty.

7. Select a Question type.

8. Select the Number of questions to generate.

   Tip: You can select questions from the results, so generate more questions than you plan to use.

9. Select Next. Generating questions may take a moment.

10. Review the questions and select questions to add to your question bank.

11. Select Next and confirm the expected questions are displayed.

12. Select Finish to add the questions to your bank.

13. To edit a question or its answer from the bank, select the context menu next to the question, then select Edit.

Generate questions from the assessment builder

1. In the Assessment builder, select Add, then Using question generator.

2. Enter a Topic.

3. Select a Learning level.

   • Remembering

   • Understanding

   • Applying

   • Analyzing

   • Evaluating

   • Creating

4. Select a Question difficulty.

5. Select a Question type.

6. Select the Number of questions to generate.

   Tip: You can select questions from the results, so generate more questions than you plan to use.

7. Select Next. Generating questions may take a moment.

8. Review the questions and select the questions to add to your assessment.

9. Select Next and confirm the correct questions are displayed.

10. Select Finish to add the questions to the assessment.

11. If needed, select the edit icon next to a question to edit the question or its answer.

For more information, check out the Blackbaud University course on the Question Generator.

In the new faculty grade report grade entry experience, faculty can now enter bulk comments for their students across multiple class sections.

1. In Faculty:

   Select Classes, choose your class, then select New Grading.

   OR

   Select My Day, then Schedule & Performance and choose a Standard grade plan under Grading on the right side of the page.

2. Ensure grid view is selected in the upper right.

3. Under the appropriate Grade plan grade, select Add bulk comment.

4. Select the students the comment applies to, expanding additional class sections and selecting additional students as needed.

5. Enter the comment and select Save.

Note: When adding a bulk comment, a comment icon displays next to a student's name if they have an existing comment for the grade plan. If you apply a bulk comment to a student with an existing comment, the bulk comment will overwrite the existing comment.

In the new faculty grade report grade entry experience, the Grade plan grades sort order is now based on the associated Grade plan to better align with a school’s grading cycle.

Faculty can now access their assignment creation default settings from their gradebooks. Previously, these settings were only available through the Assignment Center or class Assignments pages.

To access the assignment creation default settings from a gradebook, faculty select More, then Preferences.

From here, they can access the full Preferences menu, which includes assignment import settings and assignment list view defaults, by selecting Tab list.

We've updated the student enrollment modal so that when transferring a student, the Drop Date will show the previous date selected from the transfer date. For example, if a student is listed with a drop date of 2/10, they will remain on attendance roster for 2/10 and will no longer show beginning on 2/11.

If you use the Drop function and then manually Add to another class, be sure to set the Drop date for the last date the student should appear on the original roster and Add date as the one the student should begin showing in the new class section.

If you use the Transfer function, it previously set the Drop and Add date to the same date causing an overlap. With a change released today, the date set when transferring will be the Add date and the day previous to that will be set as the drop date.

We’ve added a new optional feature that sends the Payment received notification to payers when adding payments to a group of accounts.

On the Add payments form, under Payments to add, an optional toggle called Send Payment received notification determines if the Payment received notification sends when adding payments.

In a continued effort to improve security and product functionality, our team will be updating URLs and domains used by our application to perform multiple processes. Please see the updated list of domains and URLs to be added to your allow list in the Content filter domains and IP addresses added to allow list article.

When editing a Candidate Checklist step description, we now display the character limit and how many characters have been added already.

As of January 15, 2025, Blackbaud Merchant Services is the only payment gateway supported in Blackbaud's Education Management. With today's release, any active form that had an unsupported payment gateway selected was marked inactive. To resume using an affected form, please select a supported payment gateway in the form's payment/deposit settings and then set the form status to Active. Forms referenced in this change include Applications, Admissions Event registration, Contracts and School forms.

For information about recently added endpoints and other updates, view the School API and OneRoster API changelog.

We’ve added the Auto-pay list, enabling Billing clerks to see all auto-pay enrollments, whether active or terminated, for the filtered school year.

On the Auto-pay list, you can:

• View an Auto-Pay record by selecting an item under Auto-pay plan type. On the record flyout, optionally select Edit status for non-terminated, non-pending, Auto-Pay plans to mark them as On hold, Terminated, or Completed.

• View the Payment plan associated with the Auto-pay plan by selecting an item under the Payment plan column. On the Payment plan flyout, you can delete the Payment plan associated with the Auto-pay enrollment, add charges to the payment plan, or remove charges.

• View the Student and related Payer associated with the Auto-Pay plan.

The Auto-Pay list also features support for being exported as a .csv, with the export retaining the filters, column, and layout specified.

When you view your Home page in Core, the tiles now appear to fill the full width of the page. Previously, they were centered, which created unused “white space” on the sides. This update enables you to see more information before you need scroll down, reduces the distance your cursor must travel to select items from the top navigation menus, improves consistency, and helps prepare for future updates. You’ll see additional pages also become full width in future releases.

This user interface has been updated to a modern look and feel. This update also prepares for future updates which will be driven by these settings. Deprecated Email notifications channel settings fields were removed to reduce confusion and provide a cleaner user experience. Other functionality and workflow remain unchanged. Find it in Core, Users, User profile settings, Profile page settings.

Today, three tabs appear in Core, Settings, Custom labels & text. To prepare for future updates and improve consistency, we will remove the Custom labels tab as of Tuesday, February 22, 2025. Its functionality was rarely used and inconsistently affected labels in Academics, Extracurricular, and portal pages. However, tabs and functionality for Custom text/messages and Browse groups text remain. Stay tuned to What’s new for future release updates related to these settings.

We’ve updated Attendance Categories, which is now called Attendance Reasons. Previously, this page was split into categories with each reason displayed under them. It now uses a modern SKYUX list style allowing you to add a new reason, filter the results displayed, edit the display order, and show a total count of categories and reasons.

Selecting +Add Reason allows you to select a category for it. Using the search bar, you can find a specific category or select New to add your own. With the Category selected, the list of associated Reasons appears to help prevent duplicates from being added, as well as +Add Reason, which adds a new line for you to fill out. Keep in mind that specific School levels can be assigned to individual reasons, so when faculty enter attendance, they’ll only see reasons for the school level they teach in rather than everything.

In this update, we’ve also updated Record method, giving it a more modern UI, making it easier to read, and providing more information in one location. While it still breaks things down between various school levels, Record method and Editing attendance information can easily be seen without having to edit the section.

In the Learning center, the Learning profile aging and Breakdown by author tiles now include the total number of learning profiles displayed in the respective graphs.

When calculating grades in the new faculty grade report grade entry experience, the Formula is now automatically selected when only one admin-defined formula is available for selection.

When using the bulk editor to enter skill grades or comments in the new faculty grade report grade entry experience, entering a skill grade or comment now automatically selects the skill checkbox. If the skill checkbox is cleared, any grade or comment entered for the skill is not retained upon saving.

When previewing the list of students to generate late fees for, Billing clerks now have access to an Export button to save the students, payers, and late fee amounts depicted in the list to a .csv file. Use the .csv file to hand off the data to another faculty member for verification.

When a list manager views the basic and advanced lists in List admin, they can now filter the list to show items created by a *Deleted user. This enables list managers to

• Delete

• Edit

• Run

• Grant role access

• Grant user access

to lists whose creators are no longer with the school. Previously, these lists were “orphaned” and inaccessible. This ensures list managers can clean up lists the school no longer needs and maintain the ones they do need.

Names will now display in the Relationships tile on each user’s Contact card, based on the configured format for the corresponding System location. This includes all places you view a Contact card - user profiles in Core, Enrollment management, 360 profiles (such as Academics and Billing management), and My profile.

To configure formats for each System location, a platform manager should go to Core, Users, User profile settings, User name formats and check out the new feature!

Improved user name formats are now generally available to all schools. We thank discovery participants who provided feedback to help ensure we deliver the best possible update. Schools can now configure multiple versions of user name formats to use as defaults in different areas of the application. For example, consider using

• preferred names in areas primarily used by students and faculty to ensure you respect each individual’s wishes.

• full legal names in areas primarily used by your school's administrative and back office staff to ensure you handle the correct record when multiple users have similar names.

Original user name format

Previously, your school used a single format for all users’ names. You either edited the custom format to your needs or else used the default created by Blackbaud.

Your (custom or original) format is preserved as Original and is used by default in all System locations.

You can create additional formats and edit System locations (Core, Academics, etc.) to use your new ones.

Create a user name format

1. Select Core.

2. Select Users.

3. Select User profile settings.

4. Select User name formats.

5. Select + Add.

6. Enter a name to describe the format's purpose.

7. Use the drop down menu to select a placeholder to add to your format. Then select additional placeholders. As you enter the format, a preview appears using sample data.

   Tip: For placeholders, be sure to retain the exact spelling used from the menu options.

8. Next, add spaces, punctuation, and any additional text (such as "class of").

9. Select Save.

   Tip: Select + Add again to create as many additional formats as needed. There is no limit.

   

Edit a user name format

Locate the format and select the ellipsis (...) at the front of its row. Select Edit, enter your changes, and then Save.

Delete an unused format

Locate the name format and select the ellipsis (...) at the front of its row. Select Delete and confirm the change.

Determine how names appear in each system location

1. To review which functions (People finder, lists, profile headers, etc.) are included in each system location, expand its row, or select Expand all.

2. Locate a system location and then select Edit.

3. Choose an existing format.

4. Select Save.

   

   Note: Some features may currently show users’ names in a format which is not defined by any of these. They’ll be gradually updated in future releases. The older format will be replaced by a format from your school’s settings. They'll also be listed within the corresponding system location. To stay informed, stay tuned to What's New.

Admissions managers can now see a candidate's entering grade from the Schedule tile when on the Enrollment management homepage. In addition, when Guided by other or Interviewed by other are used for a visit or interview, it will now appear in the Admissions staff column in the Schedule tile as well.

With this release we’ve added Learning Center to the top navigation menu in Academics. In the Learning Center, Learning Profile Managers and Learning Profile Staff can access all learning profile-related tasks that were previously split between Grading setup and Grades management, including Learning profile settings, Approve learning profiles, and more. The Learning Center also includes analytics that provide insight into learning profile use by school level, the age of learning profiles, and top accommodations.

For more information on the Learning Center, see our help documentation.

The student gradebook now displays all assignment types enabled in the class gradebook. Published assignments with a due date and time in the past are also visible, even if they are not yet graded. Previously, an assignment type was only visible once a graded assignment existed for the type and assignments only displayed once graded or with a “marked as” designation.

We’ve added the ability to reverse posted charges and payments. Once reversed, these transaction types have distributions created automatically with post dates matching the reversal date. The transactions’ status changes to Reversed and they are removed from payer-facing areas, such as statements, and in balance calculations and reports. Reversed transactions remain for reference by Billing clerks in areas such as the Recent payments and Recent charges list, where Billing clerks can additionally see the reversal reflected in the records’ change history.

There are two places where reversals are initiated:

• On the payment or charge record, accessed from areas such as either the Recent payments or Recent charges list respectively and selecting the Amount for a transaction. On the record page, select More actions and then Reverse.

• On the failed payments page, accessed by navigating the Billing managementOverview and selecting the Failed payments link under Needs attention. On the Failed payments page, select any payment from the left-side of the page and then select Handle payment. Enter a reversal date, when prompted, and finalize the process.

This feature was mistakenly referenced as having released on January 7, 2025. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Student ID is now available as a general ledger journal reference segment for charges, credits, enrollment deposits, and refunds, joining payments.

We previously announced that:

• When user’s Blackbaud ID (BBID) is disabled for two years (such as due to inactivity), then their account is disconnected.

• Additionally, the email address that’s used as their username will appear redacted. When you view the user’s profile in Core and select the Access tab, you’ll notice the original email address no longer appears. A filler which states “redacted + date as YYYYMMDD + # @redacted.com” appears instead.

• This data is redacted in accordance with Blackbaud’s data retention and security policies.

• Platform managers can update the user’s login to use a different email address and then connect it to Blackbaud ID.

Currently, only accounts that become inactive after August 15, 2024 have been redacted. Our Blackbaud ID development team will soon redact older accounts retroactively, but they’re not completed yet. Please stay tuned to What's New.

The user name format your school has configured will now appear in the User summary column of the Student list. If a maiden name exists, this information will also appear in the user’s summary.

For Candidate enrolled notifications, Admissions managers can now see the Entering grade and School level for the list of candidates who have been enrolled. Previously, only the Candidate's Name was visible.

The new grade report grade entry experience for faculty will be enabled for all schools on January 7th. When the new experience is enabled, faculty will only have access to the old grade report grade entry experience through Grading on class pages. The new experience will be available from the New Grading tab on class pages, as well as through My Day, Schedule & Performance, by selecting a grade plan on the Grading tile.

For more information on these updates, see the full video. We’ve also highlighted the faculty standard grade entry and skill entry experiences in two shorter videos:

• Standard grade entry

• Assessment and mastery skill entry

The Reports menu is now visible in the new grade report grade entry page even if there are no open grade plans.

When grade review is enabled, the review options are now visible outside of the review dates in the new grade report grade entry experience.

In next week’s release, we’re adding Learning center to the top navigation menu in Academics. From the Learning Center, Learning Profile Managers and Learning Profile Staff can access all learning profile-related tasks, including Learning profile settings, Learning profile approval, and more.

We’ve added the ability to reverse posted charges and payments. Once reversed, these transaction types have distributions created automatically with post dates matching the reversal date. The transactions’ status changes to Reversed and they are removed from payer-facing areas, such as statements, and in balance calculations and reports. Reversed transactions remain for reference by Billing clerks in areas such as the Recent payments and Recent charges list, where Billing clerks can additionally see the reversal reflected in the records’ change history.

There are two places where reversals are initiated:

• On the payment or charge record, accessed from areas such as either the Recent payments or Recent charges list respectively and selecting the Amount for a transaction. On the record page, select More actions and then Reverse.

• On the failed payments page, accessed by navigating the Billing managementOverview and selecting the Failed payments link under Needs attention. On the Failed payments page, select any payment from the left-side of the page and then select Handle payment. Enter a reversal date, when prompted, and finalize the process.

When a list manager views a user list, they can now choose to show a column that shows each user’s Preferred last name. Alternatively, you can now select Preferred last nameelse Last name to show their preferred last name if known and their last name if they don’t have a preferred one.

Additionally, we did some clean up:

• When you filter a user list, the option to filter by Last password change, no longer appears. This filter was no longer relevant, since passwords are now managed with Blackbaud ID.

• The filters and columns previously called User name are now Username instead.

Please note that User IDs may be visible to other users in Blackbaud Education Management, such as when they view user’s Contact card, in URLs, or in HTML source code. These User IDs are generated automatically and are used to identify users. However, they should not be used in place of passwords or other privately secured data.

When you view a user’s Contact card, you’ll now notice a small information alert beside the User ID. Select the “i” to view a tip that reminds you of this information.

Previously, if Parent A had access to view the Address of (unrelated) Parent B, then they could view the name and relationship type of other users who share that address, even if the school had selected to hide Relationships for the role combination in Profile publish access.

Now, the Addresses tile on the Contact card respects the Profile publish access setting for relationship data. If a school has configured profile publish access settings to Show address data but Hide relationship data for a combination of roles (such as “parent to parent”), the “Address shared with” information will no longer appear on the Addresses tile for applicable users.

For example, if Profile publish access shows addresses but hides relationships, then Parent A (unrelated to Parent B) will be able to view Parent B’s address but will not see “Address shared with.”

This update especially benefits families that have experienced divorce, remarriage, and other complexities.

Admins with Address edit access will continue to see all address data on the Addresses tile.

The user name format your school has configured will now appear in the:

• user list – user summary column,

• people finder in Core,

  • Tip: You can still search by fields that aren’t in your school’s name format.

• header of the user profile in Core,

• header of portal profiles.

With this update, we've begun the process of rolling out Blackbaud Checkout, a new payment processing experience that simplifies and securely captures payment details in compliance with Payment Card Industry. All forms that are set up to use Blackbaud Merchant Services will automatically update to use Blackbaud Checkout to facilitate the end user's payment experience.

With Blackbaud Checkout, payers will enter their payment details and billing information in a payment modal after selecting their payment method, including credit card or bank account information and billing address. The payment modal experience will be the same for both credit card and direct debit payments.

Prior to Blackbaud Checkout, Blackbaud Secure Payments (BBSP) was used to direct donors to a secure Blackbaud server to enter payment details when choosing to pay with a credit card, or they would enter their bank account details directly in the form if choosing to pay via direct debit.

The payment forms that will see this change are Application forms, EMS Event registration forms, Contracts, School Forms, and School Website forms.

Please note that this feature will be rolling out in waves throughout January and will only support existing payment methods, which includes all major credit cards and direct debit (US only). A notice will be added in Core for sites that have been updated. For more information on this feature, check out our post about Blackbaud Checkout.

Admissions managers can now include an Internal Notes option when setting up a committee. From Committee review, edit or create a new committee, then under Tile options, you'll see a list of options which can be enabled to be visible to reviewers. Options can include things like Files and Forms, Connections, Candidate Information, and more. Once enabled, reviewers will see an Internal Notes section as well as the selected options from the Committee Review Center.

Changed

Breaking: Content management endpoints to feature URL change on 1/28/2025:

Starting 1/28/2025, the URLs for the following endpoints will have /lists appended to the current URL:

Various endpoints reach General Availability (GA):

The following endpoints have reached General Availability (GA) and therefore are no longer subject to remediation or removal with a 90-day deprecation period:

• GET Academic rosters

• GET Advisories rosters

• GET Activities rosters

• GET Athletics rosters

• GET Community group rosters

• GET Dorm rosters

• POST Academics courses custom fields list create

• PATCH Academics courses custom fields list update

• PATCH Academics sections custom fields list update

• POST Academics sections custom fields list create

• GET Test scores

Changed

Various endpoints reach General Availability (GA):

The following endpoints have reached General Availability (GA) and therefore are no longer subject to remediation or removal with a 90-day deprecation period:

• GET Test list (Get)

• POST Test (Create)

• GET Candidate status change list – single candidate (GET)

• POST Inquiry (Create)

• GET Student checklist list - single student (Get)

• PATCH Student checklist list step (Edit)

• GET Student checklist type (Get)

• GET Student checklist type list (Get)

The new grade report grade entry experience for faculty will be enabled for all schools on January 7th. When the new experience is enabled, faculty will only have access to the old grade report grade entry experience through Grading on class pages. The new experience will be available from the New Grading tab on class pages, as well as through My Day, Schedule & Performance, by selecting a grade plan on the Grading tile.

For more information on these updates, see the full video. We’ve also highlighted the faculty standard grade entry and skill entry experiences in two shorter videos:

• Standard grade entry

• Assessment and mastery skill entry

In the new Student Assignment Center, students can now display assignments by the Due date or the Assigned date. Previously, assignments were only displayed by the Due date. Students can update their view by selecting Show filters to display the filter panel on the left. Under Display assignments by, select Due date or Assigned date.

In list view, students can also set their Assignment view to show Active assignments due in the future or Past assignments with a Due date in the past.

Assignments are divided into the following buckets when Assigned date is selected for Active assignments:

• Missing or overdue: Includes Overdue assignments and assignments marked as Missing. Missing assignments remain in this group until the faculty member removes the Missing indicator.

• Assigned before this week

• Assigned this week

• Assigned next week

• Assigned after next week

And when viewing Past assignments by Assigned date:

• Missing or overdue: Includes Overdue assignments and assignments marked Missing. Missing assignments remain in this group until the faculty member removes the Missing indicator.

• Assigned this week

• Assigned last week

• Assigned before last week

The user name format your school has configured will now appear in the user list (user summary column) and header of the user profile in Core.

New

Update candidate information

We’ve added a new endpoint for updating candidate information for a specified entering year:

PATCH Candidate (Edit) requires one URL query parameter, candidate_id, and one parameter in the request body, enteringyear_id, to match a candidate record and update it with the information specified in the request body.

For information about recently added endpoints and other updates, view the School API and OneRoster API changelog.

The new grade report grade entry experience for faculty will be enabled for all schools on January 7^th. When the new experience is enabled, faculty will only have access to the old grade report grade entry experience through Grading on class pages. The new experience will be available from the New Grading tab on class pages, as well as through My Day, Schedule & Performance, by selecting a grade plan on the Grading tile.

Previously, when a user viewed the Academics contact card of a user who is U.S. Nonresident, this information appeared in the Student tile. Now, it appears is the Citizenship/resident tile. If you need to edit this information, do so from the new location, under Residency.

With this update, we've split Departments & Courses into separate pages. Both the Departments and Courses pages now use the SKYUX list style and have access to customizable filters and columns. Functionality is the same as it was previously, where you can create, edit, or delete courses and departments. We’ve also added the ability to copy an existing course to create a new course record. The new separate Departments and Courses pages can be found under Academics, Scheduling, then Course selection and schedules.

From Courses, select a course from the list to open the record and get a more in-depth look at the course details, including Grading, Scheduling, and Skill-based grading information.

For more information, make sure to visit the help center as well as our video series.

We made an update to this section on December 10 to add additional information.

We’ve added a new tab called Recent disbursements to the Blackbaud Billing management main page to streamline the reconciliation process between Blackbaud Merchant Services and Blackbaud Billing management.

This tab provides a detailed list of payments processed with Blackbaud Merchant services once funds have been disbursed, including the gross amount, Blackbaud Merchant Services fees withheld, and the difference between the two represented as the net amount. This granularity helps Billing clerks create journal entries in their general ledger to account for the Blackbaud Merchant Services fees more easily and without needing to switch between platforms, saving time overall when reconciling.

Note: Due to Blackbaud Billing management having only recently started to track payments in disbursements, some of the first disbursements may be missing links to payments and produce a None found status in some fields.

We’ve renamed the Online payment made notification to Payment received.

Payers now see an option to Send payment received notification when making one-off payments, enabling them to receive an e-mail notification when the payment completes. Payers only see the option if the Payment received notification is configured.

When an integration manager updates how reporting values from Core correlate to Race values for the National Student Clearinghouse, two additional options now appear:

· Two or more race/ethnicity categories (TM)

· Race/ethnicity unknown (U)

If your school uses these values, update the integration mapping so the values can be correctly calculated for National Student Clearinghouse reports. Do so from Core, Settings, Integration mappings.

Previously, when a user viewed the Core contact card of a user who is U.S. Nonresident, this information appeared in the General information tile. Now, it appears is the Citizenship/resident tile. If you need to edit this information, do so from the new location, under Residency.

Earlier this year, we expanded access to resources boards to enable schools to share content with parents of past students and parents of alums. This enables schools to choose to share information with families of students who are post-enrollment that differs from the content they might share with families whose students are currently enrolled.

Now, if a student withdraws from enrollment during the current school year and the departure date has passed, their parents will now see the resource board content for parents of past students.

Previously, they would have continued to see the resource board content for parents of current students, because they had an enrollment at some point during the current year. Thus, the parent’s resource board view is now updated to a post-enrollment view when the student departs.

When a platform manager sends an invite to a user’s email address to invite them to their Blackbaud ID account, but the user hasn’t logged in yet, then the user’s status is Awaiting response.

Previously, admins could edit the username of these users prior to them registering. Originally, usernames were populated when the user registered.

Starting last year, usernames are populated when the user is invited and is still Awaiting response.

As of this release, admins can no longer edit the usernames of users who are Awaiting response. This protects usernames from being changed while the user still has a valid invitation with that email address, which just hasn’t been accepted yet.

Admins can still edit the usernames of users who are Unregistered. Do this from the Access tab on the user’s Core profile.

With this update, we’ve cleaned up some old settings which previously appeared in Core, Security, Profile access. Settings for Email for questions about profile no longer appear.

This change has no impact on functionality for users or user privacy. This update reduces clutter from legacy code and reduces potential confusion.

Platform managers can customize the values that appear as options for custom fields. They do this from Core, Settings, General settings, Table values.

Now, if you attempt to add a value to a table, but the same value already exists, the system will prevent you from accidentally creating a duplicate value. Values are considered duplicates regardless of capitalization or (in)active status.

This helps schools maintain good data hygiene and ensures the values within a table are unique.

We've updated the Grade level filter label from Process checklist steps to Student classification.

Changed

New optional fields added to POST User create and Patch User update

We’ve updated POST User create and PATCH User update to accept three new optional string fields in their request bodies for setting the personal_bio, public_bio, and summary_note for a user.

Event_time object added to GET Athletics schedules

We’ve updated GET Athletics schedules to include a new object in its response, event_time, which returns the event time structured in a 24-hour time format.

New

We’ve added an endpoint for retrieving a list of candidate status changes:

GET Candidate status change list (Get) returns a list of candidate status changes for a year, defaulting to the current admissions year. Set the optional school_year, status_type or start_date properties to filter the results in the response.

Changed

New objects added to Inquiry list response body

We’ve updated GET Inquiry list (Get) to include the current school, referral, and financial aid as objects in the response body.

For information about recently added endpoints and other updates, view the School API and OneRoster API changelog.

Faculty can now recover their own assignments deleted by mistake. Recovering an assignment restores the assignment, grades, file submissions, and text submissions for any class associated with the assignment.

1. In Faculty, select My Day, then Assignment Center.

2. If you are in the grid view of the Assignment Center, select the list icon in the upper right.

3. Select More, then Recover assignment.

4. From the list of deleted assignments, select the assignments to recover. Only assignments for the current school year are available for selection.

5. Select Restore.

With this release, when transferring a student to another section of the same course, users can now select Transfer gradebook grades to copy the student’s gradebook grades to the new section along with the student’s enrollment. Gradebook grades are only transferred for assignments that are shared between the original and new class sections. Additionally, the grades are not removed from the original class section when copied to the new section.

Assignment status setting for No submission assignment statuses

Academic Group Managers and Gradebook Managers can now determine what status is applied to assignments with the No assignment submission method selected when the due date and time passes.

1. In Academics, select Grades, Grading setup, then Assignment settings.

2. Under Student and Parent defaults, select Edit.

3. Under Assignment status behavior, select a status to automatically apply to assignments that do not require a submission when the due date and time passes:

• Complete (default selection)

• Overdue

• To do

We’ve updated the color scheme for assignments in the In Progress status to allow students to better differentiate these assignments from those in the To Do status.

We’ve updated the icons that students see in the new Assignment Center and the Assignment submission page to be more noticeable. The new icons are larger and more vibrant.

When editing longform text fields, the text box now expands to allow users to see more of their content without needing to scroll. The expanding text box is available for Messages, Academic Official Notes and the following content types:

• Announcements

• Audio

• Downloads

• Events

• Expectations

• Grading Rubric

• Links

• News

• Scoreboard

• Syllabus

• Text

• Videos

Switch between marking periods in new grade report grade entry

In the narrative (list) view of the new grade report grade entry page, faculty can now switch between marking periods using the dropdown under Gradebook history.

Third party payments now include the first and last name of the contact at the organization on journal references when First name and Last name are configured under Posting rules.

Student ID is a new field segment available under the Payments column when configuring posting rules for journal references.

Payers enrolling in Auto-Pay can now choose to use a saved payment method to complete the process. This change applies to US schools only.

We’ve added an optional Calculate late fees column to the Students list, enabling Billing clerks to identify if late fees are enabled for a student.

This update includes enhancements for list managers in the Education area.

· When you select columns of data to show in lists, you can now choose to include NSC US Citizenship, such as for use in National Student Clearinghouse (NCS) reports.

· When you select columns of data to show in lists, the Contact card category now includes options for.

o Preferred name, else first name

o Preferred last name

o Preferred last name, else last name

· Search a list based on user ID as your search criteria.

When user’s Blackbaud ID (BBID) is disabled for two years (such as due to inactivity), then their account is disconnected.

Additionally, the email address that’s used as their username will appear redacted. When you view the user’s profile in Core and select the Access tab, you’ll notice the original email address no longer appears. A filler which states “redacted + date as YYYYMMDD + # @redacted.com” appears instead.

This data is redacted when it is no longer relevant, in accordance with our data retention and security policies.

Platform managers can update the user’s login to use a different email address and then connect it to Blackbaud ID.

New

Update student attendance

We’ve added an endpoint for updating student attendance records for the section specified in the request:

Endpoint: /school/v1/attendance/sections/{section_id}/attendance

The POST Attendance by section update endpoint uses the required section_id path parameter to update attendance for a section. The request body requires a meeting_start_time and supports an optional student_attendances array. When the student_attendances array is excluded, all students are marked as present. Populate the student_attendances array with objects containing a required student_id and execute_type_id, and an optional comment field, to record absences.

Changed

We made an update to this section on November 19 to remove a reference to a feature that will not be released.

Retrieve course scheduling and department information

We’ve added support for several new properties returned in the response body of GET Academic courses:

• schedule_settings contains an array of course scheduling information objects; each course object contains fields describing the scheduling constraints of the course, such as the min_sections, max_sections, target_sections, min_students, max_students, and target_students.

• departments contains an array of departments for the course; each department object contains information about the department, including the id, name, description, and its is_academic flag.

Retrieve enrollment type from enrollment lists

GET Academics student enrollment list now includes an enrollment_type property in its response body.

Retrieve online presence information about users

GET Users extended by role(s) and GET Users extended by user now return an online_presence array in their respective response bodies. Each object in the online_presence array contains information about the users online presence on potentially other social platforms, such as the link to the platform, a description, and more.

Changed

Households data now available from Inquiry list (Get) (PREVIEW)

Inquiry list (Get) (PREVIEW) now supports returning a households object in the response body.

For information about recently added endpoints and other updates, view the School API and OneRoster API changelog.

Interested in the roadmaps for your Blackbaud solutions? Join us at the upcoming Product Update Briefings, starting November 12th, to see what is planned. Register to attend the webinars.

This week in the Education Management Journal, we’re giving you a sneak peek at a trio of free upcoming webinars aimed at making your enrollment season incredibly smooth. Speak to experts, get your questions answers, and learn about some of the pitfalls during setup.

With this release, the Submit assignment and Print buttons now float at the bottom of the assignment submission page.

When users select See grade details on a student’s Progress tab, they now see Grades recently updated for any assignment type with updates since the user last viewed the page. Grades recently updated appears after the faculty member commits any changes to the student’s grades, comments, or grade indicators for the assignment type.

In the student view of the Assignment Center, the Missing assignments button is now red.

When students manually change an assignment status from Completed to To do or In Progress, the student’s selection is now retained. Previously, refreshing the page would revert the assignment status back to Completed.

When annotating assignments, the annotation tool now opens files in a full screen iFrame. To exit the annotation tool, faculty select Close or X. This change prevents the annotation tool from closing when users swipe down on iPads.

When exporting the RSS feed for Assignments from the persona Calendar, the feed now exports the Due date for assignments instead of the Assigned date.

The new grade report grade entry experience for faculty will be enabled for all schools on January 7th. When the new experience is enabled, faculty will only have access to the old grade entry experience through Grading on class pages. The new experience will be available from the New Grading tab on class pages, as well as through My Day, Schedule & Performance, by selecting a grade plan on the Grading tile.

We've updated Conduct Infractions so when an update/edit is made to an infraction within the same threshold, it will no longer retrigger when saved.

As part of our release on October 1st, we added a new basic list called Students with parents (flattened). It returns significantly more results than a similar advanced list template. It shows the information for a single student and up to 4 parents for that student. You can also use it to check parent relationships and how many times parents appear in the basic list.

With this release on November 5th, list managers can now select additional data columns for the basic list. They include:

• student’s email address,

• each parent’s email address,

• list as parent,

• parental access,

• no contact,

• resides with,

• relationship comment,

• relationship type.

You can also filter based on the columns for:

• list as parent,

• parental access,

• no contact,

• resides with,

• relationship comment,

• relationship type.

Previously, when a list manager viewed the columns available for a list, two categories were used to organize fields for the following report requirements:

• Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS),

• National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS),

• National Student Clearinghouse (NSC).

Now, all the data previously included in those categories is consolidated in a new category called Federal reporting. This new category replaces the previous 3 categories. The columns and data remain unchanged; only the labels for the former categories are gone.

This update enables list managers to find the data they need for various types of federal reporting, without needing to select multiple categories. Some columns are useful for multiple reports.

Data regarding which platform managers impersonated another user, who they impersonated, and when, is stored for two years. After two years, the impersonation data history is purged. This data is removed when it is no longer relevant, in accordance with our data retention and security policies.

We've updated the Smart Family ID column label in the Contract List to be Tuition Management Family ID. Please note that this is simply a label change, the functionality remains the same as it was.

When admissions managers select Generate under Contracts for a specific candidate or student from People Finder, a modal now appears with the ability to generate the contract for that specific candidate/student only.

For information about recently added endpoints and other updates, view the School API and OneRoster API changelog.

If you have access to manage logins and you view a user’s Core profile, you’ll notice the login info and options on the Access tab now appear in a more user-friendly format. The order and labels are improved; the functionality remains the same.

• The Disabled account status appears near the top, so you can easily identify whether a user’s account is disabled before you Connect them to Blackbaud ID.

• The Blackbaud ID username appears more prominently, to help you find the right email address for login troubleshooting.

• Authentication status and Login history are now consolidated, which makes the information easier to find.

Note: To view Authentication status, you must be an organization admin or solution admin, and you must not be impersonating.

Admins at schools that use single sign on (SSO) should create a new connection by October 31, 2024. This is a one-time requirement related to migrating our authentication service for Blackbaud ID (BBID).

An admin is the only user who needs to act for this migration. To update or establish an SSO connection between Blackbaud and your Identity Provider (IdP), log into https://www.blackbaud.com/ and select Admin, Security, Authentication. Then follow the instructions online for your school’s IdP. Blackbaud will then use your active directory for the corresponding Blackbaud ID accounts.

End users (including faculty and students) do not need to take action. Their login workflow will remain unchanged on the new SSO connection.

The initial migration for Blackbaud ID occurred May 8, as we previously announced. This update improves the reliability of Blackbaud ID, while also creating an easier, more intuitive sign-in page that puts your brand at the center of the user experience. At the time, we promised to provide additional details for schools that use a single sign on when the new connection became available so they could take the necessary action before October 31. These instructions are also now available via the Blackbaud ID tile on your Core home dashboard.

New

Retrieve content management announcement categories

We’ve added a new endpoint for retrieving announcement categories:

Endpoint:/school/v1/contentmanagement/announcements/categories

GET Content management announcement categories retrieves an array of announcement category objects, with each object containing various fields for identifying key aspects of the announcement category.

Retrieve content management news categories

We’ve added a new endpoint for retrieving news categories:

Endpoint: /school/v1/contentmanagement/news

GET Content management news categories retrieves an array of news categories objects, with each object containing various fields for identifying key aspects of the news category.

Changed

page_size parameter added to GET Users extended by role(s)

We’ve added an optional page_size URL query parameter to GET Users extended by role(s). Leverage the page_size parameter to control the exact number of results returned in each request. The default and max page_size value is 1000.

Additionally, when provided, the next_link property includes the page_size.

Room object now returned in GET Dorm rosters (BETA)

GET Dorm rosters (BETA) now returns a section.roster.room object in its response. The section.roster.room object contains fields that contain data about the room, such as the room number, name, code, capacity, and its id.

For information about recently added endpoints and other updates, view changelog.

This week in the Education Management Journal, we’re taking a closer look at some of the biggest and best enhancements made to the EMS Homepage over the past couple months. Read about all of the tweaks, improvements, and new additions here.

The new grade report grade entry experience for faculty will be enabled for all schools on January 7th. When the new experience is enabled, faculty will only have access to the old grade report grade entry experience through Grading on class pages. The new experience will be available from New Grading on class pages, as well as through My Day, Schedule & Performance, by selecting a grade plan on the Grading tile.

For schools utilizing grade review, once a Grading Manager marks a student’s grades, skills, and comments as “Reviewed,” the grade, comment, and skill entry fields are disabled for that student. Additionally, the grade calculation, bulk comment, and bulk skill entry tools cannot override the existing entries for a student once they are marked “Reviewed.”

Faculty can now select the paste as text icon to paste plain text when entering comments in grid view, list view, the bulk comment editor, and the bulk skill editor.

• In the new Assignment Center experience, students can now select Reports to access and run their available reports. Reports are not available in mobile view.

• The new Assignment Center experience now has a Print option for students. In mobile view, users can print by selecting the ellipsis icon, then Print.

  

With this release, we’ve added a new Learning Profile Edit task to the Learning Profile Manager and Learning Profile Staff roles. The task is enabled by default for the Learning Profile Manager role. It is disabled by default for Learning Profile Staff and clones of both the staff and manager roles.

With the task enabled, Learning Profile Managers and Staff can edit a student’s existing learning profile by going to Academics, People finder, selecting a student and then the Performance tab. Under Learning profiles, select the context menu next to a learning profile, then Edit.

We’ve also added auditing for learning profiles, which users can view by selecting the context menu next to a student’s learning profile, then See change history.

Additionally, Learning Profile Managers can now edit existing learning fields on learning profile forms, as well as add new fields. Previously, learning fields could not be edited or added after a form was in use on student profiles.

1. In Academics, select Grades, then Grading setup.

2. Select Learning profile forms.

3. Locate the form and select Edit.

4. On the Learning Fields tab, edit the Label, Format example, Required, and Sort order as needed. To add fields to the form, select Add Additional Field.

5. When finished, select Save or Save & Exit.

The Attendance Status column from the Class Attendance page now shows the date and time that attendance was taken. Not Taken continues to appear otherwise.

Payers responsible for multiple students will now be able to filter the Statements page in the payer portal by each student. Once filtered, the Statement summary and Activity sections update with the details for the specified student, providing a quick view of their remaining amount due.

If a platform manager uses a smart phone or other mobile device to view the details of a security role, the user interface now adjusts for a more responsive experience. This enables managers to more easily view and manage the tasks associated with a role, even while on the go.

When a platform manager views the list of users they’ve recently impersonated, such as to select to impersonate someone again, the list shows the names of the 20 most recent unique users.

Admins at schools that use single sign on (SSO) should create a new connection by October 31, 2024. This is a one-time requirement related to migrating our authentication service for Blackbaud ID (BBID).

An admin is the only user who needs to act for this migration. To update or establish an SSO connection between Blackbaud and your Identity Provider (IdP), log into https://www.blackbaud.com/ and select Admin, Security, Authentication. Then follow the instructions online for your school’s IdP. Blackbaud will then use your active directory for the corresponding Blackbaud ID accounts.

End users (including faculty and students) do not need to take action. Their login workflow will remain unchanged on the new SSO connection.

The initial migration for Blackbaud ID occurred May 8, as we previously announced. This update improves the reliability of Blackbaud ID, while also creating an easier, more intuitive sign-in page that puts your brand at the center of the user experience. At the time, we promised to provide additional details for schools that use a single sign on when the new connection became available so they could take the necessary action before October 31. These instructions are also now available via the Blackbaud ID tile on your Core home dashboard.

We've enhanced the Internal Notes field on a Candidateprofile. When adding a new one, you can now associate a Note type to help you better categories your notes. By default, this field has one option called Internal Note but this can be customized further to add new options as needed.

If you want to customize your types, go to Admissions Setup, Candidate profile settings and then edit the Internal Note Types section to create your own. You can also deactivate, delete, and reorder them around as well.

For information about recently added endpoints and other updates, view the changelog.

Contract season is fast on approach and for some of you, it may already be happening. This week in the Education Journal, we’re highlighting some tips and tricks that you can take advantage of to help ensure a smoother experience this year. This is a three-part series, so keep an eye out for more in the future.

Assignments marked as missing now display “Missing” instead of the assignment status. This helps alleviate confusion around missing assignments displaying “Graded” or “Complete” status because a grade of zero is entered. If the faculty member removes the missing indicator, the assignment status will display. Additionally, on the assignment submission page, assignments marked “Missing” will always display a red status bar.

Assignments now display as “Overdue” once the due time has passed on the due date. Previously, assignments did not display as “Overdue” until the day after the due date.

In the calendar view of the student Assignment Center, we’ve increased the size of the event tiles and increased the space allowed for assignment titles to three rows of text.

We’ve added two new default gradebook settings for Gradebook Managers to configure.

1. In Academics, Grades, Grading setup, select Gradebook settings.

2. Under Default gradebook settings, select the context menu next to a school level, then Edit defaults.

3. Under Gradebook cumulative display defaults, there are two Student gradebook display defaults. Both are enabled by default.

· Display assignment type percentage shows the percentage next to each assignment type under the Assignment type breakdown in the student gradebook.

· Display assignment percentage grade shows the % Grade column when viewing an assignment type in the student gradebook.

• Comments in the student gradebook now display with their formatting intact.

• When faculty access the Student gradebook from within a class gradebook, they can now navigate between students by selecting Previous or Next.

For Learning Tool Interoperability (LTI) tools set up to display in an iFrame, we've increased the height for the iFrame display. Previously, the default height was too short, requiring users to scroll to view all content.

When an LTI tool is configured to use Preferred name, if available, the Full name endpoint now uses Preferred name as the Given name endpoint does.

Billing clerks can now reattempt to process failed Auto-Pay transactions on behalf of payers via the Review failed payments list. Select any failed auto-pay payment in the list and then select Retry payment to reattempt to process the payment.

Auto-Pay payments that fail to process no longer immediately send an automatic notification to payers at the time of failure, providing Billing clerks time to either handle or retry the failed payment. The notification is now sent to payers when the Billing clerk selects ‘Handle payment’.

The Current bill page now shows payers the last 60 days’ worth of transactions by default.

When a manager customizes the user name format for the school, they can now use three new placeholders:

• preferredlastname|lastname} - If no preferred last name, then last name

• {preferredname|firstname} - If no preferred name, then first name

• {preferredname} - Preferred (first) name

Consider including these new placeholders in your school’s custom user format to ensure members of your community are addressed correctly.

This update extends the functionality of preferred first and last names, which was released earlier this year.

Note: Old placeholders related to nicknames no longer appear. Preferred (first) name replaced them.

When a platform manager edits a user’s employment with the school and saves the changes, the user profile tiles which show information for

• log in information,

• roles,

• and personas

now automatically refreshes to reflect the changes to the user. Previously, platform managers had to manually refresh their browser’s view of the entire page to show the most recent information.

As of this release, platform managers must use the new interface to manage security roles, role membership, and tasks. All menu options only lead to the new version.

Last year we introduced a completely updated user interface to help platform managers manage security roles, role membership, and tasks. Since then, both the new and old user interfaces have been available to admins. The old version is no longer available.

To use the new version now, select Core, Security, and Roles. Find the role in the list, select (...), then Manage roles – NEW.

For information about the new roles and tasks experience, see the online help.

Admins at schools that use single sign on (SSO) should create a new connection by October 31, 2024. This is a one-time requirement related to migrating our authentication service for Blackbaud ID (BBID).

An admin is the only user who needs to act for this migration. To update or establish an SSO connection between Blackbaud and your Identity Provider (IdP), login to https://www.blackbaud.com/ and select Admin, Security, Authentication. Then follow the instructions online for your school’s IdP. Blackbaud will then use your active directory for the corresponding Blackbaud ID accounts.

End users (including faculty and students) do not need to take action. Their login workflow will remain unchanged on the new SSO connection.

The initial migration for Blackbaud ID occurred May 8, as we previously announced. At the time, we promised to provide additional details for schools that use a single sign on when the new connection became available so they could take the necessary action before October 31. These instructions are also now available via the Blackbaud ID tile on your Core home dashboard, along with a count down.

This update improves the reliability of Blackbaud ID, while also creating an easier, more intuitive sign-in page that puts your brand at the center of the user experience.

New

Retrieve content news categories

We’ve added a new endpoint for retrieving information about news categories:

Endpoint: /school/v1/contentmanagement/news/categories

GET Content management news categories returns an array of admin news category objects, with each object containing details about the news category.

For information about recently added endpoints and other updates, view changelog.

In the student Assignment Center, assignment details now indicate whether an assignment requires an Online submission or an On paper submission. If no submission is required, no submission method is displayed.

In the mobile view of the student Assignment Center calendar, we’ve made the following updates. Additional updates will be made in upcoming releases.

• The calendar always displays Day view.

• Selecting the date opens the date selector.

• The +Add task button is relabeled +.

• The ...More button now displays only the ellipsis.

• The Missing Assignments button is in the ellipsis button dropdown.

The assignment annotation tool has been updated so annotations display in the location where they are placed within assignment files.

We’ve made the following updates to the newgrade report grade entry experience for faculty:

• When selecting Show previous grades, the selected grade plans are now sorted by the grade plan start date, then by the sort order of the Grade Plan Grades or Skill.

• In grid view, the left to right scroll bar now floats so users no longer need to scroll to the bottom of the grid to access it.

When working with Class Attendance inside of the Attendance Hub, we've added a new Attendance of Record filter. While it defaults to All, you can change it to Yes or No as needed.

Billing management now automatically saves the state of Add charges to group sessions, protecting Billing clerks against data loss scenarios. Each incomplete session is automatically saved whenever a new row is added. Saved sessions are available to be resumed on the Process history tab.

Additionally, a new Save draft button, available at the bottom of the Add charges to group form, enables Billing clerks to manually save drafts as needed.

Billing clerks can now include alumni and past students in the Add payments to group process.

To help payers better identify payments that fail, we’ve made some adjustments to their Current bill page. We’ve removed the Status column and added the information from that column into the Payment amount field. In the same field, payers will also see why the payment failed.

The failed payment email and SMS notification now features a Failed payment reason merge field; embed the merge field into your notification to help payers understand what went wrong with their payment.

A new security task, called Impersonation history, is now enabled by default for users with the platform manager role. This enables platform managers to view a history of

• which users have impersonated other users,

• who they have impersonated,

• and when they impersonated the other users.

Filter the history by time and search by name. Then use it to review impersonation activity for security or managerial purposes. For example, identify users who may need their roles and tasks adjusted (to grant them access to features), investigate whether an important action could have been completed by an impersonator, and more.

To view the history, navigate to Core, select Security, then select Impersonation history.

Previously, if a user customized which profile content they published to other users, but then the user’s security roles or tasks changed, some of the settings which control this publishing process could become unintuitive, or the user would be unable to return the setting to their defaults.

This update makes the profile publish settings more user friendly and ensures they follow user expectations.

From your name’s drop-down menu, select Settings, Privacy, then in general settings select Reset to default. This new option clears any options the user previously selected to customize and returns their settings to the school’s defaults. Additionally, settings which apply to roles that the user no longer has will likewise no longer appear.

To configure the defaults for each role-to-role combination at the school, a manager should go to Core, Security, Profile access, and then Profile publish access.

Tip: When you change a user’s security roles, any profile publish settings that no longer apply will be removed from the user’s view during an overnight refresh. So if a user sees a setting for a role you recently removed, ask the user to re-check their profile privacy settings the next day.

Last year we introduced a completely updated user interface to help platform managers manage security roles, role membership, and tasks.

Since then, both the new and old user interfaces have been available to admins. On October 15, 2024, the old version will no longer be available and all menu options will lead to the new version only.

To use the new version now, select Core, Security, and Roles. Find the role in the list and select (...) and then Manage roles – NEW.

For information about the new roles and tasks experience, see the online help.

Admins at schools that use single sign on (SSO) should create a new connection by October 31, 2024. This is a one-time requirement related to migrating our authentication service for Blackbaud ID (BBID).

An admin is the only user who needs to act for this migration. To update or establish an SSO connection between Blackbaud and your Identity Provider (IdP), login to https://www.blackbaud.com/ and select Admin, Security, Authentication. Then follow the instructions online for your school’s IdP. Blackbaud will then use your active directory for the corresponding Blackbaud ID accounts.

End users (including faculty and students) do not need to take action. Their login workflow will remain unchanged on the new SSO connection.

The initial migration for Blackbaud ID occurred May 8, as we previously announced. At the time, we promised to provide additional details for schools that use a single sign on when the new connection became available so they could take the necessary action before October 31. These instructions are also now available via the Blackbaud ID tile on your Core home dashboard, along with a count down.

This update improves the reliability of Blackbaud ID, while also creating an easier, more intuitive sign-in page that puts your brand at the center of the user experience.

Admissions managers now have access to helplets that appear when creating an online transcript request checklist step. The helplets provide additional information about what sort of details are needed in fields like the Recipient Title, or E-mail Subject.

When using Recommendation, Online Recommendation and Online Transcript Request checklist steps, admissions managers now have the option to select Resend Request when the status is set to Requested. Resent Request also allows the admin to pick whether to resend the request to the same recipient/email, same recipient/different email or different recipient/email.

Changes

Candidate List (Get) now supports pagination

GET candidate list (Get) now supports pagination. Include the optional size or page parameters in the request body to impact the results returned in the request. By default, the default size is set to 3000.

For information about recently added endpoints and other updates, view the School API and OneRoster API changelog.

Over the Summer, we made some big changes to the Assignment Center. To help you find the information you need faster, we’ve created a series of videos and collected them together in this week’s Journal entry. They’re focused on the Student, Faculty, and Admin experience to help you find the information you need much faster and easier than before.

With this release, we’ve updated the submission methods available for faculty to select when creating assignments. These changes alleviate confusion that may arise for an assignment that shows as “Overdue” when, in fact, there is no submission required for the assignment.

In addition to the existing In-system submission and Third party submission options, faculty have two new submission methods to choose from:

• No assignment submission: The assignment has no physical or online submission component. When the assignment due date passes, the assignment status updates to Complete. Students and teachers don't have to take additional steps to prevent the assignment from displaying as Overdue after the due date, making this option ideal for task-based assignments, such as assigned reading or presentations.

• On paper submission only: Students submit a physical assignment. When the due date passes, the assignment status updates to Overdue until the assignment is graded or marked Collected. If students can choose between submitting their assignment on paper or uploading their assignment files online, faculty must select In-system submission so the file upload options are available to students.

For students accessing the list view of the Assignment Center, the Missing or overdue section is now collapsed by default and users can select the section to expand it. Additionally, the Assignment Center filters are now hidden by default in both list view and calendar view. Users can access them by selecting Show filters.

When an assessment is shared across multiple class sections, teachersfaculty can now compare the results across those sections in the Detailed breakdown. From the Assignment Center, select the assessment name, then Detailed breakdown and use Select section results to choose the class sections to include in the reports below.

General statistics displays aggregate data from all sections.

Question insights includes the Most incorrect question and Most correct question for each included class section.

The Final score distribution displays a stacked bar graph with each color representing a different class section.

• Teachers can select a section name to toggle that class section on/off in the graph.

• Selecting a question under Final score distribution opens a flyout with additional details for each class section. The details displayed vary by question type.

Question breakdown displays Incorrect, Partial, Correct, and Not graded data points for all selected sections combined.

Students can no longer manually update the status of an assignment with the In-system submission method selected. To change the status to Complete, the student must submit the assignment or the faculty member can mark it Collected.

Dorm Supervisors and Coaches can no longer select See grade details on a student’s Progress tab when they do not have access to the student’s grades. Previously, See grade details displayed, but when selected, Dorm Supervisor without access to the student’s grades encountered an error.

Previously, if list managers wanted to view a list of Students with parents (flattened), they had to use an advanced list template. This advanced list limited results to a maximum of 100,00 users or 50,000 relationships for parents and children.

Now, they can run a basic list instead. This update enables schools to report on significantly more students and parents. To learn how many users your school has, review the count in Core, Users, User list.

The new basic list shows the information for a single student and up to 4 parents for that student. You can also use it to check parent relationships and how many times parents appear in the new basic list.

Find the new basic list in Core, Reporting, Manage lists, Manage basic and advances lists, Add, and select Create basic list. Then, from the Student information category, select Students (role based) with parents (flattened).

Tip: Looking for the inverse? Use the basic list for Parent & students family information (from the Parent information category) to show parents 1 and 2 with up to 5 students instead.

Last year we introduced a completely updated user interface to help platform managers manage security roles, role membership, and tasks.

Since then, both the new and old user interfaces have been available to admins. On October 15, 2024, the old version will no longer be available and all menu options will lead to the new version only.

To use the new version now, select Core, Security, and Roles. Find the role in the list and select (...) and then Manage roles – NEW.

For information about the new roles and tasks experience, see the online help.

Admissions managers now have more control over Name Formatting within Name Tags for events. Specifically, they can choose whether titles are always included by default as well as other options like Pronouns, Entering year, Entering grade, Preferred name, and more. These options can be found by selecting Sign Ups from the Event and then selecting Nametags.

To support this change, we've also switched the formatting options to a multiselect instead of a drop down so schools can now select the options they want.

With this update, we've updated the links for recommendations and transcript requests to now expire after 90 days instead of 60.

New

Retrieve announcements

We’ve added a new endpoint for retrieving announcements for the user calling the endpoint:

Endpoint: /school/v1/content/announcements

GET Content announcements returns an array of content announcement objects, containing properties such as headline, author, description, and a categories array; the categories array contains objects with properties such as content_type, name, primary, publish_date, and expire_date. By default, the endpoint returns all announcements for the user, but the optional category property can be passed as a URL query parameter to limit results in the response to those matching the category.

Retrieve announcement categories

We’ve added a new endpoint for retrieving announcement categories for the user calling the endpoint:

Endpoint: /school/v1/content/announcements/categories

GET Content announcements returns an array of content announcement categories, each containing an id and description property.

For information about recently added endpoints and other updates, view our changelog.

Over the Summer, we made some big changes to the Assignment Center. To help you find the information you need faster, we’ve created a series of videos and collected them together in this week’s Journal entry. They’re focused on the Student, Faculty, and Admin experience to help you find the information you need much faster and easier than before.

With this release, we’ve made the following updates to the new Student Assignment Center experience.

Calendar and list views

• When students select Hide filters, the setting is now “sticky.” They can display filters again by selecting Show filters.

• The filter to display Major assignments is renamed Only display Major assignments.

• For a consistent experience across assignments and student-created tasks, students can now select the status of a task to open the task editing modal.

Calendar view

• Long task names are now truncated with an ellipsis. Previously, only an ellipsis displayed without any of the task name text.

• Updating the status of an assignment now automatically updates the assignment tile color without refreshing the page.

List view

• The assignment details now include the Assigned date and time.

This release includes the following enhancements to the Student gradebook that students, and faculty access by selecting See grade details on the student’s Progress tab.

• After selecting See grade details, students can now navigate between classes by selecting Previous or Next. Before this change, users had to close the grade detail for one class and select See grade details again to access another class.

When viewing assignments by Assignment type:

• Assignments are sorted by due date with the most recent assignments first.

• Exclude from cumulative grade displays under any assignments that the faculty member has not configured to be included in the cumulative grade calculation.

• The html entity for non-breaking spaces ( ) is no longer visible under Comments.

For information about recently added endpoints and other updates, view the School API and OneRoster API changelog.

With schools now back into a new year, we’re catching you up on all of the biggest features that arrived within Blackbaud’s Education management products over the summer months of June, July, and August.

Gradebook managers can now edit gradebook settings within individual gradebooks, even if faculty are restricted from editing the settings. While faculty will continue to see restricted settings as grayed out, Gradebook managers can edit the settings as needed.

For example, a Gradebook manager may set the default Calculation method to Total points for all gradebooks and restrict faculty from changing this setting. If there are a handful of classes that should use a different calculation method, the Gradebook manager can now select the alternative calculation method within those individual gradebooks.

Gradebook managers access individual gradebook settings from the Gradebooks list.

1. In Academics, select Grades, then Gradebooks.

2. Locate the gradebook and select the class under Gradebook.

3. Select More, then Settings.

4. Update the settings as needed, then select Save.

For faculty, the Assignment Center calendar view now follows the default display setting selected in Assignment settings. Previously, the calendar view always defaulted to displaying assignments by the Assigned date.

When a faculty member marks an assignment “Collected”, the status now updates to “Completed” in the student’s view of the class Assignments tab. Previously, the status displayed as “Completed” in the student’s Assignment Center, but displayed as “Overdue” on the class Assignments tab.

The student view of the Assignment details page now displays a blue status bar when the assignment status is “To do” or “In progress”. Previously, the bar was beige.

We’ve separated the New Assignment Center video into three shorter videos that highlight the new features that impact specific personas.

• Student experience

• Faculty updates

• Admin updates

Admins at schools that use single sign on (SSO) should create a new connection by October 31, 2024. This is a one-time requirement related to migrating our authentication service for Blackbaud ID (BBID).

An admin is the only user who needs to act for this migration. To update or establish an SSO connection between Blackbaud and your Identity Provider (IdP), login to https://www.blackbaud.com/ and select Admin, Security, Authentication. Then follow the instructions online for your school’s IdP. Blackbaud will then use your active directory for the corresponding Blackbaud ID accounts.

End users (including faculty and students) do not need to take action. Their login workflow will remain unchanged on the new SSO connection.

The initial migration for Blackbaud ID occurred May 8, as we previously announced. At the time, we promised to provide additional details for schools that use a single sign on when the new connection became available so they could take the necessary action before October 31. These instructions are also now available via the Blackbaud ID tile on your Core home dashboard, along with a count down.

This update improves the reliability of Blackbaud ID, while also creating an easier, more intuitive sign-in page that puts your brand at the center of the user experience.

When a platform manager configures general settings for school directories, the dropdown menu for name formats now indicates “preferred name” instead of “nickname.” The functionality of the options remains unchanged. The labels were updated to improve consistency throughout the user interface. The nickname field used here already pulled data from the preferred name field.

Managers can now use a data import to enter the Anticipated completion date for students in bulk. This saves time as schools no longer need to enter it for each student individually. From Core, System tools, Data import and choose the Student category. Find the new import type called Enrollment reporting.

Select to view the file layout help to ensure your import file contains the necessary information and that column headers are properly formatted. Consider downloading a sample file to use as an import template. Your import file may include:

· User ID or host ID (required to match records)

· First name (information only)

· Last name (information only)

· Anticipated completion date (MM/DD/YYYY)

· Cohort year

· First-time student

· Entering enrollment status

· Started in fall term

· US nonresident

· Entering FIPS code

Tip: If your import file contains a blank or null value for a field on a record, but the matching record already contains data for that field, the field value is retained and doesn’t become null.

Importantly, the first name and last name fields are indicated as Information only – meaning the import will not use these fields for matching records and it won’t update those fields. Information only fields make it easier for admins to pull data from other systems without requiring the names to match among all systems.

When processing applications, admissions managers now see the applicant's Entering year and Entering grade in the summary. This change aligns applications with the process that is currently used for inquiries.

Students now see an alert banner when they've been assigned a Student Checklist. Previously, only parents would see a banner when a checklist was assigned.

New

Retrieve test score results

We’ve added an endpoint for returning test scores for candidates:

Endpoint: /enrollmentmanagement/v1/tests

GET Test list (GET) provides a list of all test scores for enrollment candidates. The test score results in the response can be filtered by defining any of several optional parameters in the endpoint URL, including test_type, start_date, end_date, and last_modified.

Retrieve candidate history

We’ve added an endpoint for retrieving a list of candidate status changes for a single candidate:

Endpoint: /enrollmentmanagement/v1/candidatestatuses/{candidate_id}

GET Candidate status change list – single candidate (Get) provides a list of changes to the candidate’s history corresponding to the candidate_id defined as a URL parameter. By default, the response results are specific to the current admissions year, but by defining a school_year as an optional URL parameter, the response results can be refined.

New

Add custom fields to a course

We’ve added an endpoint for creating custom course fields:

Endpoint: /school/v1/academics/courses/{course_id}/customfields/list

POST Academics course custom fields list create uses the data from the custom_field object provided in the request body to add a custom field to the course corresponding to the course_id property defined as a URL parameter.

Update custom fields for an academic section

We’ve added an endpoint for updating the custom field data for an academic section:

Endpoint: /school/v1/academics/sections/{section_id}/customfields/list

PATCH Academics section custom fields list update uses the data from the custom_field object provided in the request body to update a custom field for the section corresponding to the section_id property defined as a URL query parameter.

Update custom fields for a course

We’ve added an endpoint for updating the custom field data for a course

Endpoint: /school/v1/academics/courses/{course_id}/customfields/list

PATCH Academics courses custom fields list update uses the data from the custom_field object provided in the request body to update a custom field for the course corresponding to the course_id property defined as a URL query parameter.

Changed

Various field names deprecated

We’ve deprecated three fields previously featured in the response returned by the GET Users employment by role(s) (BETA) endpoint. This change is made in accordance with our deprecation notice issued on August 1, 2024. The change includes:

The Deprecated Field Names are no longer featured in the response data returned by the endpoint and are meant to be replaced by the New Field Names referenced above.

At the beginning of August, we’re planning to introduce the Attendance Hub, which is the go-to spot for Attendance managers and clerks to handle all day-to-day tasks related to class attendance. The new experience completely replaces the old menu after going to Academics, and then Attendance. Please note that all previous menu options can now be found under Related Links, and we’ve added a few additional shortcuts to Reports and Student Statuses list as well.

From the Attendance Hub, you have a couple of different options for recording attendance for a single student or group, which opens the modal you’d see if you selected the option from the Academics home page. Alternatively, you can also use the search feature to open a specific student record attendance detail page, displaying information like their daily schedule, emergency contact information, and attendance summaries for the current school year.

The Needs attention panel displays tasks that attendance managers need to focus on, such as unrecorded attendance or early dismissal. What’s going on showcases an attendance breakdown based on the reason code given. Finally, the Late attendance tile displays how many reminder emails were sent on a given day, per week, as well as the previous week. If notifications are not yet setup, it’ll feature links that will take the user to the notification setup for the selected school level.

For more on the Attendance Hub, make sure to check out our help documentation.

When a student creates an Associated task for an assignment, that task is now displayed as its own entry in the Assignment Center. Prior to this update, Associated tasks only displayed nested underneath the related assignment. This change makes it easier for students to track and keep up with the tasks they create for their assignments.

Admissions managers now have additional fields within the Candidate header. With this update, we've added a Boarding/Day indicator, which only shows if there's a selection from the student's contact card for Boarding or Day. In addition, we've added an indicator if there is at least one Profile Notice on their record. Keep in mind that this indicator is just visual, it's not a link or selectable.

New

Update employee information

We’ve added a new endpoint for updating information about employees:

Endpoint: PATCH /school/v1/users/{user_id}/employment

PATCH Users employment update uses the user_id parameter to identify which employee’s information to update with the data provided in the request body.

The new endpoint provides you with the ability to define a start and end date for the employee, whether their account is disabled or not, the school levels, grade levels, sports, and department they are associated with, and more.

New

ChecklistSteps array added to GET Student checklist type (Get)

We’ve updated the GET Student Checklist type (Get) endpoint to include a ChecklistSteps array. Use the data from the ChecklistSteps array to learn more about the steps associated with a checklist.

In case you missed it, this week’s journal is all about our upcoming changes to grade details and Student Progress. You can check out what the new experience will look like, as well as how we’re solving some key issues with the old experience and how you consume data.

When gradebook calculations are set by marking period, faculty can now copy their calculation settings from the first marking period to subsequent marking periods. Settings can also be copied to additional class sections.

1. From Faculty, select Classes and choose a class.

2. Select Launch gradebook.

3. Select More, then Settings.

4. Select Grade calculation.

5. Under Set calculation by, select Marking period. Your school may require all gradebooks to use the same Set calculation by setting. If so, you cannot change the selection.

6. For the first marking period, set up the calculation as needed, including the Calculation method, Assignment types, Weight (if applicable), Letter grade scales, and Number to drop per marking period.

7. (Optional) Under Other sections to apply, select any of your other courses these settings should apply to. You cannot apply settings to courses that are already set up.

8. Select Copy to all marking periods to copy the settings for the first marking period to all subsequent marking periods for the current class and any other sections selected under Other sections to apply for the first marking period.

All settings are copied, including the Calculation method, Assignment types, Weights, Letter grade scales, and Number to drop per marking period.

With this release, the old Assessment experience is removed. Faculty no longer have the option to create assessments with the old builder. Assessments created with the old builder are still accessible for historical data and faculty can still convert old assessments to the new experience.

Check out the Assessment video series for more information.

In this release, the new student Assignment Center experience, which has been available for schools to activate since December 2023, is enabled for all schools. The old experience will no longer be accessible.

The new Student Assignment experience includes the following updates:

• Custom color coding for classes: Students can assign a color to each of their classes, and the colors are used in the list and calendar views of the new Assignment Center.

• Color coded assignment statuses: In calendar view, background colors indicate assignment statuses:

  • Blue: In progress, To do, or Paused

  • Green: Complete or Graded

  • Red: Overdue or Missing

• Enhanced settings and filters: Students have more filters to identify their actionable assignments and settings to manage the information displayed for their assignments.

• Maximum points for assignments are visible to students.

• Assignment and Class tasks: Students can create tasks for a specific class or tasks for a specific assignment, which is particularly helpful if they want to track milestones for long term or multi-part assignments. Previously, students could only create General tasks that were not linked to a class or assignment.

• Separate Assignment Center defaults: In Assignment settings, Academic Group Managers and Gradebook Managers can now configure Assignment Center defaults for faculty and separate defaults for students and parents.

• Default assignment due time: Previously, all assignments defaulted to an 11:59 PM due time. With the new experience, Academic Group Managers and Gradebook Managers can set a global default due time that better suits the school.

• Enhanced Student Assignment Preview: Faculty can access an assignment preview that mirrors the student view. The previous assignment preview was not an accurate reflection of the student view.

• New Student Assignment Details page: Students have an updated Assignment Details page where they can view all information for an assignment and upload online file submissions.

• SKY UX: The new experience utilizes SKY UX for improved usability on mobile devices.

We also have a few more enhancements planned for the coming weeks, including the addition of a Major assignments filter that will make it easier for students to identify key assignments, and updates to the way student-created tasks are displayed in the Assignment Center calendar and list views.

Watch the New Assignment Center video for more information.

At the end of July, we’re planning to introduce the Attendance Hub, which is the go-to spot for Attendance managers and clerks to handle all day-to-day tasks related to class attendance. The new experience completely replaces the old menu after going to Academics, and then Attendance. Please note that all previous menu options can now be found under Related Links, and we’ve added a few additional shortcuts to Reports and Student Statuses list as well.

From the Attendance Hub, you have a couple of different options for recording attendance for a single student or group, which opens the modal you’d see if you selected the option from the Academics home page. Alternatively, you can also use the search feature to open a specific student record attendance detail page, displaying information like their daily schedule, emergency contact information, and attendance summaries for the current school year.

The Needs attention panel displays tasks that attendance managers need to focus on such as unrecorded attendance or early dismissal. What’s going on showcases information such as the number of absences, visits, and other specific events that are taking place on a given day. Finally, the Late attendance tile displays how many reminder emails were sent on a given day, per week, as well as the previous week. If notifications are not yet setup, it’ll feature links that will take the user to the notification setup for the selected school level

The student view now appears by default when a resource board manager goes to Core, Content and views Resource boards. Previously, the alum view showed by default. This saves time and reduces clicks since managers typically update content for incoming and current students more often than for alums.

After the resource board manager changes their view to another persona, the view is “sticky” to that selected persona for the rest of their browser session. When they log out and back in, the default view reappears.

For information about recently added endpoints and other updates, view the School API and OneRoster API changelog.

Back in December, we implemented a new student and parent Assignment Center experience for schools to opt into at a time of their choosing. With the July 23 release, that new experience will be enabled for all schools and the old Assignment Center experience will be removed.

With the July 23 release we are also removing the old Assessment experience for faculty. Assessments created with the old builder will still be available, but faculty will no longer be able to create new assessments using the old builder.

Check out our recent journal for a closer look at these changes.

Faculty can now associate rubrics with assignments evaluated with the Mastery and total score method. Prior to this release, rubrics could only be associated with assignments evaluated with the Total score only method, requiring faculty to create multiple assignments or create rubrics outside of Blackbaud's Learning Management System.

In the coming weeks, we’re upgrading the way students and parents consume assignment grades in the See grade details experience. Keep an eye on the What’s New for details on a go-live date.

The new experience aims to offer more transparency in how cumulative grades are calculated, including which assignments are dropped from calculations and which assignments are marked as extra credit. It also provides more customizable options for how grades are displayed on a class-by-class basis. Administrators can configure default settings at the school lovel and teachersfaculty can further customize their class settings within their gradebooks.

See the Student Gradebook journal for more details on these upcoming changes.

When gradebook calculations are set by marking period, faculty can now copy their calculation settings from the first marking period to subsequent marking periods. Settings can also be copied to additional class sections.

1. From Faculty, select Classes and choose a class.

2. Select Launch gradebook.

3. Select More, then Settings.

4. Select Grade calculation.

5. Under Set calculation by, select Marking period.

   Note: Your school may require all gradebooks to use the same Set calculation by setting. If so, you cannot change the selection.

6. For the first marking period, set up the calculation as needed, including the Calculation method, Assignment types, Weights (if applicable), Letter grade scales, and Number to drop per marking period.

7. (Optional) Under Other sections to apply, select any of your other courses these settings should apply to. You cannot apply settings to courses that are already set up.

8. Select Copy to all marking periods to copy the settings for the first marking period to all subsequent marking periods for the current class and any other sections selected under Other sections to apply for the first marking period.

All settings are copied, including the Calculation method, Assignment types, Weights (if applicable), Letter grade scales, and Number to drop per marking period.

Schools can now use resource boards to share content with:

• candidates,

• parents of candidates,

• parents of alums,

• and parents of past students.

These roles now have task 53128 to view resource boards enabled by default, which enables the Resources menu item to appear. A platform manager should review each role in Core to ensure the task is enabled or disabled as desired for your community.

Tip: The Incoming Studentrole already has task 53128 which enables access to resources according to the level the student is entering.

There are also 2 new levels to which resource boards can be published:

• Pre-enrollment (candidates and parents of candidates),

• Post-enrollment (parents of alums, and parents of past students).

Review and edit your resource boards for the Student and Parent personas, and consider using resource boards to inform these new segments of users about seasonal requirements, policies, news, events, and more. Use the page filters for Pre-enrollment and Post-Enrollment to reflect what these users will see when they access resources. A resource board manager can do this from Core, Content, Resource boards.

Additionally, when a resource board admin views the boards, they’ll now see the boards for the persona they last visited. Previously, they always landed on the Alumni view by default. This additional “stickiness” reduces the number of times admins need to select the persona filter when viewing boards for frequently accessed personas. It is “sticky” for the current browser session, but resets when the admin logs out.

For information about recently added endpoints and other updates, view the School API and OneRoster API changelog.

Back in December, we implemented a new student and parent Assignment Center experience for schools to opt into at a time of their choosing. With the July 23 release, that new experience will be enabled for all schools and the old Assignment Center experience will be removed.

With the July 23 release we are also removing the old Assessment experience for faculty. Assessments created with the old builder will still be available, but faculty will no longer be able to create new assessments using the old builder.

Check out our recent journal for a closer look at these changes.

Faculty can now associate rubrics with assignments evaluated with the Mastery and total score method. Prior to this release, rubrics could only be associated with assignments evaluated with the Total score only method, requiring faculty to create multiple assignments or create rubrics outside of Blackbaud's Learning Management System.

In graded assessments, unanswered questions now display a message stating that the student did not submit an answer. Previously, unanswered questions were marked Incorrect, but it was not clear that no answer was submitted.

In the new faculty grade entry experience, the auto-save feature no longer displays a "loading" indicator as faculty compose grade comments. The "loading" indicator interrupted the text entry process, and it has been replaced by a Last saved timestamp.

We've updated the Make a payment experience for payers with a new repayment option and guidance around how each option impacts their balance.

• The Minimum due now illustrates how the amount due is composed by showing the difference between the current balance and the next Auto-Pay installment amount.

• Past due balance is a new option for directly paying off charges unpaid by their due dates.

• Each option contains helpful information below the selection.

New payment processing gateways now exclusively default to BBMS (Blackbaud Merchant Services) when first being created. This does not impact existing payment gateways.

Payment processing is set up by navigating to Core, selecting Settings in the navigation, and then choosing Payment settings in the drop-down. On the new page, select the Payment processing tab.

New

Return a list of non-academic departments

We've added a new optional request parameter to return non-academic departments from the GET Academics departments endpoint:

• Include the Boolean property include_nonacademic in the request parameter and set its value to true to return non-academic departments in the response.

We've added four new properties returned in the response for the GET Academics departments endpoint:

• is_academic, Boolean, returns True if the department is academic.

• description, string, the description of the department.

• school_levels, array, an array of school level objects for the department.

• school_level , object, an object nested within the school_levels array containing school level information, exemplified as:

{

"id": 1,

"description": "Upper School",

"abbreviation": "US"

}

The responses returned by various Academics endpoints now includes a custom_fields array of objects; each object contains data about an individual custom field associated with the section or course.

The endpoints now featuring custom_fields in their responses include:

• GET Academics sections by school level

• GET Academics sections by teacher

• GET Academics student enrollment list

• GET Academics courses

The property preferred_last_name is now included in the responses of the following endpoints:

GET Users extended by role(s)

GET Users extended byuser

GET Users changed by base role(s)

GET User by ID

GET Users by role(s)

GET Users Children of Parent

GET Users custom fields list by base role(s)

GET Users Enrollments by year

GET Users employment by role(s)

POST User create

PATCH User update

The permission requirements for retrieving non-sensitive tables via the GET Types table values endpoint have been eased. For example, users no longer need to be a Platform Manager to request the Relationship table from the endpoint.

The property global_id was deprecated on July 1, 2024. The following endpoints are impacted:

• GET Users extended by role(s)
• GET Users extended by user

This notification is a follow-up to our original announcement made on March 28.

Changed

Marking period now identified when not included in request body for PUT LineItem

PUT LineItem now identifies the correct Marking Period when its left undefined in the request body by using the value of the assignDate property.

The items referenced in this notification are always compiled and available to view via School API and OneRoster API changelog.

Missed any of our recent journal entries? You can catch up on everything you missed within our Online Help Center right here.

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The Aged accounts receivable report now features a Billing year filter, enabling billing clerks to specify the year the report data reflects. For schools leveraging Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT, use the Billing year filter to aid in the end-of-year audit to reconcile against the general ledger in Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT.

Previously, when a platform manager configured settings in Core, Security, Profile access, Profile relationship access, you could select Do not restrict access. Default settings will be used.

This option has been combined into Use the following custom settings. First and last name settings now appear in these custom settings.

In other words, the privacy access settings for users remain the same as they were before the update. However, this update makes it easier for platform managers to review and compare the access settings for names for each relationship type. The change improves clarity but doesn’t change functionality.

You can Edit the profile access settings for each combination of relationship types, such as to control which information users see when they view your school’s directories.

We’ve upgraded calendars throughout Blackbaud Education Management to improve performance and security. Most of the appearance, functionality, and workflow remains unchanged for users, including views, filters, search, and more. However, you may notice slight differences. These changes include:

• Word wrap – The icon for this button has changed. Now, you’ll select . Previously, you would have selected .

• Print – When you select to print a calendar, the Print option now triggers your internet browser’s print function.

  • Use your browser’s settings to adjust how the results should appear, such as whether to print in:

    • color vs greyscale.

    • portrait vs landscape.

  • You can still adjust the font size of the printed results; however, you’ll now use the Scale option from your browser’s printing settings to do so.

  • To include event details, select Show event detailson the calendar, before you select Print.

    • When you print event details, the results are now a “cleaner” view which omits buttons that aren’t clickable in printed output. Previously, buttons for add, edit, and delete were shown in the printed results.

For information about recently added endpoints and other updates, view the School API and OneRoster API changelog.

This week’s journal looks closer at the upcoming Assignment and Assessment experience changes and confirms an official end of life date for the old version.

You can find new Journal entries within our Online Help Center right here.

We've recently finished rolling out a new update for Attendance Notifications. Now, administrators can set up notifications that automatically remind faculty to take attendance if they haven't taken it after a set period of time. From Academics, admins should head to Attendance, Attendance setup, then Attendance notifications to add, edit, and view them as needed. One notification is added per school level, and administrators have a variety of settings to modify such as adding specific recipient roles, providing a way to Opt Out, as well as if a notification should be sent for all classes or as an Attendance of record only.

We hope this update reduces the amount of time administrators need to devote to manually messaging or emailing teachers to remind them about attendance.

When viewing the class schedule, we've made a change to how canceled classes are displayed. When teachers view the calendar, they'll now see a red danger icon with text that says Cancelled.

For non-teacher roles, the danger icon appears if the class is canceled, if section records attendance and no attendance is recorded. If there is attendance recorded, a success indicator, in the form of a green checkmark icon, appears with an Attendance link that opens the record class attendance modal when selected. Ultimately, these icons should make it easier to scan the calendar for class updates rather than needing to select each one individually.

When evaluating assignments, faculty can now access the assignment editing modal by selecting More, then Edit assignment.

In the new Assignment details page, students can now upload files by dragging and dropping them into the Drag a file here tile. Previously, students only had the option to browse and select files for upload.

Deceased individuals are now excluded from emails sent through group rosters when selecting Send communication to, choosing group members, then selecting send via e-mail.

Selecting multiple accounts on the Past due balances list now reveals a new Add hold option. When selected, Billing clerks can apply a hold to just the selected accounts with the same Hold code, Reason, and date range.

Selecting multiple accounts on the Past due balances list now reveals a new Add late charge option. When selected, Billing clerks can generate late charges for just the selected accounts at the same time.

This feature joins the existing Generate late charges option found under More actions on the Past due balances list, but with more granular control

The Past due balances list now features a new Hold code filter. Use the filter to quickly refine the list to only see accounts with active holds.

Billing year is a new optional filter available on the Aged accounts receivables list, enabling Billing clerks to refine the list to only include records within a specific billing year.

Note: This feature was originally communicated as released as of last Tuesday, June 11. We apologize for the mistake.

When you attempt to delete a user’s address but that address is shared with other users, a warning appears. Select whether to remove the address from only that user or from all users who share the address.

This helps ensure information isn’t accidentally removed from other users. For example, an older sibling might move out of the family home while the rest of the family continues to reside there.

Previously, only Core user profiles provided this safeguard. Now, 360 profiles also include it.

When an organization administrator attempts to create a new user who is an environmental admin for Blackbaud Education Management, via the Education area (instead of Core), but the user’s Blackbaud ID already exists for Core, then the user accounts are now linked. Previously, the system created a duplicate user, even though the Blackbaud ID account already existed in Core.

When Has the student previously attended school? is set to No, the Application form no longer requires parents to fill out the associated school information. This should help families and students proceed on the form who have not previously attended the school.

In addition, admissions managers will now see that the Has the student previously attended school? field is now on the Sample Application and set to Required and Show by default.

Admissions managers can now enable a column for Added by in the Financial aid awards list. This column shows if an awarded was added via BBFAM integration, Billing Management or if it was manually added.

value[i].events, value[i].interviews, and value[i].visits are three new arrays returned by the GET Admissions candidates endpoint. Each array contains corresponding event, interview, and visit objects, respectively.

• Use value[i].events to determine information about the admissions event, such as name, start_time, and type, and whether the candidate is_registered, attended, left a comment, and more.

• Use value[i].interviews to determine information about the interview for each admissions candidate, including start_time and end_time, the interviewer, whether the candidate did_not_show, and more.

• Use value[i].vists to determine information about candidate visits, such as the start_time and end_time, the user who was the guide, accompanying adults, and more.

For a complete list of fields, reference the Response: 200 OK section of the GET Admissions candidates endpoint documentation.

For information about recently added endpoints and other updates, view the School API and OneRoster API changelog.

In April, we launched a new Journal help feature, which highlights new features, best practices, and everything else related to Blackbaud's Education Management products. This week’s journal discusses how we’re approaching the summer months, now that vacation is here for schools.

You can find new Journal entries within our Online Help Center right here.

When students upload files for assignments, non-ascii characters are now removed from filenames. Previously, users received errors when attempting to open files including non-ascii characters in the filenames.

Account Summary is a new section available on billing statements, providing payers with a snapshot of the current balance up to the end date of the statement period, all awarded and anticipated financial aid for the session, and the difference between the balance and the aid.

Changed

Photo support added to GET Athletics team roster endpoint

players.value[i].photos is a new object returned by the GET Athletics team roster endpoint. The photos object contains two string properties, large_filename_url and thumb_filename_url. The value of each property is a direct HTTP link to either the full image or the thumbnail of the image, respectively.

Additionally, the following Boolean properties are now returned as part of players.value[i]:

• publish_name

• publish_height

• publish_weight

• publish_photo

Determine if a user is a department chair using GET Users employment by role(s) (BETA)

roles.departments[i].is_chair is a new Boolean property returned by the GET Users employment by role(s) (BETA). Use the property to determine whether the user is a chair of the respective department.

In April, we launched a new Journal help feature, which highlights new features, best practices, and everything else related to Blackbaud's Education Management products. This week’s journal highlights the recent changes to Username formatting, moving to Preferred Name instead.

You can find new Journal entries within our Online Help Center right here.

When a faculty member selects Filter in the list views of the Assignment Center and Assignments tab on class pages, the Publish status filter now defaults to Null. Previously, this filter defaulted to Not Published when updating the filters and users had to set it to Null to continue displaying published assignments.

BBMS Transaction ID is a new optional column available in the Recent payments, Transaction, and Work with transaction lists, containing the ID of the Blackbaud Merchant Services transaction. Leverage the BBMS Transaction ID column to aid in reconciliation.

Preferred last name has been added as a new field to the Contact Card in the General information area - as available in the 360 profile in Academics and Billing Management, and in the Contact Cards of Enrollment Management, Core, and any school Directory. If your school has enabled users to edit their Preferred last name via Profile access, they can now do so under My Profile.

This benefits individuals who use a last name for social settings that differs from their legal last name. For example, users with long or hyphenated names may socially use a shorter, unhyphenated name. Likewise, faculty who marry after earning a PhD may prefer to use the name from their professional degree instead of their marriage certificate.

Today, platform managers can configure access and publish settings for Preferred last name and other contact card fields from Core, Security, Profile access. Later this year, Preferred last name will be available for use in User name format as well.

When a list manager views the Household & address list, the names of students, other household members, and household contacts are now shown with their preferred first name, if known, and otherwise their first name is shown instead. This benefits individuals whose preferred first name differs from their legal first name.

List managers can now view the Anticipated completion date of students as a column in the Students list in Core. Remember, to update a student’s Anticipated completion date, find their Contact card in Core, and then edit their General Information.

Typically, when Potential duplicate users are merged into a single record, they’re students or relatives of students, not employees. However, occasionally a duplicate employee account needs to be merged, and the employee may own some Basic and Advanced lists. Previously, when you merged users with access to these lists, the lists associated with the deleted user were not transferred to the newly merged user account, sometimes rendering them inaccessible by any admin at the school. With this release, users’ lists and lists access are now included when the users are merged.

If your organization’s primary contact or site administrator resets your passwords for Blackbaud Payment Services or Blackbaud Merchant Services by following the online instructions for BBMS and BBPS, you must remember to also update Core to use the new credentials. Otherwise, credit card and ACH (direct debit) transactions will fail to process.

Schools can now create a new checklist step type for name pronunciation. Adding it allows the candidate or the parent of the candidate to record their name directly from their checklist. The recording will be saved to their profile and be available throughout the system, not just in admissions.

For candidates to record their own name, the Candidate role must have Edit access for Name Pronunciation under Core, Security, Profile access, View/edit profile fields. For a parent to record a candidate's name, the Parent of Candidate role must have Name Pronunciation Edit access for the Candidate role under Core, Security, Profile access, Profile relationships access.

PATCH Athletic requirements update (BETA) has been renamed to PATCH Medical athletic requirements update.

The following medical endpoints have transitioned from BETA status to stable:

• PATCH Medical athletic requirements update

• POST Medical allergies create

• DELETE Medical allergies delete

• GET Medical allergies for a student

• PATCH Medical allergies update

• GET Medical athletic requirements for a student

• POST Medical conditions create

• DELETE Medical conditions delete

• GET Medical conditions for a student

• PATCH Medical conditions update

• GET Medical immunizations for a student

• PATCH Medical immunizations update

• PATCH Medical medication update

• POST Medical medications create

• DELETE Medical medications delete

• GET Medical medications for a student

• GET Medical Security Roles

The following endpoints will be deprecated on August 1, 2024:

• POST Medical allergies/conditions create (DEPRECATED)

• GET Medical allergies/conditions for a student (DEPRECATED)

The following endpoints are available as an alternative:

• POST Medical allergies create

• POST Medical conditions create

• GET Medical conditions for a student

• GET Medical allergies for a student

The property global_id will be deprecated on July 1, 2024. The following endpoints are impacted:

• GET Users extended by role(s)

• GET Users extended by user

In April, we launched a new Journal help feature, which highlights new features, best practices, and everything else related to Blackbaud's Education Management products. This week’s journal focus on School Forms, where to find them, how to use them as the school year comes to a close, and also shedding some light on commonly asked questions.

You can find new Journal entries within our Online Help Center right here.

With this release, we've added a "dropped" grade indicator to gradebooks. This new indicator enables faculty to quickly identify a student’s grades that are excluded from calculations based on the faculty member’s gradebook calculation settings.

This update continues to be released in waves between 05/07-05/21. To help get your faculty prepared for this update, we’ve created a short video outlining the new features linked below.

A couple of enhancements to look forward to when this update is made available to your school:

• Student names will display per User Name Format settings, allowing preferred names to display more prominently.

• Take attendance from a seating chart view.

• Enable teachers who prefer a checklist-type workflow by not having your schools equivalent of “Present” automatically defaulting for each student. Though, when the modal is saved, students who do not have an attendance code listed will automatically be assigned the “Present” equivalent.

When posting to Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT, the journal reference for the summary line now includes the Summary Deposit # for each deposit, if available.

To access the new feature, select Post to GL when on the Blackbaud Billing management Overview page.

The Distribution list now features a search field; enter a search term based on the column data in the Distribution list and the results in the list will filter through all fields, except for journal reference, to only include matches.

To access the new feature, hover over Lists in the navigation and select Distribution list.

Previously, usernames were formatted by default as:

• prefix + first name + “preferred first name” + middle name + (maiden name) + last name + suffix + graduation year abbreviation

• For example:

  • Dr. John “Jay" Jacob Schmidt III '24

  • Dr. Joy Janet (Jingleheimer) Schmidt '24

For many readers, the quotation marks in this previous format implied that a user’s preferred first name was less important than their legal first name. Historically, these quotation marks were used when this field was used to denote nicknames, rather than preferred first names.

With this release, we’ve updated the default format for user names to both streamline the information and prioritize the user’s preferred first name. The new default format is:

• prefix + preferred first name if one exists otherwise use first name + (maiden name) + last name + suffix + graduation year abbreviation

• For example:

  • Dr. Jay Schmidt III '24

  • Dr. Joy (Jingleheimer) Schmidt '24

Notice the new default now omits:

• First name when a preferred name is set,

• Quotation marks around the user’s preferred first name,

• Middle name,

Customized formats for user names remain unchanged. If your school prefers the original format, set up a custom format to replicate the original. Platform managers can do this from Core by selecting Users, User profile settings, User name formats, and Edit. Then enter the format using the placeholders provided and Save the changes. To review formatted user names in bulk, a list manager can use the Users List in Core.

Tip: Preferred last name will appear on Contact cards soon. To prepare, remember to configure access settings for this new field before it’s enabled. To do so, platform managers should go Core, Security, Profile access.

Record the user reporting attendance

We’ve updated the POST Attendance record create endpoint to support a new field for specifying the user reporting attendance, reported_by.

Include the new reported_by property in your request body along with the user ID of the user to record as having reported attendance. If you exclude the property, the value defaults to the user calling the endpoint.

For information about recently added endpoints and other updates, view the School API and OneRoster API changelog.

We've launched a new Journal help feature, highlighting new features, best practices, and everything else related to Blackbaud's Education Management products. With the academic year quickly coming to a close, this week's Journal entry discusses Annual Procedures, providing tips, tricks, and gotchas to keep a lookout for.

You can find new Journal entries within our Online Help Center right here, but we'll be sure to keep you updated with our latest post each week as well.

Join product manager, Jessi Walters, for an overview of new fields, integration mapping, and the time-saving logical calculation performed in new Education List columns. Learn tips for optimizing your setting and how to select the right date to include in your reports for the National Student Loan Data System and the National Student Clearinghouse. Register for the webinar for Tuesday May 14 at 2:00 p.m. eastern daylight time.

With this release, we've updated student profiles in the Faculty, Parent, and Student portals to consistently display student names in the same format on all profile tabs. Student names now follow the format set in Core, Users, User profile settings, User name formats.

This update will now be releasing in waves between 05/07-05/21, this is one week later than the originally announced timeline. In the meantime, to help get your faculty prepared for this update, we’ve created a short video outlining the new features linked below.

A couple of enhancements to look forward to when this update is made available to your school:

• Student names will display per User Name Format settings, allowing preferred names to display more prominently.

• Take attendance from a seating chart view.

• Enable teachers who prefer a checklist-type workflow by not having your schools equivalent of Present automatically defaulting for each student. Though, when the modal is saved, students who do not have an attendance code listed will automatically be assigned the Present equivalent.

Transactions listed on the flyout summary after selecting Total charges or Applied payments on the Open items report now feature Transaction IDs that are hyperlinks. When selected, a new tab opens with additional information about the transaction.

To open a transaction from the Open items report, hover over Reporting in the navigation and select Open items. On the page, select any amount under Total charges or Applied payments. On the flyout that opens, select a Transaction ID to learn more about the transaction or modify it.

Course fees are now available to carry over from one billing year to the current one, helping to expedite and streamline transitions into the upcoming year.

To copy course fees, hover over Billing in the navigation and select Billing years. On the page, select Edit billing year, and then scroll down until you find the section titled Copy the following items from the previous billing year. Select Course fees and accept the prompt specifying that all course fees will be copied to the current year. Select Save to finalize the process.

When a user has an employee/volunteer role (such as Faculty, Coach, etc.) and their employment is withdrawn, their user is automatically assigned a “Past” version of the role, even if their login access is disabled. Now, organizations can select to remove “Past” employee/volunteer roles. This benefits organizations that need to correct the Employment history or to remove access that might be lingering from the “Past” employee/volunteer roles’ tasks. These changes are commonly needed during onboarding and offboarding of employees, when troubleshooting or testing, or while performing data cleanup.

Platform managers (and other users with access to manage roles) can do this from Core, Security, Roles. Find the “Past” role in the list and select the # of members on its row. Next, select Members and find the user in the list. Then select More (...), Remove, and confirm the change.

Unlike using the previous Undo button, when you remove a user’s membership from a “Past” employee/volunteer role, a record of their previous access is saved to the user’s role history. This also enables an admin to change a specific part of the employment without undoing all the employment changes.

With this release, the Financial Aid Management parent site automatically recognizes and records universal opt-out signals like the Global Privacy Control (GPC). Once an enabled GPC is recorded for a family, it cannot be changed.

To view a family’s universal opt-out signal preference:

1. Select Families > Manage Families.

2. Search for the family and select their name under Family Name.

3. Select Application Details from the menu on the left.

4. Review the Opt-out Settings . If the family has engaged browser settings to enable universal opt-out signals, a message states Parent opted out of Sale of information and targeted advertisements.

For information about recently added endpoints and other updates, view the School API and OneRoster API changelog.

Join product manager, Jessi Walters, for an overview of new fields, integration mapping, and the time-saving logical calculation performed in new Education List columns. Learn tips for optimizing your setting and how to select the right date to include in your reports for the National Student Loan Data System and the National Student Clearinghouse. Register for the webinar for Tuesday May 14 at 2:00 p.m. eastern daylight time.

We recently launched a new Journal help feature, highlighting new features, best practices, and everything else related to Blackbaud's Education Management products. This week's Journal entry discusses our Monthly Release recap feature and where you can find it inside of the help center. You can find new Journal entries within our Online Help Center right here, but we'll be sure to keep you updated with our latest post each week as well.

This update will now be releasing in waves between 05/07-05/21, this is one week later than the originally announced timeline. In the meantime, to help get your faculty prepared for this update, we’ve created a short video outlining the new features linked below.

A couple of enhancements to look forward to when this update is made available to your school:

• Student names will display per User Name Format settings, allowing preferred names to display more prominently.

• Take attendance from a seating chart view.

• Enable teachers who prefer a checklist-type workflow by not having your schools equivalent of Present automatically defaulting for each student. Though, when the modal is saved, students who do not have an attendance code listed will automatically be assigned the Present equivalent.

Grading managers can now select multiple grade plan grades when configuring Quality Points from Academics, Grades, Gradingsetup, Calculations. Select Edit to see a new option called Grade plan grade(s) to use to allow selection of all available Grade Plan Grades. This change should provide added flexibility for institutions with more complex setups including multiple different programs or school levels.

Platform Managers can now enable a new end of term grade entry experience for faculty in Core, Settings, Activate new features. Resources, including help documentation and a Getting started video, are available in the feature tile. The old experience will remain available until fall of 2024 when the new experience will be activated and required for all institutions.

Grade translation review

Before enabling the new end of term grade entry experience, Grading managers should review their school's Grade translations in Academics, Grades, Grading setup. To include all grade values in grade calculations, the number of decimal places used for the Maximum values in Grade translations should match the number of decimal places your school uses when calculating grades. Using 5 decimal places ensures that all grade values are included in grade calculations, regardless of the selected decimal precision.

Show previous grades

When entering grades, faculty can now select Show previous grades to easily view previously recorded grade plan grades in the grade entry grid. With this change, faculty no longer need to run lists or reports to view student progress throughout the year.

Narrative view

New narrative grade entry view designed with long-form comment entry in mind. Comments are now auto-saved and faculty have more data points available as they compose their grade comments.

Additional enhancements include:

• Bulk comment entry allows faculty to specify which students a bulk comment applies to, and a comment icon indicates which students already have comments present.

• Auto-save for all comment entry.

• Simplified calculation setup wizard for faculty.

• The New grading tab is available on all group types, including Athletics.

Map Assessment skills to Mastery skills

The new grade entry experience also includes a major enhancement for schools utilizing Mastery skills. Schools can now map Assessment skills to Mastery skill equivalents so that Mastery skill information can be included on report cards and transcripts without having to manually re-enter the information under Assessment skills.

Grading managers map Assessment skills to Mastery skill equivalents in Academics, Grades, Grading setup, New assessment skills. Data managers can also import Assessment skills and link them to Mastery skills with the new Assessment skills import. For more details, see Assessment skills.

• An Assessment skill can only be mapped to one Mastery skill and a Mastery skill can only be mapped to one Assessment skill.

• An Assessment skill can be mapped to either a Transferable skill or sub-skill or a Content-are skill or sub-skill, but not both.

• Parent Mastery skills mapped to an Assessment skill will use an average of the sub-skills under the parent skill.

Once skills are mapped, faculty can select Calculate for those skills in New grading to pull Mastery skill ratings from their gradebook into Assessment skills as marking period averages or year-to-date averages. Calculate is only available for Assessment skills that are mapped to Mastery skills.

The Distribution list now features sortable columns to organize results and a set of default filters to expedite the list’s loading time.

By default, the initial filter applied when you load the list is the Post date for the current month, and results are sorted by transaction ID. Select a column header to sort the list based on the selected category.

The Open items report now features a search field that enables Billing clerks to filter records based on matched results amongst all open items. For example, a Billing clerk could enter a student’s name to find all open items associated with that record.

We’ve added a new billing year filter when calculating balances on the Open items report. With the filter applied, the calculated balances will only include transactions applied "as of" the selected date and within the selected billing year.

When a platform manager, with the Impersonate User task enabled, chooses to impersonate another user, a blue “banner” appears across the top of the user interface. This reminds the manager that they are acting as someone else, highlights the navigational areas which “belong” to the impersonated user versus to themselves, and makes it easier to stop impersonating.

Tip: Need to take a screenshot or record a video? When you select an area to capture with your recording tool, select the area below the banner or crop the banner out when you edit.

The migration for Blackbaud ID (BBID) for education solutions will occur this Wednesday, May 8.

This update improves the reliability of Blackbaud ID, while also creating an easier, more intuitive sign-in page that puts your brand at the center of the user experience.

• Users who land on the Blackbaud ID sign in page will see an improved look, which places your school’s organization’s logo more prominently and centrally on the page.

• Users who sign in with a Blackbaud ID email and password, who also have multi-factor authentication (MFA) enabled via Blackbaud ID, will be prompted to recreate a new MFA connection. The options and steps to set up MFA remain unchanged. See our BBID MFA documentation for additional details.

• Users who log in with a “social sign-in,” such as Sign in with Google or Sign in with Apple, will be prompted to reauthorize Blackbaud to access their name and email. (Google and Apple manage the sign-in steps between the Blackbaud ID sign in page and the point when the user lands in Education Management again.)

• Those who log in via single sign-on (SSO) are unaffected - their login workflow will not change. SSO admins will need to create a new SSO connection with Blackbaud between May and October; additional details will be shared when the new setup is available.

Tip: Although this update was originally scheduled for April, it was temporarily delayed to ensure an optimal experience for users of Blackbaud's education solutions. May 8th was carefully chosen to avoid a common tuition payment day, to allow other significant product enhancements to release on Tuesday, to minimize disruption to the end-of-year season, and to provide you with at least a full business day of notice. The new Blackbaud ID experience will be enabled during business hours on Wednesday morning to ensure our award-winning support team is available for you. Users who are already logged in will not be interrupted by the release; they will simply see the new Blackbaud ID experience the next time they log in again.

Looking for more information?

• View the Blackbaud ID documentation.

• Follow the Higher Ed user community blog.

Last week’s release included enhancements to how users select and adjust photos for their 360 user profiles. Now, those adjusted images appear in 360 profile headers, People Finder (Core and Academics), Affinity membership, messaging, and Find me now.

Remember to configure access settings for Preferred last name. To do so, a platform manager should go to Core, Security, Profile access. We recently enabled organizations to control access to this field. Soon, Preferred last name will appear on Contact cards. Be sure to configure the access settings for the field so you’re prepared when it is released in May.

This benefits individuals who use a last name for social settings that differs from their legal last name. For example, users with long or hyphenated names may socially use a shorter, unhyphenated name. Likewise, faculty who marry after earning a PhD may prefer to use the name from their professional degree instead of their marriage certificate.

When using the Form submissions list, admissions managers will now see the current school name as a column. This should make things easier as the Form submissions list will no longer display a number when a registrant adds a name for a school that's currently not on the list.

We’re thrilled to announce registration is open and early-bird pricing is here for bbcon 2024! Join us September 24–26 in Seattle, WA for three days of:

• Inspiring keynote talks from unmissable speakers

• Innovative sessions that will spark new ideas

• Endless networking possibilities with thousands of peers

Register today to get the early-bird rate and save $300!

Blackbaud regularly precents virtual webinars to showcase recent innovations and future roadmap direction in our leading-edge software solutions, including Education Managment, Raiser’s Edge NXT, and Financial Edge NXT. Register to join us for sessions April 30 – May 2 and to stay current with Blackbaud solution updates and industry trends.

This update will now be releasing in waves between 05/07-05/21, this is one week later than the originally announced timeline. In the meantime, to help get your faculty prepared for this update, we’ve created a short video outlining the new features linked below.

A couple of enhancements to look forward to when this update is made available to your school:

• Student names will display per User Name Format settings, allowing preferred names to display more prominently.

• Take attendance from a seating chart view.

• Enable teachers who prefer a checklist-type workflow by not having your schools equivalent of Present automatically defaulting for each student. Though, when the modal is saved, students who do not have an attendance code listed will automatically be assigned the Present equivalent.

Previously, schools could only re-position profile photos which were uploaded in bulk via Core’s System tools.

Now, they can also adjust profile photos updated via an individual’s 360 user profile. To do so, select Contact card. Under General information, select Edit. Then choose Profile photo. Drag and drop a photo from your local computer into the placeholder image’s location. Alternatively, select the placeholder image and then browse to and select an image from your local computer. Use the circular arrow under the preview image to rotate the photo 90 degrees. Then drag the edges of the selection area to resize or recenter the circle that crops the image for use as a profile image. Select Save.

Tip: In a future release, you’ll also see these enhancements in other profile photo areas.

When a platform manager goes to Core, Security, Profile access, you’ll notice access to the field for Preferred last name can now be controlled. Soon, Preferred last name will appear on Contact cards. Be sure to configure the access settings for the field, so you’re prepared when it's released in May.

This benefits individuals who use a last name for social settings that differs from their legal last name. For example, users with long or hyphenated names may socially use a shorter, unhyphenated name. Likewise, faculty who marry after earning a PhD may prefer to use the name from their professional degree instead of their marriage certificate.

We’ve updated descriptions for columns in Education lists whose data is mapped or logically calculated.

Previously, universities and colleges could only access the year settings for alums via a workaround from customer support. Now, they can access these settings by selecting Core, Content, Alumni.

When an admin views a user’s Access tab on the Core user profile, they can view the Authentication status link. Previously, admins with access to the Login information tile could view this window, but it was blank for those who lacked the Solution admin or equivalent blackbaud.com administrative access that enabled it. Now, admins without Solution admin access will instead see help text prompting them to request or establish the needed permissions to view the authentication details for Registered users.

When a user attempts to log into your school’s site, their email address is validated to check for proper formatting before they're directed to the Blackbaud ID login screen. This update helps increase security.

As part of our commitment to the privacy and security of user data, Blackbaud Education Management now "listens" for "global opt out" user settings. Users enable this setting via their internet browser, rather than via your school's education solution.

When a user enables this setting in their internet browser, the browser tells online websites that they don't want their information sold (nor shared) with third parties, nor used for targeted advertizing. As required by United States privacy law, Core tracks when we've "heard" this setting.

Note: Students and other “end users” won’t see any indication that we’ve heard their browser’s global opt out. Detecting the global opt out happens silently and “under the hood” from the end user's experience.

You can view an individual's global out settings from the Settings tab of their user profile in Core. List managers can also generate a list or export of users who want to opt-out. From the Users list in Core, select to include:

• Sale of information

• Targeted advertising

as columns to show. Changes to a user's settings also appear in Handle Profile Changes for your school to review and are labeled as a "Blackbaud system" update.

If your school engages in the sale (or sharing) of user date to third parties or if you use their data in targeted advertizing, then it is your responsibility to use this information to help ensure you respect the user's preferences and that you comply with privacy laws for the United States of America.

Tip: Most schools don't engage in these sorts of sales, sharing, nor targeted ads. Blackbaud doesn't sell (or share) user data to third parties either and doesn't engage in targeted advertising. Even if the user has indicated that they don't object to the use of their data for sale, share, or ads, Blackbaud still prioritizes privacy and doesn't use the data in those ways.

Learn more:

• User privacy settings on the Core user profile.

• Blackbaud Privacy Resource Center for Education Management

• Blackbaud Privacy Resource Center (all solutions)

• Global Privacy Control (GPC)

With this update, we've added a Weekly option for schools so an attendance clerk can set up a recurring attendance event that occurs over a set period of time. When adding attendance, there will be a Weekly option, with fields available to set a start and end date, selectable days, and how many weeks the change is happening.

For example, this option would be beneficial for a student who may have an activity that occurs every other Tuesday from 10am to 11am for the next two months. Please note that this feature is launching later this week.

The modal faculty use when taking attendance is getting a SKY UX update. The update will be rolling out in waves between 04/30-05/14. To help get your faculty prepared for this update, we’ve created a short video outlining the new features linked below.

A couple of enhancements to look forward to when this update is made available to your school:

• Student names will display per User Name Format settings, allowing preferred names to display more prominently.

• Take attendance from a seating chart view.

• Enable teachers who prefer a checklist-type workflow by not having your schools equivalent of Present automatically defaulting for each student. Though, when the modal is saved, students who do not have an attendance code listed will automatically be assigned the Present equivalent.

  

Billing clerks can now specify a Cash account and Cash account description when adding single payments or payments to a group, enabling them to override the existing default cash account defined in Billing settings. Schools integrated with Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT can click into the field to reference a list of existing cash accounts.

As part of our commitment to the privacy and security of user data, Blackbaud Education Management now "listens" for "global opt out" user settings. Users enable this setting via their internet browser, rather than via your school's education solution.

When a user enables this setting in their internet browser, the browser tells online websites that they don't want their information sold (nor shared) with third parties, nor used for targeted advertizing. As required by United States privacy law, Core tracks when we've "heard" this setting.

Note: Students and other “end users” won’t see any indication that we’ve heard their browser’s global opt out. Detecting the global opt out happens silently and “under the hood” from the end user's experience.

You can view an individual's global out settings from the Settings tab of their user profile in Core. List managers can also generate a list or export of users who want to opt-out. From the Users list in Core, select to include:

• Sale of information

• Targeted advertising

as columns to show. Changes to a user's settings also appear in Handle Profile Changes for your school to review and are labeled as a "Blackbaud system" update.

If your school engages in the sale (or sharing) of user date to third parties or if you use their data in targeted advertizing, then it is your responsibility to use this information to help ensure you respect the user's preferences and that you comply with privacy laws for the United States of America.

Tip: Most schools don't engage in these sorts of sales, sharing, nor targeted ads. Blackbaud doesn't sell (or share) user data to third parties either and doesn't engage in targeted advertising. Even if the user has indicated that they don't object to the use of their data for sale, share, or ads, Blackbaud still prioritizes privacy and doesn't use the data in those ways.

Learn more:

• User privacy settings on the Core user profile.

• Blackbaud Privacy Resource Center for Education Management

• Blackbaud Privacy Resource Center (all solutions)

• Global Privacy Control (GPC)

When a user views their login settings, they’ll notice the user interface has been rearranged to show information in a more intuitive order. Users find this by selecting their name (top right corner), then Settings, and then Login Settings. The data shown and actions available remain unchanged, so the general workflow for users also remains very similar. The new order makes the information and options easier to find.

For example, if a faculty user wants to change which page they start on when they log in to their school’s application (such as My Day – Assignment Center instead of My Day – Schedule & Performance), they’ll now find these options in the section called Starting page(s). Previously, these settings appeared in the History section of the same screen. Similarly, the section previously called History is now titled Login history, and it now shows the most recent history by default. To view the whole history or the history for a specific date range, users will still select View login history.

Admissions managers can now change registration options for an attendee from the Attendee Options list. Select Edit attendee options to bring up a new modal that allows the admissions manager to change event options for all those attending. Each multiselect option also displays the date and time, as well as the ability to add another attendee if needed. This change should make it easier for admissions managers to quickly change or add event details for attendees.

For information about recently added endpoints and other updates, view the School API and OneRoster API changelog.