What's Recent

The Blackbaud Community is now live on its new platform. You'll use the same Blackbaud ID account to log in. Your profile and discussions have been migrated over.

Please note that you will need to review your notification settings and blog subscriptions. Make sure to re-subscribe to product blogs so you don’t miss the latest news in the community. You can subscribe right from the relevant blog page or from your notification settings.

The new community experience has more dynamic, engaging look as well as these additional benefits:

• Improved search and new tagging functionality

• Personalized home page

• New badges, to better recognize your contributions and to help you recognize others

• Improved posting capabilities, including

  • saved drafts

  • embedded videos

  • purpose-built code editor (such as for developers in the SKY API community)

  • and more.

For more details, visit the Community News blog.

To reduce the risk of accidental schedule clearing, we've added a safeguard. A confirmation modal now appears if the school term has already started before the Generate Master Schedule can be run.

Manage official notes now has sort options for Date created, Student name, and Author name.

Canadian payers can now enable Auto-Pay during the contract enrollment process, provided the selected payment plan is configured to allow Auto-Pay sign-ups.

To edit installment charge percentages, visit a billing profile, find the Payment plans section, and select View payment plan. Under Included charges, select a context menu besides a charge, and select Edit installment amounts.

Once enabled, Auto-Pay can be set as either Required or Optional.

Billing clerks can activate this feature by toggling Allow payers to enroll in auto-pay through contracts on each applicable payment plan. After enabling the toggle, they can choose from a drop-down menu whether Auto-Pay should be required or optional for that plan.

When a platform manager adds a user user via the task on their Core home dashboard, they can now enter the user’s preferred first name and preferred last name. Previously, admins had to create the user and then edit them to include preferred names. This update reduces clicks, saves time, and helps schools respect user’s name preferences from the beginning of their interaction with the community.

Admissions managers can use Show to within a Student Checklist step to control who has access to uploaded files. For example, if Show to is set to Parent, users that are Students will not be able to see the uploaded file to the checklist step.

Admissions managers can now take advantage of more space to write as we've increased the character limit for a Checklist Item Description from 250 to 500.

Parents and Students can now record their name from the user's profile using Name Pronunciation. Administrators will need to make sure that Students, Incoming students, Parents of Students, and Parents of Incoming Students have edit access for Name Pronunciation in order to record.

Transcript Setup now has a filter for School Level as long as there is a template built for it. School Level automatically defaults to All, while Filter for Status is now set to Active. Finally, we've made filter selection sticky, saved to BBID.

When adding attendance for groups, the List of students is now always shown based on the options selected within the Students to include criteria. Previously, this was based on a search action first. We've also made Students to include criteria easier to see and change, while also adjusting the size of some UI elements like Reason and Comment so they fit better within the modal.

Billing clerks can now edit future installment charge percentages for payment plans.

To edit installment charge percentages, visit a billing profile, find the Payment plans section, and select View payment plan. Under Included charges, select a context menu besides a charge, and select Edit installment amounts.

Payment plans now support editing plan dates in bulk to help you adjust plans based on developing family situations.

To get started with editing installment dates, open a payment plan record and select the new Edit plan dates button. Make any necessary changes to the Charged on and Due date fields for each installment in the modal that opens.

We’ve added a new billing year filter to the Contracts section on student billing profiles, enabling Billing clerks to quickly identify contracts specific to the selected year.

To get started with the new date filter, search for a user record using the People Finder in the navigation and select a profile. On the billing profile, find the Contracts section, and note the date drop-down at the top of the section.

We’ve added a new optional column, Deposits, to the Recent disbursements list to enable billing clerks to identify if a payment is already tagged with a deposit.

To get started with the new Deposits column, on the main Billing management page, select the Recent disbursements tab. Select Columns and choose Deposits.

Admins who can impersonate other users can now do so from the heading of a 360 user profile. Previously, the Impersonate user option didn’t appear in header of non-student 360 profiles; now it does.

For example, a billing clerk can view a statement recipient from a student’s billing profile and now impersonate that user.

This update does not change a user’s security tasks nor permissions. It only affects admins who already have access to the user profiles in these areas and the ability to impersonate. It makes it easier for admins to access their existing functionality when they need it.

When a user is logged into Blackbaud Education Management, their name appears in the top right corner, so users can access their profile, settings, and more. Previously, this menu used their last name. Now, if a user has a preferred last name, it’s shown instead. It also shows their preferred first name, if known. This ensures users’ name preferences are respected throughout the user interface.

If a student checklist is removed from a student, files will no longer be deleted from the record and are available in Files and Forms. School administrators can now delete these files from Core, Student record, then Files and Forms.

With this release, we've moved the self-scheduling and notification settings for Visits & Interviews out of the admissions schedule calendar on the EMS Homepage and into its own location under Admissions setup. In here, select Visits and interviews to find all of the settings and new options (more on that below). This move is intended to add more flexibility for schools, as you'll be able to define notifications for each visit/interview type individually, rather than only being able to define one notification for all visit types and one for all interviews. In addition, you're now able to define self-scheduling rules by type.

On top of all that, we've added two new self-schedule settings. For those who can self-schedule, they will now be able to choose if the candidate/parent is able to reschedule and/or cancel the visit/interview. Keep in mind that canceling the visit/interview is essentially deleting it, which means that it can't be recovered and will have to be re-added.

With this release, we've moved Transportation out of Podium and given it a more consistent appearance to match other areas of Blackbaud Education Management. From Extracurricular, Athletics, and then Athletics setup, when an Athletic Group Manager selects Transportation, a list displaying the Transportation and Number of Seats by default will appear.

Select +New to create a new transportation entry and then add the description and how many seats are available. There is a search bar to help you find a specific entry in this list if needed as well. Once a new Transportation method has been added, use the context menu to make edits to the entry or delete it entirely. Please note, once deleted, the entry can't be restored and will have to be recreated.

(Supernova-2247327) In addition, we've also updated the look and feel of Manage coaches, moving it out of Podium to also help with consistency and usability. Selecting Manage coaches from Extracurricular, Athletics, and Athletics setup will display as a list, with customizable columns, filters, and a search bar to locate a specific entry.

Use the context menu for an entry to make edits, remove the coach entirely, or add them as the head coach. Select +Add to create a new entry with the Coach name, Coach type, Year appointed, and Bio.

Now, when editing the statement templates, Billing clerks can select to display distributed statements as an Invoice instead of a Statement.

To get started, visit the Statements page, select the Templates tab, and create or edit a statement. In the Statement header section, select Edit, and in the Header title drop-down, select Invoice.

The Current bill page in the payer portal now includes a clickable Amount due link. When selected, it opens a new Amount due page that provides a detailed breakdown of the charges making up the current amount due.

The Aged accounts receivables (AAR) report now includes amulti-select billing year filter, enabling billing clerks to choose specific years to include in the report results.

The most modern version of the omnibar returns this week. Earlier this summer, we teed off with an all-white version of the omnibar menu, which aligns visually with the version you see in other Blackbaud solutions. But we recognized the landing wasn’t par—so we “took a mulligan” and rolled it back.

Now that we’ve ironed out the kinks, we’re taking a second swing at it to ensure the experience is up to scratch. Thanks for sticking with us through the rough. We’re pleased to drive forward with a smoother, more intuitive experience.

We now support partial credit completion for a degree.

We've added a sort order column to Special Days from smallest to largest.

This release removes the old faculty grade report grade entry experience from class pages.

With this change, the New Grading tab on class pages is renamed Grading and faculty can access the new experience there, as well as through My Day, Schedule & Performance, by selecting a grade plan on the Grading tile.

The Payment Plan section on billing profiles has been redesigned to provide clearer information and greater user control. Updates include:

• A school year date picker that refreshes the section to reflect the selected year.

• A statement recipient drop-down that filters the data in the section to reflect the selected statement recipient. This option only appears for profiles where the family situation is set to ‘People cannot see each other's activity.’

• Key plan details for the selected year, including the plan name, total amount, total paid, and remaining balance.

• Visual indicators that show whether Auto-Pay is active or if a payment is past due.

The Core development team recently performed an audit of menus. Based on the results, we then consolidated and simplified navigation for schools that don’t subscribe to all of the solutions we offer. Superfluous and unusable feature items outside your subscription are now hidden to minimize clutter and streamline navigation.

We have new video content up on our channel for you to check out this week! Head on over to learn about Auto-select Settings feature 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!

With the July 15 release, the old faculty grade report grade entry experience will be removed from class pages.

With this change, the New Grading tab will be renamed Grading and faculty can access the new experience there, as well as through My Day, Schedule & Performance, by selecting a grade plan on the Grading tile.

Schools now have more control over when Attendance Notifications are sent out. From Attendance, and then Notifications, the Minutes notification should be sent after can be customized with a numerical value, with a minimum of 10 minutes to a maximum of 100 minutes. Please note that the notification may be received after the designated time that is set.

With the July 15 release, the old faculty grade report entry experience will be removed from class pages.

With this change, the New Grading tab will be renamed Grading and faculty can access the new experience there, as well as through My Day, Schedule & Performance, by selecting a grade plan on the Grading tile.

The Payment Plan section in student billing profiles now includes a drop-down menu for selecting a billing year. Choose a year from the menu to update the displayed payment plan data accordingly.

In addition, the Payment plan section now shows key details about the payment plan for the selected billing year. These details include the total amount, total paid, and total remaining, Auto-Pay status, and an indicator showing if a payment is past due or paid.

With this update, we've overhauled the visual style of the Admissions Progress page from the Parent Portal. The page is now mobile friendly as the candidate progress text box can be collapsed so that it doesn't take up space in the mobile view. The biggest change will be the banner at the top of the page, which is completely customizable from Admissions setup, then Candidate Progress Settings. The banner allows you to bring your branding to the portal, so there's increased continuity when the family switches from your website to the portal for the admissions process.

Please note that the functionality of the page remains the same as the only change is the visual look and style. Within the Admissions Progress section, you can see the applied checklist, each step, and where you are in the process. Use Hide completed to only display steps that are still active.

To turn on this updated feature, go to Core, Settings, then Activate New Features. Select the Pencil icon in the top right corner of the EMS Admissions Progress section and change the drop down to Active.

For more information on this update, please check out our blog post and help topic.

Now, manually added one-off charges are included in the active payment plan for the current billing year.

Electronic funds transfer (EFT) is a new payment source option, available for situations when payments are received outside of the billing system.

Previously, when you viewed an address from a school directory, the address was shown using a map from Microsoft Bing. Now, the map is from Google. The general functionality remains the same.

This change was necessary because Microsoft previously announced that the Bing map technology would be deprecated at the end of June. This update ensures the directory maps will continue to show address locations as expected via Google Maps.

With this release, users with the Page manager role now have access to manage Athletic venues (via task ID 53176). By default, this task is disabled for clones of the page manager role, but platform managers can edit the task status if desired (via Core, Security, Roles)

This update is necessary to ensure schools who use School website but not Extracurricular (Blackbaud Learning Management System) can continue to manage athletics (including venues) as expected.

Schools that use School website but not Extracurricular (Blackbaud Learning Management System), can now access Athletics from their School Website menu. This change is part of a navigation cleanup initiative, and it ensures you can continue to manage sports & teams, opponents, and venues as expected. The Athletics appearance and general functionality remain the same; this update primarily affects the menu to make it accessible via School Website.

Schools with subscriptions for both Blackbaud Learning Management System and Blackbaud School Website System will continue to access Athletics via Extracurricular. Schools that use Learning Management System (with or without other Blackbaud Education Management products) will continue to access Athletics from their Extracurricular menu instead.

Additionally, users with the Page manager role now have access to manage Athletic venues (via task ID 53176). By default, this task is disabled for clones of the page manager role upon release, but platform managers can edit the task status if desired (via Core, Security, Roles).

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 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 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!

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.

Students can now pin important assignments to the top of their own Assignment Center for quick access and visibility.

To “pin” an assignment to Pinned assignments, a student selects the pin icon next to the assignment in list view of the Assignment Center. To unpin an assignment, they simply select the pin icon next to the assignment in list view or under Pinned assignments.

Pinned assignments displays in both the list and grid views of the Assignment Center, however, students can only pin assignments from list view at this time.

Previously, we announced balance calculation changes would be available to schools over time. Now, as of June 3, the changes are available to all schools.

From the original announcement made on May 20:

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.

For more information on the complete list of changes, please visit the Billing management ‘What’s Recent’ page to find the original announcement under May 20, 2025 section titled, Balance changes based on responsibility, credit, and family situation.

Your school manages authentication in bulk via Core, Security, Blackbaud ID authentication. With this release, we’ve applied user name formats to the lists of accounts that are Unregistered, Awaiting response, or Registered for Blackbaud ID (BBID). The user name format appears in the column for User summary.

Additionally, when you view the list of Unregistered accounts, the Warnings column now indicates when an email address is already in use but is associated with another account. A message names the other account and their User ID. Use this information to help troubleshoot and differentiate accounts with matching names (John Smith – Senior, Junior, III, etc.) and matching email addresses.

This update is a continuation of our efforts to expand where user name formats, configured by your school, are used. To configure these formats for a System location, a platform manager should go to Core, Users, User profile settings, User name formats.

Each Blackbaud ID account must use a unique email address to login. You should review the accounts, consider contacting the individuals, and update one to use a different email address for authentication.

• Select the name in the User summary to go the profile of the unregistered individual.

• Meanwhile, copy the User ID of the other (registered) individual and use the People Finder to go to their profile.

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!

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.

Now, when generating charges, charges are applied evenly across all remaining payment plan installments. Previously, the generate charge process could apply charges to past payment plan installments.

Now, Billing clerks can reverse posted financial aid credits, enrollment deposits, and one-off credits. To perform a reversal and automatically create the necessary distributions, when viewing the record, select More actions, and choose Reverse. Enter the date for the reversal.

Once completed, the records’ status is changed to Reversed and the resulting distributions are visible under the Distributions section of the transaction record. Balance calculations are subsequently updated to reflect the changes.

As part of these changes, unposted financial aid credit and enrollment deposits can no longer be deleted and their amounts cannot be edited.

With this release, we’ve added Export options to more SKY lists in Core. Find them in Security, Roles:

• Roles

• Role details

• Tasks

• Members

Consider using the exports 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.

When copying a candidate checklist, associated content is also copied. Admissions managers can copy content like the Step Description, Link, and any Reminder or Follow up notifications.

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.