Setting up Total School

Permissions

Create permissions

Before users can view or manage features in Total School, you must create roles using specific permission flags. Each flag grants a distinct level of access:

  • Manage records

  • View records

  • Manage settings

  • View settings

You can create individual roles for each flag or combine them to form broader roles with multiple permissions.

To create a role:

  1. Go to the Control Panel and select Role Management.

  2. Under Connected System Roles, click New.

  3. Enter a role name that clearly describes the permissions it includes. Optionally, add a description.

  4. Use the Manage or View options under Fundraising Common Records Tasks to see suggested permission groupings.

  5. Select Show permissions to view and select specific flags.

  6. Create separate roles for Manage and View tasks as needed.

  7. Select Save, then repeat the process to create additional roles covering all necessary permissions.

Assign permissions

To assign permissions in Total School, follow these steps:

  1. In the navigation bar, select Control Panel.

  2. On the Security page, click User Management.

  3. Locate the user in the list and open the context menu () next to their name.

  4. Select Manage Roles.

  5. Under Education Feature Security Roles, toggle on Connected Systems.

  6. Click Save.

Preparing your data

Remove duplicate user profiles

Blackbaud recommends identifying and removing duplicate user records in each platform before enabling the Total School feature.

Once Total School is active, it attempts to match identical users across all connected platforms. Duplicate records can inflate the number of potential matches, increasing the time and effort required to review and approve links.

To prevent this, perform a manual audit in each connected system. Identify and delete any duplicate user profiles before enabling Total School.

 

Review table fields

Some fields—such as Gender—may use different sets of values across connected platforms. To ensure synchronization, Total School automatically copies unique table values from one platform to another once it is enabled.

Blackbaud recommends reviewing the table values in each connected platform before enabling Total School. This helps you anticipate and manage any changes that may occur during the sync process.

Table values in each platform can be found at the following locations:

Mapping field values

Matching

When Total School is first enabled, it attempts to identify potential matches between users across connected platforms. By default, it uses the last name to determine matches.

Organizations can customize this behavior using Custom matching settings, which allow for stricter criteria based on shared IDs between systems. For example, if a user’s BEM Host ID matches their RE Constituent ID, Total School considers it a valid match.

To configure matching settings:

  1. Navigate to Total School and select Fundraising Rules.

  2. Click Custom matching.

  3. Choose one of the following options:

    • No custom mapping (default):

      Matches are based on users’ last names.

    • BEM Host ID contains the RE Constituent ID:

      The BEM Host ID must match the RE Constituent ID.

    • BEM Host ID contains the RE Constituent Import ID:

      The BEM Host ID must match the RE Constituent Import ID.

    • RE Constituent ID contains the BEM User ID:

      The RE Constituent ID must match the BEM User ID.

    • RE Constituent Alias contains the BEM User ID:

      The selected alias must match the BEM User ID.

  4. Click Save.

Changes to matching settings will apply to all future matching attempts and restart the process for unlinked records.

Student families

Configure how current and incoming students are added, how constituent codes are assigned to students and parents, and determine whether one or both spouses are added as constituents.

To configure student families:

  1. Under Student constituent type, select whether to add students as a Non-constituent or Constituent.

    If you select Constituent, enter a default constituent code for new students (e.g., Student) and select a Constituent code start date (None, Date of enrollment, or Custom).

  2. Under Parents, enter a default constituent code for new parents (e.g., Parent) and select a Constituent code start date (None, Date of enrollment, or Custom).

  3. Under Spouses, choose one of the following Spouse constituent type options:

    • Constituent:

      Both spouses will be added as constituents.

    • Non-constituent:

      Use the drop-down menu to select the gender of the spouse to add as a constituent. If Any Gender is selected, the system will pick one of the parents as the non-constituent.

  4. Click Save to apply your settings.


Relationships

Due to how relationships differ between platforms, each relationships require stringent mapping. In some cases, non-traditional parent-child relationships may exist—such as an aunt or uncle acting as a guardian. To ensure accurate syncing between platforms, you’ll need to map these traditional and non-traditional relationships between Blackbaud Education Management and Raiser’s Edge NXT.

To configure relationship mappings:

  1. Select Add Relationship Types.

  2. For each relationship type in Blackbaud Education Management (e.g., Aunt/Uncle), click Select.

  3. Expand each relationship category.

  4. For each gender in Education Management, assign the appropriate equivalent from Raiser’s Edge NXT.

    Example:

    • Under the Child section of a Parent–Child relationship:

      • No gender selected → Child

      • Female → Daughter

      • Male → Son

  5. Click Save to apply your mappings.

Common data settings

Use the Common data settings to configure how specific types of information sync between platforms, such as emails, education enrollment, business records, and common identifiers.

To configure common data settings:

  1. Navigate to Total School and select Fundraising Rules.

  2. Click Common data settings.

  3. On the Email tab, choose how the email field in Education Management is synced to Raiser's Edge NXT:

    • Select Primary email to always sync the email marked as primary on the RE constituent record, regardless of the email type.

    • Select Specific email type and select an Email type from the drop-down to sync newly created emails of that type.

    Under When differing email values exist, select a rule to resolve conflicting values, such as Leave records out of sync and review manually or choosing to always use the value from one system.

  4. On the Enrollment education tab, set options for syncing school enrollment:

    • Toggle Show school enrollment as a constituent education record in RE on to allow enrollment information to be stored as an education record in Raiser's Edge NXT.

    • Enter the School name and School type.

  5. On the Business tab, choose options for syncing Business records:

    • Choose the Business sync filter option to either Limit to current employment only or Exclude organizations by constituent code.

    • If excluding, use the Excluded constituent codes search to select the appropriate codes.

  6. On the Common identifiers tab, choose how IDs are synced between records:

    • Under Sync constituent ID with Education Management, toggle Sync BEM user ID to RE constituent ID when creating new records. Then choose what to do When the constituent ID already exists.

    • Under Sync host ID with Raiser's Edge NXT, toggle Sync RE import ID to BEM host ID. Then select a rule for When reviewing existing linked records for Host ID to determine if existing populated IDs should be ignored or overwritten.

  7. Click Save.

Import Connect RE record links

You can import existing Connect RE record links into your Total School solution. This brings over your existing links and processes each record to identify any differences in common data.

Because Connect RE uses a one-way sync and Common Records uses a two-way sync, importing Connect RE record links may result in many Out of Sync records. These records must be manually merged before syncing can continue.

Warning: This process will mark all successfully imported Connect RE record links as imported in Connect RE. Once imported, these records will no longer sync with Connect RE.

To import Connect RE links:

  1. Navigate to Total School and select Fundraising Rules.

  2. Click Import Connect RE links.

  3. Enter the Number of record links to import. Blackbaud recommends starting with a small number to verify results before importing more.

  4. Click Import links.