Syncing user profiles with Total School

Organizations often manage user profiles across multiple platforms. Total School’s user synchronization feature ensures that when a change is made to a user profile on one platform, it automatically updates the corresponding profile on other connected platforms, resulting in a type of "common record". This keeps user records consistent and up to date.

Total School currently supports user syncing across these platforms:

• Blackbaud Education Management

• Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT

User profile data for students and parents. More information on specific supported fields can be found here.

Changes typically sync instantly or within a few minutes, though this may vary depending on the time of day and system activity. Updates are processed in tandem; for example, if both the first and last names are changed simultaneously, they will update together.

To access Total School, users must be assigned the appropriate permissions under the Connected System Roles section. There are four permission flags that can be used to create multiple roles:

• Manage records

• View records

• Manage settings

• View settings

You can create individual roles for each flag or combine them under Fundraising Common Records Tasks to form broader roles with multiple permissions.

To assign permissions, admins toggle on Connected Systems under Education Feature Security Roles in the user's profile.

While not required, these steps are highly recommended to reduce post-sync cleanup:

• Duplicate records create unnecessary noise and complicate the matching process. Multiple profiles for a user could appear in the unmatched and matched lists and complicate the linking process if there are multiple records for the same person.

• Table values should be reviewed to ensure consistency across platforms. For example, if "Roman Catholic" exists in the Religion table in Education Management but not in Raiser’s Edge NXT, Total School will add it to Raiser’s Edge NXT.

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.

All proposed matches must still be manually confirmed before a link is created and syncing can begin.

In connected platforms like Education management, relationship types, like Aunt or Uncle, can be given Parental Access to any students they are responsible for, ultimately making them a record with a ‘Parent’ role. As such, for any relationship that can be a parent, map the relationship types that could be included as a parent role.

If three users form a family in Education management, and they don’t form one in Raiser’s Edge NXT, then as each user is linked, they are associated with one another as family members in Raiser’s Edge NXT. Each family member added to RE is given their corresponding constituent code and the option for only one parent to be added as a constituent.

Users identified across the connected platforms are grouped into two categories for each user type: unmatched and matched.

• For unmatched users, admins may either add the record as a new constituent in RE or search for an identical user profile from RE and then link the two.

• Regarding matched users, admins may still add the record as a new constituent but may also simply review and approve a suggested match to complete the pairing. If the proposed match is incorrect, then conduct a search for a potential match from the records in Raiser’s Edge NXT.

If there is no match in Raiser’s Edge NXT, then select Add BEM record to RE to create an identical user in Raiser’s Edge NXT and create the link.

These actions are listed under the Needs attention section of Total School.

1. Go to the Total School page.

2. Under Total School Fundraising Summary, select View All Linked Records.

3. Find the profile, click the ellipsis (⋯), and select Break Link.

Once unlinked, the user is returned to the potential matches list.

1. Navigate to View All Linked Records under the Total School Fundraising Summary.

2. Click the ellipsis (⋯) next to a profile and select Show History.

Yes, changes can be reverted individually:

1. Navigate to View All Linked Records under the Total School Fundraising Summary.

2. Go to Show History for a profile.

3. Click the ellipsis (⋯) next to a change and select Undo.

This action creates a new change record showing the reversal.

An incomplete status item means one or more fields cannot be synced. In this state, however, other fields can still sync. This issue arises when the table values in one connected system don’t fully match in another connected system.

For example, a Gender option was changed in Education management to a value that doesn’t exist in Raiser’s Edge NXT; the fields remain incomplete, and thus cannot be synced, until the corresponding table value is included as a Gender option in Raiser’s Edge NXT.

An out of sync profile means that no fields can be synced. This occurs for several reasons, such as a linked user being deleted on one connected platform, or Total School was turned off, changes occurred while offline, and then turned back on, resulting in a mismatch between the data previously recorded by Total School and the new changes.

When an out of sync issue is due to a deleted profile, the resolution may be to delete the other profile in the connected platform, or to pair the remaining profile with a new one in the connected platform.

When the out of sync issue is due to changes occurring to user profiles while Total School is disabled, Total School will provide a list of all fields with changes; you must determine which value for each field is the value that should be saved.

Yes, but doing so may cause conflicts. For example, if syncing is disabled and changes are made in Raiser’s Edge NXT, those changes won’t sync when re-enabled. The record will appear in the Out of Sync list and require manual resolution.