What’s New - August 26, 2025

After a short summer hiatus, we've started pumping out new journal content! Last week, we revealed the latest on the Official Notes List feature recently added to Enrollment management. This week, we’ll have a rundown of some of our biggest visual changes to happen over the summer, features that ditched the old Podium style look for something a bit more modern.

We've got plenty more on the way, so make sure to bookmark the page and stay tuned!

Billing clerks can now change a student’s payment plan in a single process, without deleting the existing plan and creating a new one. This update ensures payments and credits are automatically reapplied, reducing errors and saving time.

To change a payment plan, go to the student’s billing profile, find the Payment plans section, and select View payment plan. From there, select Change payment plan to open the wizard.

• In Step 1, choose the new plan and review included charges.

• In Step 2, adjust charge and due dates if needed, then select Save.

The system will automatically void and regenerate credits, reapply payments, and update the plan. Notes entered during the change appear in the payment plan History section.

When a manager goes to Blackbaud ID Authentication and views the lists of users who are Unregistered, Registered and Awaiting response, they can now choose to show a column of each user’s contact (primary) Email address. These emails are often, but not always, used as the Blackbaud ID username. Previously, only the Unregistered tab showed this information; it was called “contact email.”

Additionally, you can now Filter the lists to show whether each email:

• Matches BBID

• Does not match BBID

• All

This update is especially useful to schools that employ temporary or seasonal staff (such as athletic coaches, nurses, and volunteers). When these users also have non-employee roles (such as parents or students), then schools may want to change the user’s login from an email address that’s part of the school’s domain to a personal email (or vice versa) as the user’s roles also change.

When a list manager views a User list, they can now choose to show a column for Birth place.

To update a user’s birth place, go to their Core user profile, view the Contact card, and Edit their Citizenship/Resident information.

This update makes it easier to access birth place data. It’s also necessary for sharing records with Raiser’s Edge NXT in the future. You may have heard of this “common record” project in a previous product update briefing or roadmap.

Schools can now add up to five custom fields to Buy Now items for additional details, such as "Size" and "Homeroom teacher".

Add custom fields to a Buy Now item

1. In Buy Now Give Now, select Manage Items.

2. Select Add New Item or select Edit to update an existing Buy Now item.

3. On the Additional Settings tab, select Add Custom Field.

4. Under Enter Custom Field Name, enter a label for the custom field.

   Tip: Payers enter text in the custom fields when purchasing items. If choices are limited, use a descriptive Custom Field Name, such as "Size S-XL" instead of just "Size."

5. To add more fields, select Add Another Custom Field and enter a name for each additional field.

6. When finished, select Save.

After purchasing an item, payers can review the custom field information they entered on the purchase confirmation page and in their order confirmation email.

View custom field responses

School users can view the text payers entered in custom fields in Buy Now Give Now Manage Transactions by

• running the Item Details Report,

• selecting a transaction amount.

With this update, Blackbaud Tuition Management now supports the use of special characters for payer and student names. These will also be used and included in places like the parent website, Family Account Summary under Enrollment, and inside reports, as well as in emails to name a few instances.

For more information, including a full list of special characters, please visit our help center.