What's Recent

Check out the Employees list in Core, Users, Employees list. Use it to

• review information for current and past employees, even staff who aren’t faculty,

• view a column that shows Account status to review whether logins for current and former employees are Enabled, Disabled, or Inactivated. (You can also view this information from Users list.)

• and withdraw employment in bulk.

When you withdraw employment, you'll determine whether the change should be effective Immediately or on a Custom date and time in the future. You can also decide whether to revoke their access to login. Apply changes to the selected employees in bulk, then adjust details for individuals, and Save. For example, enable one employee to stay longer or retain their access, while others are immediately withdrawn and revoked.

Withdrawn employees who retain login access can continue to serve as community group leaders, helping maintain connections with alums. After withdrawing an employee, review your community groups and update leadership as needed. When employment is withdrawn, the user's employee roles are updated to "Past" versions, such as "Past Coach," and they lose access to current roles.

This replaces the Podium experience you previously used (under Core, Users, Withdraw Employees) and generally functions the same.

For schools using tuition fees, downloaded payer invoices will now show tuition fee amounts on the Tuition line, instead of listing it under School fees. This update applies to both student and family invoices, on page 1 and page 2.

School users can now edit or delete the description on an in-school payment directly from the payment record. Previously, changing a description required voiding and recreating the payment. From Payment History, select Edit Description to update or remove text, then save your changes. The updated description appears everywhere you view payment details.

As the 2026-2027 school year begins, remember that Blackbaud Tuition Management now delivers all billing correspondence by email. Paper invoice delivery is no longer available.

Reminder for schools:

• Update your school’s billing communications to remove references to paper, postal, or regular mail.

• Encourage families to verify and update their email addresses to ensure invoice delivery.

See Blackbaud Tuition Management Paperless Billing – FAQs for more information.

Innovation Webinar: August 25, 1-2 p.m. ET. Register today! From AI-powered advancements to the latest product innovations, see how Blackbaud is helping schools work smarter, strengthen engagement, and achieve better outcomes. Join Blackbaud K-12 leaders to learn what's coming next across the K-12 landscape and why a connected technology strategy matters more than ever.

This week in the journal, we're taking you on a journey through all of the pages that have been converted in the past few months from Podium into the more modern and intuitive SKY UX-style list. It's probably a bit more than you realize, so come take a look!

The Collections assistant is now rolling out to all schools in weekly waves. When standard notifications aren't working, Billing clerks can use it to prioritize and follow up on past due accounts from one place.

To get started, from the navigation in Billing management, select Collections, then Collections assistant.

The Collections assistant provides a consolidated view of account issues categorized by highest priority, repeat late payers, potential write offs, and multiple past due installments. Rather than navigating to individual profiles, clerks can review balances and statement recipients, add payments, credits, late fees, or holds, change payment plans, and enroll accounts in Auto-Pay directly from the dashboard.

Additionally, clerks can use Blackbaud AI to generate personalized email communications with custom tone and urgency settings. All actions and emails are automatically logged to the student's billing profile, reducing manual tracking.

Billing clerks can now review recognized revenue by fee and GL account for each month, making it easier to reconcile to the general ledger monthly and provide supporting documentation to auditors at year-end.

To get started, enable the new Revenue recognition schedule task in Core, Roles, Tasks. Then, in Billing management, hover over Reporting in the navigation and select Revenue recognition schedule.

The report displays one row for each fee name and GL account combination, with a column for each month in the selected range. Because a single fee can route to multiple GL accounts based on criteria such as grade level, program, or payment plan, the same fee appears once per account rather than as a single combined row. Financial aid items are included and reported by the debit to the financial aid account.

Select Filter to set a post date range of up to one year and to filter by distribution post status. Use Find in this list to search by fee name or GL account, and the displayed totals update to match your results. Select Export to download the report.

Billing clerks can now charge a fee automatically when they handle a failed payment, so schools can recover bank and processing costs without adding the charge by hand.

To get started, set up the fee. In Billing management, hover over Billing in the navigation, select Billing years, and choose Special fees on the in-page navigation. Select the new Failed payment fee type, then enter a fee name, description, and amount.

Once the fee is configured for the billing year, an Add failed payment fee? option appears wherever you handle a failed payment: in the Needs attention split view, for both failed payments and failed enrollment deposit payments; and on the payment page, when you mark an in-school payment as failed. The option is selected by default and displays the fee amount alongside it. A Transaction comment field is prefilled with the reason the payment failed, up to a 50-character limit, and appears in the payer portal and on statements.

Additionally, the failed payment record now links directly to the resulting charge, and the Collections assistant activity feed logs each time a failed payment fee is added.

You can now use the Employees list to withdraw employment in bulk. To see it, go to Core, Users, Employees list.

When you withdraw employment, you'll determine whether the change should be effective Immediately or on a Custom date and time in the future. You can also decide whether to revoke their access to login. Apply changes to the selected employees in bulk, then adjust details for individuals, and Save. For example, enable one employee to stay longer or retain their access, while others are immediately withdrawn and revoked.

Withdrawn employees who retain login access can continue to serve as community group leaders, helping maintain connections with alums. After withdrawing an employee, review your community groups and update leadership as needed. When employment is withdrawn, the user's employee roles are updated to "Past" versions, such as "Past Coach," and they lose access to current roles.

This replaces the Podium experience you previously used (under Core, Users, Withdraw Employees) and generally functions the same.

And, as of last week, the Employees list also includes a column option to show Account status. Use this to review whether logins for current and former employees are Enabled, Disabled, or Inactivated. (You can also view this information from Users list.)

We're continuing to update the process for generating reports to a modern SKY experience. These updates will occur in waves; we'll continue until all reports benefit from the new interface.

Previously, these updates benefited standard administrative reports and embedded reports. Next, you'll see the updated generator for custom reports too.

Your workflow and general functionality (filters, exports, etc.) remain the same. However, you'll now select options from a menu to the side of report preview (instead of above).

Community group managers (owners) can now add leaders while managing the roster. From Extracurricular, select Community groups, Roster, and then Manage roster to find the Manage leaders option. When the modal opens, you'll be able to add new leaders to the existing list.

Schools can now choose to restrict Verified applications to a single budget. When this setting is enabled, a Verified application is only visible in its assigned budget, helping schools manage budgets more accurately and avoid duplicate application visibility.

To enable this option, go to Settings, General School Settings, and enable Restrict Verified applications to assigned budget. The setting is off by default, so no existing behavior changes until a school turns it on.

Parents can now enter a note directly in the document upload section to explain why they cannot provide a required document, eliminating the need to upload a separate file containing an explanation.

School users can view these explanations on the family's Documents page.

The K-12 2026 UC is in the books! Thanks for 3 incredible days together! From product enhancements and connected workflows to conversations around responsible AI and what's next for K-12 schools, attendees explored new ways to drive efficiency, engagement, and impact across their schools. And we're just getting started—stay tuned for additional conference content! If you didn’t hear, mark your calendar for 2027: Similar timeframe, exact dates and location to come.

With the new school year upon us, we want to make sure everyone is up to speed on the Parent Submitted Attendance feature. In this new journal entry, we're taking a deep dive into the feature to explain what it is, how it works, the benefits it adds, as well as where we're taking it in the future.

The Collections assistant is now rolling out to all schools in weekly waves. When standard notifications aren't working, Billing clerks can use it to prioritize and follow up on past due accounts from one place.

To get started, from the navigation in Billing management, select Collections, then Collections assistant.

The Collections assistant provides a consolidated view of account issues categorized by highest priority, repeat late payers, potential write offs, and multiple past due installments. Rather than navigating to individual profiles, clerks can review balances and statement recipients, add payments, credits, late fees, or holds, change payment plans, and enroll accounts in Auto-Pay directly from the dashboard.

Additionally, clerks can use Blackbaud AI to generate personalized email communications with custom tone and urgency settings. All actions and emails are automatically logged to the student's billing profile, reducing manual tracking.

Billing clerks can now review a summary of what Billing management has posted to each GL account, making it easier to reconcile against the general ledger without working through individual distribution rows.

To get started, in Billing management hover over Lists in the navigation and select Distributions list. The list now opens on the new Accounts tab, which groups distributions by account and shows the GL account number, GL account name, Debits, Credits, and Change for each.

Use the Post date filter to set the period you want to reconcile, then select Export to download the summary as a .csv file.

When a list manager creates or edits an Advanced list, you may want to reference information about how tables of data are stored. This information helps you determine where to find the data and how it can be filtered or joined to create your list (query). This information is documented in the Data dictionary. With this release, this resource is fully updated to the latest, complete information.

To see it, go to Core, Reporting, Manage lists, Manage basic and advanced lists. Select Add and then Create advanced list. A link to the Data dictionary appears near Save and Cancel.

The Employees list now includes a new column option to show Account status. Use this to review whether logins for current and former employees are Enabled, Disabled, or Inactivated. (You can also view this information from Users list.)

To see it, go to Core, Users, Employees list.

School users can now download a ready-to-use in-school payment upload template directly within Tuition Management. Under Batch Uploads, select Payments to open Payment Data Upload, then select Download template.

The template is prefilled with current account data for each active family, including school code, family name, family ID, and school family ID. Schools only need to enter payment details and remove rows for families without payments before uploading, which reduces manual entry and helps prevent mismatched records.

Previously, a blank template was available for download through the Knowledgebase and help documents.

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

The K-12 2026 UC is in the books! Thanks for 3 incredible days together! From product enhancements and connected workflows to conversations around responsible AI and what's next for K-12 schools, attendees explored new ways to drive efficiency, engagement, and impact across their schools. And we're just getting started—stay tuned for additional conference content! If you didn’t hear, mark your calendar for 2027: Similar timeframe, exact dates and location to come.

In this update, we've removed the old Podium experience when browsing groups and replaced it with a more modern and intuitive SKY user experience version. From the Faculty persona, you can access Browse Groups by selecting View Other Classes or Find More from the Groups dropdown also from the Parent, Friend, and Alum personas as well. Doing so opens the new Browse Groups experience.

When the page loads, your associated active class and group tiles appear, including information like the group owner, school level, and location if one has been entered. Select the Group name to be taken to its page or View Description to view additional details. Use the new filter options to refine which class and group tiles appear, or the search bar can be used to find something specific. If needed, you can +Propose new group to add one to the list as well.

Please note that to see the new feature, it first needs to be activated. Platform managers can go to Core, Settings, and then Activate new features. From the Feature preview tab, select the New browse groups user experience option and enable it.

Teachers can save time and manage assessment attempts more efficiently with bulk status updates from the Proctor tab. Instead of updating students individually, teachers can select Bulk edit, choose the students to update, and then select Allow retake or Allow continue for each student. Only valid Status options are available for each student. For example, Allow retake is only available after a student submits the assessment.

The Collections assistant is now rolling out to all schools in weekly waves. When standard notifications aren't working, Billing clerks can use it to prioritize and follow up on past due accounts from one place.

To get started from the navigation in Billing management, select Collections, then Collections assistant.

The Collections assistant provides a consolidated view of account issues categorized by highest priority, repeat late payers, potential write-offs, and multiple past due installments. Rather than navigating to individual profiles, clerks can review balances and statement recipients, add payments, credits, late fees, or holds, change payment plans, and enroll accounts in Auto-Pay directly from the dashboard.

Additionally, clerks can use Blackbaud AI to generate personalized email communications with custom tone and urgency settings. All actions and emails are automatically logged to the student's billing profile, reducing manual tracking.

Billing clerks can now control how credits are dated when they're reversed by the Change payment plan process, so reversals align with your school's accounting periods.

To get started, go to the student's billing profile, find the Payment plans section, and select View payment plan. Select Change payment plan to open the process. Under For credits that need to be reversed use, choose one of the following:

• Specific date - reverses credits using the date you enter. This defaults to today's date and matches how the wizard has always worked.

• Original credit date - reverses each credit using the date of the original credit.

Note: Selecting Original credit date may generate reversals in prior periods.

Billing clerks can now run the financial aid import in Core, so schools that use Billing without an Enrollment management subscription can bring financial aid awards into the system.

You can now add the Preferred last name column to the Employees list by selecting it from the Contact card category in the Columns selector. The column displays an employee's Preferred last name, or their Last name if no preferred last name is available. Any custom columns you add are also included when exporting the Faculty list.

The 2027–2028 application year will be available to add beginning August 12, 2026. To prepare for a successful financial aid season, add the new year and review your settings before opening applications to families.

Add the 2027–2028 School Year

Create the 2027–2028 year and define your application open and close dates. When you add the new year, the system automatically copies the following information from the previous year:

• General school, school aid, and custom calculation settings

• Custom application questions

• Tuition and standard discounts

• Deadlines

• Family, Student, and Internal codes

• School Budgets

To add the new school year:

1. Navigate to Settings, Manage School Years.

2. Select Add.

3. Under Session, select 2027–2028, then enter the Open Date and Close Date.

4. Select Save.

Review Settings for the New Year

After creating the 2027–2028 school year, review your settings and make any necessary updates.

Tip: Verify that 2027–2028 is selected at the top of the page before making changes so updates apply to the correct school year.

Review the following areas:

• Manage Users: Remove users who no longer need access and confirm current users have the appropriate roles.

• Tuition & Standard Discounts: Review grade-level tuition amounts, aid eligibility, discount eligibility, and discount percentages.

• Codes: Update Family, Student, and Internal codes as needed for reporting and budget eligibility criteria.

School Finance Users can now return payments to families directly in Tuition Management. This gives schools a faster way to issue refunds, keep account balances accurate, and route funds back to the original payment method.

Issue a School-Initiated Refund

1. Go to Families and select View All Families.

2. Search for and select the family to open their Main Family Page.

3. In Billing Summary, locate the payment and select the amount under Settled.

4. Select Refund Payment.

What to Expect

Tuition Management excludes the refunded amount from the school's next remittance. While the refund is in progress, the payment status shows Refund Requested.

After processing, the status updates to Failed, and the system returns funds to the original payment method.

Eligibility Requirements

School Finance Users and Enterprise Finance Users can select Refund Payment when a payment meets these conditions:

• The school has sufficient funds available for remittance. For example, a payment of $1,000 cannot be refunded if only $500 is in process for remittance. To review pending remittances, see the Remittances tile on the Tuition Management landing page.

• The refund covers the full payment amount. Partial refunds are not supported.

• The payment status is Settled.

• The payment was made within the last 90 days.

• For bank account (ACH) payments, seven days have passed since the original payment date.

• The payment method is a credit card, debit card, or bank account. Tuition Management does not support refunds for mailed checks, money orders, Flywire, PayNearMe, or other alternative payment methods.

• The payment was submitted electronically through phone, web, automatic debit, an enrollment deposit contract, Shopping Cart, or Buy Now Give Now.

• The school account is active and in good standing.

• The school has not started the process of cancelling Tuition Management.

When a payment does not meet these conditions, Refund Payment is not available.

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

Missed the K-12 User Conference, or want a quick refresher? Catch up on the biggest announcements, key takeaways, and our new recap video in the Community recap and Newsroom highlights. Then join us for our upcoming K-12 Innovation Webinar, where Blackbaud leaders will take a deeper dive into UC mainstage announcements, product innovation, and what's next for K-12 schools.

Gradebook managers can now access Bulk gradebook setup in Academics, Grades, Grades management. Released last week in Gradebook settings, this wizard helps you apply gradebook settings to multiple course sections for a selected marking period.

With this release, we’re continuing our efforts to update administrative reports, that are “embedded” throughout your Education Management experience, to use the new process for generating reports.

The process for generating reports is being updated to a modern Sky experience. These updates are occurring in waves; which will continue until all embedded reports benefit from the new interface.

Your workflow and general functionality (filters, exports, etc.) remain the same. However, you'll now select options from a menu to the side of report preview (instead of above).

Remember that “standard” reports have already been updated; those appear in Core, Reporting, Reports.

We've made several updates to the Pushpage lists to reduce repetitive filtering and make it easier to move between related records.

Filters are now remembered

When you change the filters on any Pushpage list, your selections are saved. Navigating away and returning to that list restores your previously applied filters instead of resetting them.

Inactive items excluded by default

The Distribution groups and Pushpage templates lists now exclude inactive items by default, so you see only what's currently in use when no saved filters exist.

View an issue directly from the Jobs list

On the Pushpage jobs tab, the value in the Issue column is now a link. Select it to open the issue, the same as choosing View issue from the issues list.

Filter jobs by template

On the Pushpage jobs tab, select Filter to open the filter dialog, where you can now filter by Template. Save the dialog to apply the filter to the list.

Administrators can now invite school users to access Tuition Management directly with their Blackbaud ID (BBID). New users sign in with their Blackbaud ID from the start, eliminating the need to create a separate Tuition Management username and password and connect it to BBID later.

Administrators can also:

• Resend user invitations.

• Cancel pending invitations.

• Disconnect a user's Blackbaud ID when needed.

School users manage their own passwords through their Blackbaud ID account, creating a more consistent sign-in experience across Blackbaud solutions. For information about Blackbaud ID password management, see Blackbaud ID Password.

Schools users can now select Wire as a payment method when they add an in-school payment. When a user selects this option, the system adds "Wire" to the payment description, so the payment record clearly shows how the family paid. This provides a more accurate, complete payment history without extra manual entry.

Are you up to date on our video content? We've recently added new videos for your viewing pleasure and have more in the works. Have a look!

Gradebook managers can now apply gradebook settings to multiple course sections in a single workflow, saving time and helping ensure consistency.

From Grades, Grading setup, Gradebook settings, select Bulk configure gradebooks to launch a guided workflow that helps you:

1. Select the marking period to configure.

2. Select the course sections to update.

3. Choose the gradebook settings to apply to the selected marking period and course sections.

To protect existing gradebook data, course sections that contain assignments cannot be included in a bulk update. To update those sections, remove the assignments and then run the bulk configuration.

For courses that span multiple marking periods, run the bulk configuration process for each marking period you want to update.

Payers can now view, filter, and print a complete list of their transactions from the payer portal, making it easier to find and review account activity.

To get started, on the Billing page, select View more transactions from the Recent activity tile. Choose a student and set a date range (up to 5 years, defaulting to the past 60 days). Use the Transaction type filter or search by description or amount to narrow the results. Transactions are sorted by date with the newest first, and payment status messages and comments continue to display as they do on the Recent activity tile. Select Print to generate a formatted page of the results.

When a platform manager views their Core home dashboard, a Needs Attention tile now appears and shows additional information, including the number of:

• Potential duplicate users

  Select the count to go to Manage duplicate users.

• Users with unacknowledged profile changes

  Select the count to go to Profile changes.

• Non-students with enrollment rows

  Select the count to go to the User list.

• Parents with no email address (who are aren’t “no contact”)

  Select the count to go to the User list.

• Households with no contact information

  Select the count to go to the Address and Households list.

Users must have the security rights for the corresponding list or action to see the data in the Needs Attention tile. Use this information and the links to ensure your school’s data remains correct, complete, updated, and healthy. When you access a list from the Needs Attention tile, the list will be automatically filtered to show the relevant information.

Platform managers can now use the Employees list to view and manage all employees, including staff who don’t teach; it’s similar to the Faculty list. Columns and filters are “sticky,” so when you choose which data to show and how to sort it, your preferences remain active the next time you view the list.

From the list, find an employee’s name. On their row, select the ellipsis (...). You can also:

• Edit role membership

• or Edit employment

for the user. These options function exactly the same as they do elsewhere for managing employees.

Additionally, the platform manager role has a new corresponding security task. We recommend schools review all clones of the platform manager role, as well as which users are members of platform manager roles. Disable the task for any platform managers who shouldn’t be able to view and manage all employees (pending, current, and past). Platform managers with access to the Employees list can view all employment details. Otherwise, security access for who can edit and withdraw employment remains unchanged.

The K-12 2026 User Conference is in the books! Thanks for 3 incredible days together! From product enhancements and connected workflows to conversations around responsible AI and what's next for K-12 schools, attendees explored new ways to drive efficiency, engagement, and impact across their schools. And we're just getting started—stay tuned for additional conference content! If you didn't hear, mark your calendar for 2027: Similar timeframe, exact dates and location to come.

With this release, the modernized assignment creation and grading experience introduced in December is now enabled for all schools, giving teachers a faster, more consistent way to manage assignments from setup through evaluation.

All assignment creation and grading workflows now use the updated experience.

The legacy assignment experiences are no longer available, and teachers can no longer switch between the old and new workflows.

Designed to reduce repetitive steps and streamline common tasks, the updated experience helps teachers move more efficiently from assignment creation to grading, while supporting flexible, personalized workflows.

Create Assignments More Efficiently

Teachers can set up assignments with fewer steps and less navigation, helping them focus on instructional planning instead of configuration.

• Streamlined interface reduces visual clutter and limits unnecessary scrolling, so teachers can find settings faster.

• Faster setup workflow allows teachers to create assignments with fewer steps and apply preferred defaults during setup.

• Improved organization keeps all assignment settings in a clear, intuitive layout, making it easier to review and adjust configuration.

• Enhanced assignment preferences enable teachers to define default settings, such as file submissions, evaluation methods, and due date preferences, that automatically apply to new assignments.

For example, a teacher who consistently requires file submissions and Total points grading can configure those preferences one time and use them across assignments without repeating setup steps.

Focused and Flexible Grading

The updated grading experience helps teachers review student work and provide feedback without switching contexts.

• Side-by-side grading layout displays student submissions alongside grading tools, so teachers can evaluate work and enter feedback in one view.

• Expanded submission area keeps the focus on student work, making it easier to review content without distraction.

• Streamlined feedback tools bring comments, assignment status, and rubric grading into a single page for faster access.

• Detailed rubric grading supports drill-in views that allow teachers to assess criteria while staying within the grading workflow.

For more information, check out our webinar and short assignment creation and grading videos.

Deliver A Consistent Comment Editing Experience

Additionally, all assignment grading now uses the same version of TinyMCE for text comments. This consistent editing experience helps teachers format feedback reliably across assignments.

This release introduces a new Class view for assignment grading, giving teachers a faster grade entry option outside of the full gradebook.

The new Class view provides a gradebook-style experience for a single assignment, allowing teachers to enter grades quickly for multiple students when submission review is not needed.

Introduced with the new assignment experience in December, the Student view focuses on one student at a time and works best for assignments that require individual review, such as file submissions or LTI tool assignments.

By default:

• Student view opens for assignments linked to LTI tools or online file submissions.

• Class view opens for all other assignments.

This helps teachers choose the most efficient workflow based on how they need to assess student work.

In this update, we've removed the old Podium experience when managing learning profiles from the Learning center, replacing it with a modern look and feel using SKY.

When selecting students with learning profiles, it'll now pull up a SKY enhanced page called Manage learning profiles. Learning Profile Managers and Staff can now manage learning profiles from this singular location and have more options than before, such as customizable filters and columns, a search bar to find a specific entry, and an organized list of entries. Use the context menu to manage individual students, from editing an existing LP to making a copy, inactivating it, or viewing the change history for it. You can also select +Add to create a brand-new entry.

Payers can now view, filter, and print a complete list of their transactions from the payer portal, making it easier to find and review account activity.

To get started, on the Billing page, select View more transactions from the Recent activity tile. Choose a student and set a date range (up to 5 years, defaulting to the past 60 days). Use the Transaction type filter or search by description or amount to narrow the results. Transactions are sorted by date with the newest first, and payment status messages and comments continue to display as they do on the Recent activity tile. Select Print to generate a formatted page of the results.

Schools that participate in our early adopter program can enjoy early access to a SKY version of workflows to create and manage basic and advanced lists. Create an ad-hoc query of your data based on Basic and Advanced lists via a modern user experience.

Contact product manager Jessi Walters to join the EAP.

This includes functionality that enables you to:

• Determine who can create advanced lists (by role or by user)

• Determine who can use or manage a specific list (by role or by user)

• Copy an existing basic or advanced list

• Create a new basic list

• Create a new advanced list

• Use a template to create a new advanced list

• Edit basic and advanced lists

• Delete basic and advanced lists

• Run basic and advanced lists

• Generate mailing labels

• Use categories to organize basic and advanced lists

• Create, edit, and delete categories

• Assign lists in bulk to a category

• Delete lists in bulk

• View counts of how many roles or users have access to a basic or advanced list

• Customize your view of lists via columns, filters, and sort options

• Export

With this release, we expanded the functionality which automatically formats phone numbers. When your school uses a data import to add or update phone numbers for emergency contacts, the import now benefits from this standardized formatting. This improves data health and consistency.

Remember, schools who want this functionality must first enable it. To do this, go to Core, Users, User profile settings, Profile page settings. Then enable automatic phone formatting and select a preferred format for phone numbers in the United States and Canada.

When enabled, any time you add or update phone numbers using a data import, your school's automatic phone formatting is applied. Phone numbers for your school's default country will have the country code added automatically if you omitted them from the original import file. However, you must add the country codes for any phone numbers outside of your school's default country; they won't be added automatically and are required for validation for proper formatting.

See the online help for profile page settings.

Note: Valid phone numbers in the school's default country without a country code are accepted. However, phone numbers outside of the school's default country, that omit "+" and a country code, before the rest of the phone number, aren't accepted by the validation process.

The Pushpage lists have been updated to SKY UX, giving you a cleaner, more consistent experience for managing your communications. Each list now includes a familiar toolbar for filtering, searching, and adjusting columns.

To get started, open Pushpage and select a tab:

• Pushpage issues: view your issues with columns for Name, Volume, Issue, Template, and Jobs count. Select New to create an issue.

• Pushpage jobs: track jobs with columns for Job name, Issue, Template, Distribution group, Job status, and Job date.

• Distribution groups: manage groups with columns for Name, Type, Jobs, and Recipients. Select New to create a group.

• Pushpage templates: manage templates with counts for Issues, Jobs, and Tests, plus Last modified by and Last modified on details. Select Create new template to add one.

Across each list, use the toolbar to Export, Filter, or choose Columns, and use Find in this list to quickly locate an item.

When a platform manager configures settings for Profile publish access and Profile relationship access, options for visa and passport data no longer appear. Fields for visa and passport data also no longer appear in Profile Privacy Settings.

This update doesn't change user permissions or functionality; these settings are already no longer in use.

Users can continue to view and edit their own data for these fields. Users must have special access to view and edit this data for others.

With the June 2 release, visa and passport were moved to special access to protect this sensitive personal information. Users with special access can view this information in Contact cards and SKY lists (User lists, Student lists, and Candidates lists), although it will appear masked until they select Edit.

As of July 21, the data is also masked in Advanced lists, even for users with special access. If your integrations or customizations need this data, update them to retrieve it from the SKY API School Users endpoints, where visa and passport values are returned as properties on the user object.

Remember, only users who are granted special access can see:

• Visa status

• Visa number

• Visa type

• Visa issue date

• Visa expire date

• Passport expire date

• Passport number

• Social security number

We also recommend platform managers use the Users list to review which users need special access. Show the Column for Special access and sort the column in descending order to show "yes" values first. From the list, platform managers can select a user's name to the user's profile in Core. Then, use the Access tab to Grant (or Remove) special access for the user.

This year, we've updated numerous standard administrative reports to use the new process for generating reports. Starting with this release, we've expanded those efforts to reports that are "embedded" throughout your Education Management experience. (Previously, we'd focused on reports found in Core, Reporting, Reports.)

The process for generating reports is being updated to a modern SKY experience. These updates will occur in waves; we'll continue until all embedded reports benefit from the new interface.

Your workflow and general functionality (filters, exports, etc.) remain the same. However, you'll now select options from a menu to the side of report preview (instead of above).

Currently, schools can use the Faculty list to see all employees who teach a course. In a future release, platform managers will also be able to view and manage all employees, including staff who don't teach, via a similar list.

When the new Employees list is enabled, we'll add a corresponding task in the Platform Manager role. Schools should prepare to review all clones of the platform manager role, as well as which users are members of platform manager roles. Be ready to disable the task for any platform managers who shouldn't be able to view and manage all employees (pending, current, and past). Platform managers with access to the Employees list will be able to view all employment details, but there will be no change to the access controls which manage the ability to edit and withdraw employment.

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

We are days away from THE learning event of the year! IF FOMO is creeping in, this is your last chance to secure your spot in Boston. Join us for peer-led sessions, shop talks with Blackbaud leaders, hands-on product labs, the Unconference, and unmatched networking! Explore the session catalog, and see what's in store across admissions, academics, business office, fundraising, technology, and leadership—plus two standout keynotes!

Check out this Guide to figure out which conference is best for you: K-12 UC or bbcon.

Registration for bbcon 2026 in Columbus, OH is open! Join us September 29–October 1 to learn what's working across the Blackbaud community, connect with peers, and discover practical ideas you can put to work right away. This year's lineup includes an inspiring keynote from award-winning artist, actor, and New York Times bestselling author Leslie Odom, Jr., plus insights from globally recognized AI innovator Priya Lakhani OBE on responsible AI for social impact. Browse 100+ sessions to find relevant insights, strategies, and ideas that can help your school advance its mission. Register now.

The 360 Profile Calendar now displays Athletics games and practices.

Billing clerks can now grant statement recipients access to the payer portal without giving them full access to other portal areas like grades, attendance, or report cards. This is useful for users like grandparents who need to pay for specific charges but shouldn't see the rest of a student's information.

To get started, add a statement recipient to a student. If the user doesn't already have a role that includes billing portal access, you'll be prompted to grant them access. Confirming places the user in the Payer role, giving them access to the billing area of the portal only.

You can also manage this access from the statement recipient's page. A new Payer access tile appears for recipients who don't already have portal access through a parent role. Use the Billing access section on the statement recipient add/edit form to review who has access and control what each recipient can see:

• Recipients with portal access from an existing role (such as Parent) appear selected and disabled.

• Recipients without a qualifying role can be granted access using the checkbox.

Payers can now view, filter, and print a complete list of their transactions from the payer portal, making it easier to find and review account activity.

To get started, on the Current bill page, select View more transactions from the Recent activity section. Select a student and a date range (up to 5 years, defaulting to the past 60 days). Use the toolbar filters or search by description or amount to narrow the list. Transactions are sorted by date with the newest first. Select Print to generate a formatted page of the results.

K-12 schools can now keep student and parent profiles consistent between Blackbaud Education Management and Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT using Total School's user synchronization feature. When a change is made to a profile on one platform, the corresponding profile on the other updates automatically, typically within a few minutes.

Tip: More information, including set-up steps, can be found within our documentation.

Creating and managing matches

Once Total School is enabled, unlinked users appear in the Needs attention section on the main page, organized into Without a potential match and With potential matching records lists.

To link users, open the context menu next to a record and select Match and merge. Review any proposed matches, then either select Link and merge records to confirm, or Add BEM record to RE to create a new user in the connected platform if no match exists. To unlink users later, go to View linked records under Total School Fundraising Summary, open the context menu, and select Break link.

Managing records and history

You can view a user's change history, revert changes, or stop syncing a user at any time.

From Total School Fundraising Summary, select View Linked Records. Open the context menu next to a record for these options:

• Show History: view a log of every change, including the date, field, before/after values, and source platform. Undo individual changes to create a reversal record.
  

  

• Break link: stop syncing for the user; the record returns to the Needs attention lists.

Troubleshooting sync issues

Sync issues appear as either Incomplete or Out of sync statuses and must be resolved manually.

• Incomplete: one or more fields can't sync, typically because a table value in one platform doesn't exist in the other. Other fields continue to sync. To resolve, add the missing value to the corresponding table (for example, add a Gender option to Raiser's Edge NXT). Access these under Needs attention > Review linked records with an incomplete sync status.

• Out of sync: no fields can sync, usually due to a deleted profile or changes made while Total School was disabled. Access these under Needs attention > Review linked records with data out of sync between the systems. To resolve conflicts, select Merge from the record's context menu and choose which platform's value to keep for each field.

  

With this release, we're continuing our efforts to modernize the user experience throughout Core.

Platform managers still configure who has access to edit Pushpages (newsletters) via Core, Security, Pushpage Editor Access, but we've replaced the older "Podium" page with a SKY version for a more accessible and intuitive user interface. Previously, you would select whether to view a list of groups or a list of editors. Now, a list of editor groups will appear by default.

From the list, you can:

• View existing editor groups. On each group's row:

  • You'll see a count of how many users are members of the group and how many templates they can access. Select the count of users to see their names.

  • Select the ellipsis (...) and then Edit to modify the group's name, user membership, their access to send, who they can send to, and which templates they can use.

  • Select the ellipsis (...) and then Delete to permanently remove the group. Group members will lose editor access, unless they're also members of a different group that grants them the same access.

• Create a new group of editors:

  1. Select + Add (above the grid). Enter a descriptive name for the editor group. Then search for and choose users to be members. Select + Add to editors. If necessary, delete the membership for other users. Then select Next.

  2. Determine whether members of the editor group can send tests and whether they can send issues. If they can send, you'll also determine which distribution groups (if any) they can send to. You can also limit editors to only send tests to individual email addresses, instead of distribution groups. Then choose which Pushpage templates they can use. And select Next.

  3. Review the group settings and membership. Then select Finish.

• Export information about editor groups.

• Search the list of editor groups.

• Update editors in bulk, such as for the start of a new academic year, select Manage editors (above the grid). To add new editors, search for and choose users, then select + Add to editors. Names of editors appear in a list. For each editor, select which existing groups they should be members of. The settings of each editor group determine what members can do.

With the June 2 release, visa and passport were moved to special access to protect this sensitive personal information. Users with special access can view this information in Contact cards and SKY lists (User lists, Student lists, and Candidates lists), although it will appear masked until you select Edit.

Starting July 21, the data will also be masked in Advanced lists, even for users with special access. Schools should use a list to export any data needed for integrations before July 21. If your school uses this data (via advanced lists) through SKY API, then update your integrations and customizations; the API won't show this sensitive data.

Remember, only users who are granted special access can see:

• Visa status

• Visa number

• Visa type

• Visa issue date

• Visa expire date

• Passport expire date

• Passport number

• Social security number

We also recommend platform managers use the users list to review which users need special access. Show the Column for Special access and sort the column in descending order to show "yes" values first. From the list, platform managers can select a user's name to the user's profile in Core. Then, use the Access tab to Grant (or Remove) special access for the user.

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

There’s still time—but not much—to secure your spot in Boston. The K–12 UC returns for the first time since 2019, and with just days to go before July 15, this is nearing your final chance to register. Explore the session catalog, and see what’s in store across admissions, academics, business office, fundraising, technology, and leadership—plus two standout keynotes!

Check out this Guide to figure out which conference is best for you: K-12 UC or bbcon.

Schools can now show a branded image (such as a logo) on their sign-in page. This gives schools personalized control over the branding of their authentication experience. When enabled, the image appears beside the sign-in form, as a full-height panel. You must be an organization admin to manage branding.

For instructions, see Branding.

In this update, we've removed the old Podium experience for Distinctions, replacing it with a modern look and feel through SKY. The Distinctions page under Grading setup now features a modern style list with a search box, context menu for managing existing Distinctions, and easy to read columns. Use +New to create a Distinction to add to the list.

When an admin manages the settings in Core, Security, Profile access, Profile publish access, they can now prevent specific roles from hiding their information from others. For each role, look for these settings:

• Allow users to remove their name from the online directory for (selected role only).

• Allow users to include only their name in the online directory but hide all other information for (selected role only).

For example, allow parents to hide their information but not students.

If a user has multiple roles:

• and all of their roles enable them to hide their information, then they can hide it.

• and at least one role prevents them from hiding information, then that overrides the other roles, and the user can’t hide their information.

Users continue to manage their own settings by selecting their name (top right), Settings, and then Privacy. From there, they’ll manage their General settings and Directory settings.

Keep in mind that these new settings are not applied retroactively, so users will need to manually update existing user settings. The User list also has a column called Privacy setting where they can see any "stale" settings that may need to be adjusted.

With this release, we’re continuing our efforts to modernize the user experience throughout Core.

Platform managers still configure who has access to edit Pushpages (newsletters) via Core, Security, Pushpage Editor Access, but we’ve replaced the older “Podium” page with a SKY version for a more accessible and intuitive user interface. Previously, you would select whether to view a list of groups or a list of editors. Now, a list of editor groups will appear by default.

From the list, you can:

• View existing editor groups. On each group’s row:

  • You’ll see a count of how many users are members of the group and how many templates they can access. Select the count of users to see their names.

  • Select the ellipsis (...) and then Edit to modify the group’s name, user membership, their access to send, who they can send to, and which templates they can use.

  • Select the ellipsis (...) and then Delete to permanently remove the group. Group members will lose editor access, unless they’re also members of a different group that grants them the same access.

• Create a new group of editors:

  1. Select + Add (above the grid). Enter a descriptive name for the editor group. Then search for and choose users to be members. Select + Add to editors. If necessary, delete the membership for other users. Then select Next.

  2. Determine whether members of the editor group can send tests and whether they can send issues. If they can send, you’ll also determine which distribution groups (if any) they can send to. You can also limit editors to only send tests to individual email addresses, instead of distribution groups. Then choose which Pushpage templates they can use. And select Next.

  3. Review the group settings and membership. Then select Finish.

• Export information about editor groups.

• Search the list of editor groups.

• Update editors in bulk, such as for the start of a new academic year, select Manage editors (above the grid). To add new editors, search for and choose users, then select + Add to editors. Names of editors appear in a list. For each editor, select which existing groups they should be members of. The settings of each editor group determine what members can do.

With the June 2 release, visa and passport were moved to special access to protect this sensitive personal information. Users with special access can view this information in Contact cards and SKY lists (User lists, Student lists, and Candidates lists), although it will appear masked until you select Edit.

Starting July 21, the data will also be masked in Advanced lists, even for users with special access. Schools should use a list to export any data needed for integrations before July 21. If your school uses this data (via advanced lists) through SKY API, then update your integrations and customizations; the API won’t show this sensitive data.

Remember, only users who are granted special access can see:

• Visa status

• Visa number

• Visa type

• Visa issue date

• Visa expire date

• Passport expire date

• Passport number

• Social security number

We also recommend platform managers use the users list to review which users need special access. Show the Column for Special access and sort the column in descending order to show “yes” values first. From the list, platform managers can select a user’s name to the user’s profile in Core. Then, use the Access tab to Grant (or Remove) special access for the user.

Currently, schools can use the Faculty list to see all employees who teach a course. In a future release, platform managers will all also be able to view and manage all employees, including staff who don’t teach, via a similar list.

When the new Employees list is enabled, we’ll add a corresponding task in the Platform Manager role. We recommend schools prepare to review all clones of the platform manager role, as well as which users are members of platform manager roles. Be ready to disable the task for any platform managers who shouldn’t be able to view and manage all employees (pending, current, and past). Platform managers with access to the Employees list will be able to view all employment details, but there will be no change to the access controls which manage the ability to edit and withdraw employment.

We’ve refreshed the parent portal landing page to deliver a more intuitive and efficient experience for applicant families.

Highlights of the update:

• Streamlined, all-in-one view: Families can now manage their application tasks from a single page, reducing the need to navigate between various pages.

• Clear document status: Required documents are prominently displayed, making it easy to see what’s completed and what’s still needed.

• Manage selected schools: Applicants can use the Schools section to update the schools on their application until their application is Verified.

• Saved language preferences: In Settings, users can select English or Spanish as their preferred language, and the portal will remember their choice for future visits.

These enhancements are designed to simplify the application process, improve visibility into next steps, and make the portal easier to use for all families.

There's still time to register to secure your spot in Boston! The K–12 UC returns for the first time since 2019, and with less than a month to go, you won’t want to miss it. Browse the full session catalog and explore our latest community post to see what’s in store. From admissions and enrollment to academics, business office, fundraising, technology, and leadership, there’s content built for every role—plus two standout keynote speakers. Join us July 15–17, and don’t forget: register five and the sixth attends free.

Check out this Guide to figure out which conference is best for you: K-12 UC or bbcon.

When students answer essay questions on online assessments, they can now use additional formatting tools to better organize and present their responses.

Essay answers now support:

• Bulleted lists

• Tables

• Subscript and superscript

• Strikethrough

• Special characters

These updates give students more flexibility to structure complex answers, include detailed content, and communicate ideas more clearly during assessments.

Billing clerks no longer need to manually clean up processing fee charges tied to failed payments or enrollment deposits. When handling a failed transaction, the system now automatically removes the associated processing fee charge along with the payment.

To get started, open a failed payment or enrollment deposit and select the option to handle it. A confirmation modal will appear with the title Handle this failed payment? If a processing fee charge is associated with the payment, the modal displays the charge amount as a clickable link (which opens a flyout of the charge record) and indicates how it will be handled:

• Unposted charge: the processing fee will be deleted.

• Posted charge: the processing fee will be reversed using the same reversal date as the payment.

Select Handle payment to confirm, or Cancel to dismiss the window without making changes. If no processing fee is associated with the payment, the modal shows only the title and buttons.

With the June 2 release, visa and passport were moved to special access to protect this sensitive personal information. Users with special access can view this information in Contact cards and SKY lists (User lists, Student lists, and Candidates lists), although it will appear masked until you select Edit.

Starting July 21, the data will also be masked in Advanced lists, even for users with special access. Schools should use a list to export any data needed for integrations before July 21. If your school uses this data (via advanced lists) through SKY API, then update your integrations and customizations; the API won’t show this sensitive data.

Remember, only users who are granted special access can see:

• Visa status

• Visa number

• Visa type

• Visa issue date

• Visa expire date

• Passport expire date

• Passport number

• Social security number

We also recommend platform managers use the users list to review which users need special access. Show the Column for Special access and sort the column in descending order to show “yes” values first. From the list, platform managers can select a user’s name to the user’s profile in Core. Then, use the Access tab to Grant (or Remove) special access for the user.

The Bulk Set Emergency Contacts menu now supports role selection control, giving you more control over which roles are included when running the process.

To get started, open Bulk Set Emergency Contacts and select Bulk add contacts. In the dialog, use the new Roles selector to choose which roles to include. The Source of contacts label updates to reflect your selected roles, and the Preferred order label no longer repeats the role list since it is visible in the control above.

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

This week in the journal, we're taking a deep dive into the most recent EMS feature: Conditional Due Dates. In case you missed our update in the What's New, the Due Date from the Candidate Checklist now gives you more control over when a checklist is due. Head over here to learn more!

Register now to secure your spot in Boston—K–12 UC returns for the first time since 2019, and with less than a month to go, you won’t want to miss it. Browse the full session catalog and explore our latest community post to see what’s in store. From admissions and enrollment to academics, business office, fundraising, technology, and leadership, there’s content built for every role—plus two standout keynote speakers. Join us July 15–17, and don’t forget: register five and the sixth attends free.

Check out this Guide to figure out which conference is best for you: K-12 UC or bbcon.

On a Student profile, schools can now edit the Diploma or a major to indicate that a student is no longer pursuing it. When editing, you can select Include inactive diplomas in search as well as an Inactive checkbox which can further be specified by the Stopped pursing on date field.

Billing clerks can now use the new Collections Assistant to manage follow-up on past due accounts from a single, consolidated view, helping personalize outreach when standard notifications aren't enough. This feature is currently available to select schools through the Early Adopter Program.

To get started, open the Collections Assistant from Billing Management. The dashboard displays customizable Follow-up categories (such as Highest priority, Repeat late payers, Potential write-offs, and Multiple past due installments) alongside a Past due balances chart showing totals by aging period. Configure your email settings by selecting Email settings to define your sender address, name, and signature.

Select a category to view accounts that match. Each student profile shows their current balance, minimum due, past due amount, statement recipients, and payment plan details. Filter the list by role, grade level, or past due amount, or search for a specific student.

From a student's profile, take action directly:

• Send email: use Blackbaud AI to generate a personalized message, adjusting tone (Friendly to Firm) and urgency level (Low to High), with options to mention late fees or holds

• Add payment, Add credit, or Add late fee

• Change payment plan

• Enroll in auto-pay (payment plan or incidentals)

• Add a hold

All actions taken are logged in the student's billing profile for a complete follow-up history.

Note: We're now recruiting Early Adopter Program (EAP) participants! If you're ready to be among the first to experience Collections Assistant and help shape its future, we'd love to have you. Sign up here.

We've added a new optional column, Program, to the Transaction list, enabling billing clerks to verify that students are receiving the proper charges for their program.

To get started with the new Program column, open the Transaction list, select Columns, and choose Program.

Billing clerks can now choose to post distributions to Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT in summary by account, reducing the number of line items in journal entry batches and simplifying GL reconciliation.

To get started, open Post to GL and select the direct post option to create a journal entry batch. In the window, select the new option to Summarize debits by cash account and post date when creating the journal entry batch in General ledger. When selected, the process creates one line item per account in the journal entry batch instead of posting each distribution individually.

Billing clerks can now control how charges are distributed across payment plan installments when using Add charges to group.

To get started, open the Add charges to group workflow. In the new Charge details section, select how to apply the charge under Apply to:

• All remaining installments (default): spreads the charge across all future installments

• The next due installment: applies the full charge to the next installment that is more than 4 days from its due date

• All installments (including past): spreads the charge across all installments, including those already past due

When a platform manager views the list of security tasks (in Core, Security, Roles, Tasks), they can now Filter the list by Domain. Consider limiting the results to one or more domains for a more focused experience. Review the available filters to see all existing domains.

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

Schools can now add Internal Notes to a user profile that can only be seen by individuals with an Internal Note role. To enable internal notes, first head to Core, then Settings, select General Settings, Table Values, and then Academic Internal Notes. Edit this to add your own type options, an abbreviation for them, as well as if they're active or not.

Please note that users won't see this feature automatically as schools will first need to give them access to the Internal Note Manager role for the tile to display.

With everything enabled and appropriate roles applied, staff can find the Academic internal notes field under Notes on a user's profile. Select +Add note to open a new modal where you can apply the note type, the date, title, and the details. Keep in mind that these notes are not based on a year, so they won't change based on the year dropdown for the user.

As part of our ongoing objective to streamline and centralize grading setup, we've moved the Grading and Gradebook rollover processes from Core into Academics under Grades, Grades management.

For Academic groups, users with both the Gradebook manager and Grading manager roles can now perform the grading and gradebook rollovers at the same time. If performing these separately, gradebook rollover should be performed first.

With this release, the grading and gradebook rollovers are no longer accessible in Core.

Billing clerks can now choose to post only reversing distributions, making it easier to verify they are posting correctly.

To get started, start the Post to GL workflow and select the new option, Only include reversed transactions, in the modal before posting.

Join us for bbdevdays on June 2-4. This is your chance to connect with developers of all skill levels and dive into practical AI, automations, and integrations through virtual Skills Labs, expert-led demos, and more. Sign up now!

Early-bird registration for bbcon 2026 in Columbus, OH is now open! Join us September 29–October 1 to expand your network, get actionable skills, and explore Blackbaud’s latest AI innovations and product enhancements—designed to help you work smarter and faster. Early-bird pricing is available now through July 3, so reserve your spot today. Register here.

Register today to lock in your spot in Boston this July—prices increase June 10! Explore the full session catalog on the K‑12 User Conference website and check out our latest community post highlighting the top 5 reasons to attend. From admissions and enrollment to academics, the business office, fundraising, technology, and school leadership, you’ll find content tailored to every role—plus TWO incredible keynote speakers. Join us July 15–17, and remember: when you register five, the sixth attends free.

As of this release, only users with special access will be able to see the corresponding data in User lists, Student lists, and Candidates lists.

Remember, only users who are granted special access can see:

• Visa status

• Visa number

• Visa type

• Visa issue date

• Visa expire date

• Passport expire date

• Passport number

• Social security number

This helps protect sensitive personal information.

On July 21, the data will also be masked in Advanced lists, even for users with special access. Schools should use a list to export any data needed for integrations before July 21.

We recommend platform managers use the users list to review which users need special access. Show the Column for Special access and sort the column in descending order to show “yes” values first. From the list, platform managers can select a user’s name to the user’s profile in Core. Then, use the Access tab to Grant (or Remove) special access for the user.

In this update, we’ve upgraded the Due Date field when adding a new step for Candidate Checklists. You can select from Specific date and/or after checklist step assigned or Days after a prior checklist step completed. The first option lets you set a specific due date or conditionally set a due date after a specific number of days once the checklist step is assigned.

The second option, Days after a prior checklist step completed, can be selected allowing you to set a certain number of days after a prior checklist step is completed to generate the due date. You can pick any active checklist step for this option.

Lastly, if you’ve set up a Reminder Option for the checklist step, it will dynamically update based on whatever date has been set up. If a date is outright removed, the condition will automatically update to not send anything.

After selecting Apply Now, new families will be guided through a simplified sign in process before loading into the Create Candidate page, no longer requiring assistance from an admissions staff member. The process will also ensure that the Blackbaud ID is properly linked to the user record within Blackbaud Enrollment Management. Keep in mind, that the old login setup method is still available if needed and it has been renamed to Login Setup (Legacy).

School users can now receive notifications when families submit appeals for financial aid award decisions. These notifications help schools review appeals promptly and follow up more efficiently.

Designated users receive one daily email with key details for appeals submitted that day, including each family’s reason for the appeal.

To receive appeal notifications, Receive notifications must be enabled for the user in Manage Accounts, and the following options must be enabled in General School Settings:

• Automated Communication for Schools

• Show Award Responses

• Include Appeal Option

There's just 1 week left until bbdevdays on June 2-4. This is your chance to join developers of all skill levels and dive into practical AI, automations, and integrations through virtual Skills Labs, expert-led demos, and more. Sign up now to build your agenda before it's too late!

Register now to secure your spot in Boston this July—don't wait! Explore the full session catalog on the K‑12 User Conference website, and dive into our companion blog for tips on making the most of your UC experience. You'll find valuable content for every K‑12 role—from admissions and enrollment to academics, the business office, fundraising, technology, and school leadership—plus TWO incredible keynote speakers. Join us July 15–17, and remember: when you register five team members, the sixth attends free!

Check out this Guide to figure out which conference is best for you: K-12 UC or bbcon.

Student First name and Student Last name are now available as Column options from the Gradebook grades list.

Meet Collections Assistant, the newest AI-powered feature coming to Billing Management. Powered by Blackbaud AI, Collections Assistant identifies at-risk accounts and helps your team act fast — generating personalized communications that make families more likely to respond and surfacing the right accounts at the right time, so nothing falls through the cracks. It's the collections workflow your business office has been waiting for.

We're now recruiting Early Adopter Program (EAP) participants! If you're ready to be among the first to experience Collections Assistant and help shape its future, we'd love to have you. Sign up here.

When selecting the Eligibility criteria for budgets that allow all application types, the Application status filter now includes Imported as an available option. This change ensures that Imported applicants are included when the Application status filter is applied.

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

In the Assignment Center and the Assignments tab of class pages, the Submitted and Graded columns now appear immediately to the right of the Details column, making submission and grading information easier to find and access.

Teachers now see the Classes menu in the Faculty persona at all times, even when they have no active classes.

When no classes are active, the menu dropdown displays 0 Classes and includes only the Browse groups option. This allows teachers to prepare upcoming classes between terms or school years.

Payers can now view and print recent payments made toward specific charges directly from the portal, making it easy to submit to flex spending accounts for reimbursement.

To get started, billing clerks can enable the feature under the Statements task by turning on Payment statements. Once enabled, payers will find a new Payments tab in the Statements section of the payer portal.

Payers can filter by date range, student, billing item(s), and optionally include enrollment deposit payments. The payment summary shows a line item for each payment application based on the selected filters. Payers can print the results.

Billing clerks can now manually check the latest payment status from Blackbaud Merchant Services (BBMS) for any electronic payment, including enrollment deposits, so account records stay accurate even after the automatic check window has passed.

To get started, open a payment record and select the new Refresh Payment status button, found under More actions. Billing management will retrieve the latest status from BBMS.

Previously, faculty and staff who needed to view social security numbers (ssn) and national identification (ni) numbers must have been granted special access. This helps protect sensitive personal information.

With this release, we’ve updated the security for visa and passport fields to also require this special access.

Now, users who lack special access can no longer see visa and passport information in the Citizenship/Resident area of Contact cards in Core or Academics, even if they have access to other fields for these areas. They can’t see social security numbers in the General Information area of Contact cards in Core either. They’re also unable to edit these fields and the information is hidden during impersonation.

When special access is granted, users will see data on Contact cards for

• Visa status

• Visa type

• Visa issue date

• Visa expire date

• Passport expire date

but the data for

• Visa number

• Passport number

• Social security number

• National identification number

will initially appear masked by asterisks (***). Users with special access can select to Edit these fields to view and see the data.

Schools can still use Profile publish access to configure whether users can view and access their own data for these fields.

Very soon, only users with special access will be able to see the data in user lists, student lists, and candidates lists.

On July 21, the data will also be masked in advanced lists, even for users with special access. Schools should use a list to export any data needed for integrations before July 21.

We recommend platform managers use the users list to review which users need special access. Show the Column for Special access and sort the column in descending order to show “yes” values first. From the list, platform managers can select a user’s name to the user’s profile in Core. Then, use the Access tab to Grant (or Remove) special access for the user.

When users with access to Mail merge select to view Mail labels for a list, the labels are now generated via the updated report generator.

The new experience matches the updated experience for standard administrative reports. Thus, the general workflow and functionality (filters, exports, etc.) remain the same. However, you’ll now select options from a menu to the left side of preview (instead of above).

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

The Consequences List now contains a confidential comments column, which will only be shown internally. This matches the functionality already present within the Infractions list.

With this update, we've enabled the Learning Profile manager or staff to delete a Learning Profile from the Student record. From the Performance tab, use the Context Menu for the Learning Profile to find the new Delete option.

Billing clerks can now configure the payment plan fee as a percentage based on the payment plan, providing more flexibility alongside the existing flat rate and percentage of tuition options.

To get started, open the Payment plan fee settings in your billing year. Select the new % based on payment plan option. Choose a formula from the dropdown (the same formulas available for the existing percentage-based option) and define a percentage for each selected payment plan. Set a plan to 0% if it should not include a payment plan fee.

This feature will be released in waves over the next six weeks, with each wave being two weeks apart. As a result, it may not immediately be available to your school.

Add and manage refunds on a student's account

Billing clerks can now issue refunds directly from a student's account. From the Activity tile or the Work with transactions page, select Add and then Refund to open the new Add refund modal. Enter a refund date (defaults to today), select a refund type from the types defined in your Billing year, and add an optional description and comments. The modal displays all unapplied payments and credits on the student's record so you can select exactly which items to refund.

After saving, the refund opens its own record page with a header showing the refund number, owner, date, description, and amount. The page includes a Refund details tile with the refund amount, date, comments, and posting information, a Distributions tile displaying the debit and credit accounts and amounts, and a Payments/credits tile listing each payment or credit applied to the refund. Use the Edit refund button to update refund details or select More actions to Delete or Mark as do not post.

Configure refund types in Billing years

Billing clerks can now define the types of refunds their school offers within the Billing year settings. A new Refunds section in the billing year navigation lets you add refund types with a refund type (pulled from the Refunds table in Settings), an optional description, and a GL distribution account. When Financial Edge NXT is connected, the account field uses the same lookup experience as other account fields.

To save time when rolling to a new billing year, use the Copy button to bring all refund types forward from the prior year. After copying, a confirmation window asks whether to copy all refund types into the current billing year. Refund types can be edited after creation (except for the refund type itself) or deleted, as long as the type is not in use.

Define refund table entries in Settings

Billing clerks can now add and manage a Refunds table under Settings and then Tables. This table defines the refund type entries (such as "Overpayment," "tuition refund," or "activity refund") available when creating refund billing items. A context menu on each entry provides options to edit or delete.

Post refunds to General Ledger

Refunds are now available as a transaction type when posting to General Ledger. When configuring a GL post, select Refund from the Transaction type filter to include refund transactions. Refund distributions appear in the Distributions list, where you can click a transaction ID to open the refund flyout.

Refunds are also available as journal references.

View refunds in Transaction and Distribution lists

Refunds now appear alongside charges, payments, and credits in the Transaction list and Work with transactions page. Use the Type filter to narrow results to refunds. Selecting a refund opens a flyout with detailed information. Refund distributions are also available in the Distribution list with a link to the refund flyout.

Schools can now roll over credit balances from the previous school year into the new year using Credit Balance Rollover in Manage Families.

After completing school year rollover and enrolling families in the new year, school users can apply rollover billing items to carry eligible credit balances forward.

Prerequisites

• School year rollover is complete.

• Families are enrolled in the new school year.

• A rollover fee billing item exists in the previous school year.

• A rollover discount billing item exists in the new school year.

Perform a credit balance rollover

1. Ensure the previous school year is selected in the upper right.

2. Under Families, select Manage Families.

3. Use filters as needed, then select the families with credit balances to roll over.

4. Under Perform Batch Action, select Credit Balance Rollover.

5. Select the rollover fee for the previous year and the rollover discount for the new year.

6. Select Submit to process the rollover.

If a family’s credit balance fails to roll over, an error icon appears next to the family’s name with additional details.

Schools can now set up Truth in Lending (TIL) statements and allow eligible payers to run their own TIL statement from the parent site.

In Settings, Manage Truth in Lending Statements, a School Admin or School Finance User selects which fees and discounts to include in TIL statements, such as multi‑payment tuition and fees incurred for installment payments. To exclude TIL statements from the parent site, do not enable Display on parent site.

After fees and discounts are selected, school users can run Truth in Lending Statements for all payers or for an individual payer from the Statement category in Reports, Static Reports. TIL statements are only available for payers who have the included fees or discounts on their account.

If Display on parent site is enabled, eligible payers can run their own TIL statement from the Home page of the parent site under Related Links.

Join us for our bi-annual Product Update Briefings on May 5-7 to get early visibility into new features and AI innovations, upcoming enhancements, and expert-led roadmaps. Register now to watch the virtual sessions live or on demand.

Early-bird registration for bbcon 2026 in Columbus, OH is now open! Join us September 29–October 1 to expand your network, get actionable skills, and explore Blackbaud's latest AI innovations and product enhancements—designed to help you work smarter and faster. Early-bird pricing is available now through July 3, so reserve your spot today. Register here.

Ready to drive impact with cutting-edge tech? bbdevdays registration is open! On June 2-4, developers of all skill levels will share ideas and solve challenges through virtual peer- and expert-led sessions. Join us for dynamic demos with actionable takeaways, hands-on Skills Labs, and fresh keynotes. Be a part of the community and explore the possibilities!

The K‑12 User Conference is coming together—and you won't want to miss it.

From motivating keynotes to interactive product labs, developer sessions, partners, and more, this is where the K‑12 community connects. Register today

Session details roll out in early May, including the return of fan‑favorite Shop Talks across the Total School Solution. Dive deeper into SchoolBI, Common Records Engine, and more—straight from our K‑12 Product Management team. to join the K-12 Community—spots are filling quickly.

Register 5 from your team and get the 6th for free!

Check out this Guide to figure out which conference is best for you: K-12 UC or bbcon.

This feature will be released in waves over the next six weeks, with each wave being two weeks apart. As a result, it may not immediately be available to your school.

Add and manage refunds on a student's account

Billing clerks can now issue refunds directly from a student's account. From the Activity tile or the Work with transactions page, select Add and then Refund to open the new Add refund modal. Enter a refund date (defaults to today), select a refund type from the types defined in your Billing year, and add an optional description and comments. The modal displays all unapplied payments and credits on the student's record so you can select exactly which items to refund.

After saving, the refund opens its own record page with a header showing the refund number, owner, date, description, and amount. The page includes a Refund details tile with the refund amount, date, comments, and posting information, a Distributions tile displaying the debit and credit accounts and amounts, and a Payments/credits tile listing each payment or credit applied to the refund. Use the Edit refund button to update refund details or select More actions to Delete or Mark as do not post.

Configure refund types in Billing years

Billing clerks can now define the types of refunds their school offers within the Billing year settings. A new Refunds section in the billing year navigation lets you add refund types with a refund type (pulled from the Refunds table in Settings), an optional description, and a GL distribution account. When Financial Edge NXT is connected, the account field uses the same lookup experience as other account fields.

To save time when rolling to a new billing year, use the Copy button to bring all refund types forward from the prior year. After copying, a confirmation window asks whether to copy all refund types into the current billing year. Refund types can be edited after creation (except for the refund type itself) or deleted, as long as the type is not in use.

Define refund table entries in Settings

Billing clerks can now add and manage a Refunds table under Settings and then Tables. This table defines the refund type entries (such as "Overpayment," "tuition refund," or "activity refund") available when creating refund billing items. A context menu on each entry provides options to edit or delete.

Post refunds to General Ledger

Refunds are now available as a transaction type when posting to General Ledger. When configuring a GL post, select Refund from the Transaction type filter to include refund transactions. Refund distributions appear in the Distributions list, where you can click a transaction ID to open the refund flyout.

Refunds are also available as journal references.

View refunds in Transaction and Distribution lists

Refunds now appear alongside charges, payments, and credits in the Transaction list and Work with transactions page. Use the Type filter to narrow results to refunds. Selecting a refund opens a flyout with detailed information. Refund distributions are also available in the Distribution list with a link to the refund flyout.

Payment statements available in payer portal

Payers can now view and print a statement of their recent payments directly from the payer portal, making it easier to gather documentation for flexible spending account (FSA) reimbursements.

To get started, Billing clerks must enable the new Payment statements task in Core, Roles, Tasks under the unified Statements task group.

Once enabled, payers can access this information in the payer portal on the Statements page under the new Payments tab.

Add Project IDs to default accounts and payments

Billing clerks can now set default Project IDs to ensure distributions are automatically recorded with the correct project segments.

To configure these segment defaults, navigate to Billing management, select Billing, and choose Settings. On the in-page navigation, select Transaction rules and then select Edit under Default accounts. If projects have been enabled for your school, you'll see new Project fields alongside the account number and name.

Additionally, when using the Add to group workflow to process bulk payments, you can now define and apply a specific Project ID directly to the cash account for those payments.

In December 2025, we moved the list of administrative Reports to Sky. Three weeks ago, we started making updates to the process for generating standard administrative reports. It's being updated to a modern Sky experience. This update is occurring in waves of approximately 50 reports each week. We'll continue until all standard reports benefit from the new interface. Thus, we expect this process to continue into mid-May.

Your workflow and general functionality (filters, exports, etc.) remain the same. However, you'll now select options from a menu to the right side of report preview (instead of above).

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

Get ready! Join us for our bi-annual Product Update Briefings on May 5-7 to get early visibility into new features and AI innovations, upcoming enhancements, and expert-led roadmaps. Register now to watch the virtual sessions live or on demand.

The K‑12 User Conference is coming together—and you won't want to miss it.

From motivating keynotes to interactive product labs, developer sessions, partners, and more, this is where the K‑12 community connects. Register today

Session details roll out in early May, including the return of fan‑favorite Shop Talks across the Total School Solution. Dive deeper into SchoolBI, Common Records Engine, and more—straight from our K‑12 Product Management team. to join the K-12 Community—spots are filling quickly.

Register 5 from your team and get the 6th for free!

Check out this Guide to figure out which conference is best for you: K-12 UC or bbcon.

When reviewing GPA calculation results in Grade Calculations, you can now select View current GPA detail to see how a student's GPA is calculated. This view mirrors the details displayed when selecting a student's GPA on their Performance tab and shows the GPA formula along with the student's included courses and grades.

Note: View current GPA detail reflects the current calculation formula and the student's current grades for the included courses, which may differ from those used when the calculation was run.

With this update, we've enabled the Learning Profile manager or staff to delete a Learning Profile from the Student record. From the Performance tab, use the Context Menu for the Learning Profile to find the new Delete option.

We've added new filter options to the Student Allergy and Conditions List including Type (Allergy/Condition), Allergy/Condition Start Date, and Allergy/Condition End Date. In addition, there's a new category option called Medical.

We've added a Proctor tab to assessments, giving teachers a single place to monitor and manage students while an assessment is in progress.

The Proctor tab makes it easier to see which students have started, paused, or submitted an assessment and to take immediate action without having to search for student status information. It is designed to help teachers respond quickly and confidently during active assessments.

From the Proctor tab, teachers can:

• View student assessment status in real time.

• See when a student begins, pauses, or submits an assessment.

• Allow a student to continue or retake an assessment.

• Extend an individual student's due date without changing assessment settings.

• See why a LockDown Browser session was paused (if applicable).

To access the Proctor tab, teachers select an assessment from the Assignment Center or class Assignments tab, then select Proctor. From the context menu next to a student's name, teachers can choose Allow retake, Allow continue, or Extend due date. Available options change based on a student's current assessment status.

Note: With this release, Allow retake, Allow continue, and Extend due date are no longer available on the assessment Evaluation tab.

For LockDown Browser assessments, an additional Reason column appears when an assessment is paused, providing details such as swipe gesture detection or the student's device entering sleep mode.

This feature will be released in waves over the next six weeks, with each wave being two weeks apart. As a result, it may not immediately be available to your school.

Add and manage refunds on a student's account

Billing clerks can now issue refunds directly from a student's account. From the Activity tile or the Work with transactions page, select Add and then Refund to open the new Add refund modal. Enter a refund date (defaults to today), select a refund type from the types defined in your Billing year, and add an optional description and comments. The modal displays all unapplied payments and credits on the student's record so you can select exactly which items to refund.

After saving, the refund opens its own record page with a header showing the refund number, owner, date, description, and amount. The page includes a Refund details tile with the refund amount, date, comments, and posting information, a Distributions tile displaying the debit and credit accounts and amounts, and a Payments/credits tile listing each payment or credit applied to the refund. Use the Edit refund button to update refund details or select More actions to Delete or Mark as do not post.

Configure refund types in Billing years

Billing clerks can now define the types of refunds their school offers within the Billing year settings. A new Refunds section in the billing year navigation lets you add refund types with a refund type (pulled from the Refunds table in Settings), an optional description, and a GL distribution account. When Financial Edge NXT is connected, the account field uses the same lookup experience as other account fields.

To save time when rolling to a new billing year, use the Copy button to bring all refund types forward from the prior year. After copying, a confirmation window asks whether to copy all refund types into the current billing year. Refund types can be edited after creation (except for the refund type itself) or deleted, as long as the type is not in use.

Define refund table entries in Settings

Billing clerks can now add and manage a Refunds table under Settings and then Tables. This table defines the refund type entries (such as "Overpayment," "tuition refund," or "activity refund") available when creating refund billing items. A context menu on each entry provides options to edit or delete.

Post refunds to General Ledger

Refunds are now available as a transaction type when posting to General Ledger. When configuring a GL post, select Refund from the Transaction type filter to include refund transactions. Refund distributions appear in the Distributions list, where you can click a transaction ID to open the refund flyout.

Refunds are also available as journal references.

View refunds in Transaction and Distribution lists

Refunds now appear alongside charges, payments, and credits in the Transaction list and Work with transactions page. Use the Type filter to narrow results to refunds. Selecting a refund opens a flyout with detailed information. Refund distributions are also available in the Distribution list with a link to the refund flyout.

Payment statements available in payer portal

Payers can now view and print a statement of their recent payments directly from the payer portal, making it easier to gather documentation for flexible spending account (FSA) reimbursements.

To get started, Billing clerks must enable the new Payment statements task in Core, Roles, Tasks under the unified Statements task group.

Once enabled, payers can access this information in the payer portal on the Statements page under the new Payments tab.

Add Project IDs to default accounts and payments

Billing clerks can now set default Project IDs to ensure distributions are automatically recorded with the correct project segments.

To configure these segment defaults, navigate to Billing management, select Billing, and choose Settings. On the in-page navigation, select Transaction rules and then select Edit under Default accounts. If projects have been enabled for your school, you'll see new Project fields alongside the account number and name.

Additionally, when using the Add to group workflow to process bulk payments, you can now define and apply a specific Project ID directly to the cash account for those payments.

In December 2025, we moved the list of administrative Reports to Sky. Three weeks ago, we started making updates to the process for generating standard administrative reports. It's being updated to a modern Sky experience. This update is occurring in waves of approximately 50 reports each week. We'll continue until all standard reports benefit from the new interface. Thus, we expect this process to continue into mid-May.

Your workflow and general functionality (filters, exports, etc.) remain the same. However, you'll now select options from a menu to the right side of report preview (instead of above).

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

This week’s journal entry is taking a closer look at all the Marking period related changes we’ve been making over the past couple of weeks. Check it out here.

Is your seat saved for the K-12 UC? Inspiring keynotes, product labs, developer sessions, partners, and MORE! Sessions drop in early May and we’re so excited for what’s ahead! We’ll feature customer favorite Shop Talks across the Total School Solution, including SchoolBI and Common Records Engine, brought to you by our resident Blackbaud celebrities, your K-12 Product Management team. Secure your seat to join the K-12 Community—registration is filling quickly. Reminder: register 5 from your team and get the 6th for free!

Check out this Guide to figure out which conference is best for you: K-12 UC or bbcon.

In list view of the Assignment Center and the Assignments tab on class pages, teachers can now select the number in the Submitted column to open a flyout with student submission details. The flyout lists all students in the class, including those who haven’t submitted their assignment, along with their submission status and timestamps. Selecting a student’s name opens their assignment evaluation page.

Teachers can also add three new columns to these list views:

• Publish grade

• Add to cumulative grade

• Mark as extra credit

These updates make it easier to view submission statuses and assignment details at a glance.

We've added the Yesterday date filter for Nurses using the Medical Worklist.

We've added a new column to the Student Allergy and Conditions List called Dosage. Nurses can view and add specific dosage totals for student medications.

The Block filter can be applied to the Class list, allowing schools to select All or a specific class block.

We've added additional columns to the Infractions list including Created Date/Time, Reviewed Date/Time, and Reviewed by.

With this update, we've given a visual overhaul to three pages, removing Podium and replacing it with a more modern Sky-style. Specifically, Grade Categories, Approve Communities, and Add/Edit Communities now load as a Sky-style list with customizable filters and columns.

The following reports now show assignment titles instead of abbreviations:

• Grades by Student Condensed

• Exempt by Student

• Incomplete by Student

• Late by Student

• Missing Assignments

• Grade by Assignment Type

• Gradebook Printout

In Core, System tools, Integrations, LockDown Browser, Integration Managers can now choose whether students can access LockDown Browser installation files.

• By default, Allow students to access install files is enabled so students using their own devices can download and install LockDown Browser from the assessment introduction page.

• This option can be disabled if students use school-managed devices and do not need to install the browser themselves.

When enabling LockDown Browser on an assessment, teachers can now set a unique proctor exit passcode for that assessment instead of using the school-wide default. If students become aware of the passcode, teachers can update it at any time in the assessment settings to maintain test security.

Payers can now specify how an Other amount payment applies to their student's account, giving them more control over how payments impact their balances.

When making a payment in the payer portal and selecting an Other amount, a new Spread this payment evenly across remaining payment plan installments checkbox now appears below the last student listed.

This option is only available if at least one student has a remaining balance on a payment plan. If the payment is greater than the remaining plan balance, the system will apply the maximum possible amount to the installments and leave the remaining funds unapplied for a billing clerk to review.

This feature will be released in waves over the next six weeks, with each wave being two weeks apart. As a result, it may not immediately be available to your school.

Add and manage refunds on a student's account

Billing clerks can now issue refunds directly from a student's account. From the Activity tile or the Work with transactions page, select Add > Refund to open the new Add refund modal. Enter a refund date (defaults to today), select a refund type from the types defined in your Billing year, and add an optional description and comments. The modal displays all unapplied payments and credits on the student's record so you can select exactly which items to refund.

After saving, the refund opens its own record page with a header showing the refund number, owner, date, description, and amount. The page includes a Refund details tile with the refund amount, date, comments, and posting information, a Distributions tile displaying the debit and credit accounts and amounts, and a Payments/credits tile listing each payment or credit applied to the refund. Use the Edit refund button to update refund details or select More actions to Delete or Mark as do not post.

Configure refund types in Billing years

Billing clerks can now define the types of refunds their school offers within the Billing year settings. A new Refunds section in the billing year navigation lets you add refund types with a refund type (pulled from the Refunds table in Settings), an optional description, and a GL distribution account. When Financial Edge NXT is connected, the account field uses the same lookup experience as other account fields.

To save time when rolling to a new billing year, use the Copy button to bring all refund types forward from the prior year. After copying, a confirmation window asks whether to copy all refund types into the current billing year. Refund types can be edited after creation (except for the refund type itself) or deleted, as long as the type is not in use.

Define refund table entries in Settings

Billing clerks can now add and manage a Refunds table under Settings > Tables. This table defines the refund type entries (such as "Overpayment," "tuition refund," or "activity refund") available when creating refund billing items. A context menu on each entry provides options to edit or delete.

Post refunds to General Ledger

Refunds are now available as a transaction type when posting to General Ledger. When configuring a GL post, select Refund from the Transaction type filter to include refund transactions. Refund distributions appear in the Distributions list, where you can click a transaction ID to open the refund flyout.

Refunds are also available as journal references.

View refunds in Transaction and Distribution lists

Refunds now appear alongside charges, payments, and credits in the Transaction list and Work with transactions page. Use the Type filter to narrow results to refunds. Selecting a refund opens a flyout with detailed information. Refund distributions are also available in the Distribution list with a link to the refund flyout.

In December 2025, we moved the list of administrative Reports to Sky. Two weeks ago, we started making updates to the process for generating standard administrative reports. It’s being updated to a modern Sky experience. This update is occurring in waves of approximately 50 reports each week. We’ll continue until all standard reports benefit from the new interface. Thus, we expect this process to continue into May.

Your workflow and general functionality (filters, exports, etc.) remain the same. However, you’ll now select options from a menu to the left side of report preview (instead of above).

OneRoster exports are now located under Core, System tools, Integrations instead of directly within the System tools menu.

In Academics, Grades management, Grading Managers can now control report card access and grading formulas from one central location without switching between multiple areas of the system.

Add and edit grade formulas in one place

Under Marking periods, Grading Managers can now add and edit grade formulas directly from the grid. Select + Formula to create a new formula or select an existing formula to make updates as needed.

Tip: Use the gear icon in Marking periods and ensure Grade formulas is selected to display in the grid.

Manage report card access

The new Report card access grid displays report cards for the selected school level and role-based access dates by term. To make changes, select a report card name. This gives you clear visibility into when report cards are available and helps ensure users have access at the right time.

Tip: Use the gear icon to switch school levels or filter which roles appear in the grid.

With this release, we’ve made the following enhancements to the Calculate grades workflow for teachersfaculty:

Existing Grades Indicator

When calculating marking period grades, teachers now see a green checkmark next to students who already have a grade entered. Students without an existing grade no longer display the red missing icon, making it easier to quickly identify which grades are complete.

Include Previous Section Grades

When calculating marking period grades, teachersfaculty who define their own calculations now have an Include previous section grades option. When enabled, this option allows grades from a student’s earlier section of the same course to be included in the calculation if the student transfers sections.

For example, a student completes Semester 1 in English 1 - A and transfers to English 1 - C for Semester 2. If the final grade is calculated as (Semester 1 grade + Semester 2 grade) / 2, enabling Include previous section grades uses the Semester 1 grade from English 1 – A and the Semester 2 grade from English 1 – C.

Payers can now specify how an Other amount payment applies to their student's account, giving them more control over how payments impact their balances.

When making a payment in the payer portal and selecting an Other amount, a new Spread this payment evenly across remaining payment plan installments checkbox now appears below the last student listed.

This option is only available if at least one student has a remaining balance on a payment plan. If the payment is greater than the remaining plan balance, the system will apply the maximum possible amount to the installments and leave the remaining funds unapplied for a billing clerk to review.

This feature will be released in waves over the next six weeks, with each wave being two weeks apart. As a result, it may not immediately be available to your school.

Add and manage refunds on a student's account

Billing clerks can now issue refunds directly from a student's account. From the Activity tile or the Work with transactions page, select Add > Refund to open the new Add refund modal. Enter a refund date (defaults to today), select a refund type from the types defined in your Billing year, and add an optional description and comments. The modal displays all unapplied payments and credits on the student's record so you can select exactly which items to refund.

After saving, the refund opens its own record page with a header showing the refund number, owner, date, description, and amount. The page includes a Refund details tile with the refund amount, date, comments, and posting information, a Distributions tile displaying the debit and credit accounts and amounts, and a Payments/credits tile listing each payment or credit applied to the refund. Use the Edit refund button to update refund details or select More actions to Delete or Mark as do not post.

Configure refund types in Billing years

Billing clerks can now define the types of refunds their school offers within the Billing year settings. A new Refunds section in the billing year navigation lets you add refund types with a refund type (pulled from the Refunds table in Settings), an optional description, and a GL distribution account. When Financial Edge NXT is connected, the account field uses the same lookup experience as other account fields.

To save time when rolling to a new billing year, use the Copy button to bring all refund types forward from the prior year. After copying, a confirmation window asks whether to copy all refund types into the current billing year. Refund types can be edited after creation (except for the refund type itself) or deleted, as long as the type is not in use.

Define refund table entries in Settings

Billing clerks can now add and manage a Refunds table under Settings > Tables. This table defines the refund type entries (such as "Overpayment," "tuition refund," or "activity refund") available when creating refund billing items. A context menu on each entry provides options to edit or delete.

Post refunds to General Ledger

Refunds are now available as a transaction type when posting to General Ledger. When configuring a GL post, select Refund from the Transaction type filter to include refund transactions. Refund distributions appear in the Distributions list, where you can click a transaction ID to open the refund flyout.

Refunds are also available as journal references.

View refunds in Transaction and Distribution lists

Refunds now appear alongside charges, payments, and credits in the Transaction list and Work with transactions page. Use the Type filter to narrow results to refunds. Selecting a refund opens a flyout with detailed information. Refund distributions are also available in the Distribution list with a link to the refund flyout.

Soon, you’ll see a new look for some Pushpage functions. Your general workflow, the functionality (including “drill-in), and existing data will remain unchanged. However, the list of Pushpage issues and jobs will appear in a modern Sky list, similar to other lists you already know well.

In December 2025, we moved the list of administrative Reports to Sky. Last week, we started making updates to the process for generating standard administrative reports. It’s being updated to a modern Sky experience. This update is occurring in waves of approximately 50 reports each week. We’ll continue until all standard reports benefit from the new interface. Thus, we expect this process to continue into May.

Your workflow and general functionality (filters, exports, etc.) remain the same. However, you’ll now select options from a menu to the left side of report preview (instead of above).

Blackbaud’s bi-annual Product Update Briefings on May 5-7 are your chance to unlock the full potential of your solutions with exclusive sneak peeks, expert-led overviews of new features, and companion guides designed with your mission in mind. Register now to watch the virtual sessions live or receive the on-demand recording.

Early-bird registration for bbcon 2026 in Columbus, OH is now open! Join us September 29—October 1 to expand your network, get actionable skills, and explore Blackbaud’s latest AI innovations and product enhancements—designed to help you work smarter and faster. Early-bird pricing is available now through July 3, so reserve your spot today. Register here.

Ready to drive impact with cutting-edge tech? bbdevdays registration is open! On June 2-4, developers of all skill levels will share ideas and solve challenges through virtual peer- and expert-led sessions. Join us for dynamic demos with actionable takeaways, hands-on Skills Labs, and fresh keynotes. Be a part of the community and explore the possibilities!

June 2-4, 2026

Will we see you and your team in Boston July 15-17? The 2026 Blackbaud K‑12 User Conference is designed to help school leaders and teams turn today’s challenges into measurable progress. This year’s experience brings expert-led role‑based learning, hands‑on product labs, and real‑world success stories—plus a spotlight on how AI and connected systems can power a more human, student‑centered experience. From inspiring mainstage keynotes to peer‑led roundtables and the always‑popular Unconference, you’ll leave with practical ideas you can act on immediately. Join the K‑12 community in Boston and secure your seat—registration is filling quickly. Reminder: register 5 from your team and get the 6th for free!

Check out this Guide to figure out which conference is best for you: K-12 UC or bbcon.

Grading managers have two additional options with the Categories section from the Transcript builder. Grade level totals shows the total number of credits for the grade level, while Category totals shows the totals under each column for each category.

The Skills-based marking periods page no longer uses Podium as it is now a modern SKY list experience. The functionality remains the same as it was before, nothing new has been added, but with SKYUX, you can now see all grading periods in an easy-to-read list. Use the filters to refine the data being displayed including a specific school year, grade level, or activity type. The context menu allows you to edit or delete any existing entries, or you can select Add skill-based grading period to add a new one to a specific semester.

The Class attendance list and Day attendance list now have the Parent Phone field that can be added as a selectable column option.

We've added a new filter option to the Athletic Clearances list. Under the Medical filter section, Athletic clearance is a multi-select filter that holds options based on certain conditions for Student Athletes like Available to play, Needs Physical, or other statuses. Keep in mind that this list of filter options is customizable. Schools can define the filter options from Nurse's Office, Medical Setting, and then Athletic clearance requirements.

New columns have been added to the Medical Visit Worklist:

• Created By

• Created Date

• Last Edited By

• Last Edited Date

Payers can now select a View details button on the Current bill page to see a full breakdown of their amount due, making it easier to find and review what makes up their balance.

This button replaces the previous link on the amount due total and the View Statement button, giving payers a single, clear way to access their Amount due.

Billing clerks can now grant parents of candidates access to the billing area of the Payer portal, making it possible for families to view billing information before a student is moved to an incoming student role.

To get started, go to Core, Roles, and open the Parent of candidate role. The Payer portal tasks are now listed under Tasks and are turned off by default. Enable the tasks you want to make available to parents of candidates.

In December 2025, we moved the list of administrative Reports to Sky. With this release, the process for generating standard administrative reports is likewise being updated to a modern Sky experience.

Your workflow and general functionality (filters, exports, etc.) remain the same. However, you’ll now select options from a menu to the left side of report preview (instead of above).

This update will occur in waves of approximately 50 reports each week. We’ll continue until all standard reports benefit from the new interface. Thus, we expect this process to continue into May.

The location for managing OneRoster settings has changed and is now accessed from Core, System tools, Integrations.

To get started, navigate to Core, hover over System tools, and select Integrations. On the Integrations page, choose OneRoster Settings to set up or edit your authentication credentials.

When selecting a payment amount on the parent site, payers now have a new Bring my account current option. This option combines any past due balances with any amount due in the current month to determine the payment amount.

Country is now available as a field in Custom Reporting.

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

Blackbaud’s bi-annual Product Update Briefings on May 5-7 are your chance to unlock the full potential of your solutions with exclusive sneak peeks, expert-led overviews of new features, and companion guides designed with your mission in mind. Register now to watch the virtual sessions live or receive the on-demand recording.

Join hundreds of private and independent school professionals, thought leaders, and technology partners coming together to shape what’s next in K‑12 education.

Across three immersive days, gain actionable insights and proven best practices you can put to work immediately—through visionary keynotes, hands‑on product labs, and real‑world success stories.

Connect with peers, partners, and Blackbaud experts through high‑value networking, roundtables, and the always‑popular Unconference experience.

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This release includes several enhancements that make managing marking periods faster and more flexible for Grading Managers.

Set marking period dates in bulk

When editing marking periods, Grading Managers can now set Default start and end dates. Applying a default date automatically overwrites any existing date values, making it easier to update multiple marking periods at once.

Current term selected by default

The current term is now selected by default. Previously, Grades management defaulted to the first term for the given school level.

View marking periods for different school years

Grading Managers can now view marking periods for other school years. To select a different school year, select the gear icon in the Marking periods tile and choose the year you want to view.

To improve assessment security and reliability, LockDown Browser now verifies that students are using a minimum required version before they can access an assessment. This prevents access from outdated versions with known bugs or security issues and helps ensure a more secure testing experience.

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

When a student uses an application switch gesture (such as a three-finger swipe on Windows touchpad devices or two finger swipe on Mac devices) or the Mac user switching feature during an assessment, LockDown Browser now closes and pauses the student’s assessment.

The teacher must allow the student to resume the assessment before they can continue.

Billing clerks can now include the Fee name (i.e., billing item header) as a journal reference segment when posting charges to the general ledger. This provides clearer detail in your GL about what each charge was for.

To get started, go to Post to GL and configure your journal reference settings for charges. Select Fee name as a segment to include it in the journal entry reference.

A new Updates tile appears on the Home dashboard in Core. This replaces the Blackbaud Announcements tile. Stay tuned to this area for a variety of news from Blackbaud, such as:

• a link to What’s New and a summary of the most important highlights,

• events (including user conferences and product update briefings),

• resources (including blogs, journals, and videos),

• training,

• webinars,

• API change logs,

• and more.

When something interests you, select the title to view more details.

Looking for a quick visual recap of these release letters? Check out our What's New in 60 Seconds video series!

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This release adds support for Turnitin’s New Standard Assignment configuration in the Turnitin LTI 1.3 integration.

The following issues have been resolved:

• Grades entered for New Standard Assignments in Turnitin now pass correctly to Blackbaud’s Learning Management System.

• The correct due time for New Standard Assignments now displays in the Turnitin interface.

• Assignments converted from LTI 1.1 to LTI 1.3 are no longer duplicated when launching the integration.

The title for this section was updated on March 18; we apologize for the original mistake.

Billing clerks can now update the Project segment when using the Update account details bulk action on the Distributions list, making it easier to correct distribution details without editing rows one at a time.

To get started, open the Distributions list, select one or more distributions, and choose Update account details. If Projects are enabled in Billing Settings, you’ll see a Project field in the popup window that fetches your configured FENXT projects. You can update the Account, the Project, or both in the same action.

Looking for a quick visual recap of these release letters? Check out our What's New in 60 Seconds video series!

This week we’re taking a deeper dive into the recently added Lockdown Browser feature. Have a look right here.

Report Card and Transcript Year Access now include years prior to 2018.

Generate Student Schedule process will now exclude students that don't have a registration row for the year currently being run. This means that GSS will now check if a registration row exists for Incoming Students and Students, and if it does, then they'll be included.

In this update, we've renamed the Student import to Create Future Enrollment. In addition, we've added the ability to update existing Enrollment rows if one already exists for a student. If one does not exist, then a new enrollment row will be created.

We've moved the Scheduling Rules page out of Podium and given it a fresh visual overhaul with SKYUX. Schedule rules will display all currently created rules with details such as the Term it is associated with, Status, Use when enrolling, as well as Options including the Teacher, Block, and Room. Create a new rule by selecting +New, edit the settings, or use the context menu to Edit or Delete a specific rule.

Teacherscan now review earlier submissions when a student retakes an assessment. From the evaluation page, use the dropdown next to Show only essay questions to select a prior submission. Previously, allowing a student to retake an assessment deleted their earlier submissions.

Teacherscan enter grades and comments for the most recent submission only.

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• Experience visionary keynotes (including Peter Baron), hands-on product labs, and real-world success stories.

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Join Jacqueline Koca, product manager, for a showcase of the new Parent-Submitted Attendance feature. With this update, families can notify your school of absences directly from their portal. This streamlines the attendance process, improves communication, and eases the traffic in your inbox.

This webinar includes an overview, a live demo, and an open Q&A.

Date: Tuesday, March 3

Time: 2:00 – 3:00 PM EST

Register here!

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

Join Jacqueline Koca, product manager, for a showcase of the new Parent-Submitted Attendance feature. With this update, families can notify your school of absences directly from their portal. This streamlines the attendance process, improves communication, and eases the traffic in your inbox.

This webinar includes an overview, a live demo, and an open Q&A.

Date: Tuesday, March 3

Time: 2:00 – 3:00 PM EST

Register here!

Teachers can now allow a student to re-open and continue an assessment after submitting it, without clearing the student’s answers. Previously, teachers could only allow students to retake a submitted assessment, which erased all existing answers and required the student to start over.

To allow a student to re-open a submitted assessment, select Allow continue on the student's evaluation page.

In list view of the Assignment Center and class Assignments pages, a new Submitted column shows how many students have turned in online file or text submissions for an assignment. Teachers select the Submitted number to open a flyout that displays each student in the class, their submission timestamp, and gradebook indicators (e.g., Missing, Submitted before due date, Submitted after due date, etc.)

When withdrawing a student, the system now automatically deletes any future course requests to prevent scheduling tools from building schedules around a withdrawn student.

To get started, withdraw a student as usual. On the withdrawal confirmation screen, you’ll now see a list of the course requests that will be deleted before you complete the withdrawal.

Parents will now only see attendance type options (Absence, Early dismissal, Late arrival) in the submission modal when there are attendance reasons configured for that type. This helps prevent parents from selecting an option that has no available codes.

Note: During the setup process, at least one reason must be selected for at least one attendance type.

Enter grades by class has been transformed by moving off of Podium and into an updated SKY-style list. This enhancement provides administrators with additional data, including the count of required grades yet to be entered, and the number already recorded for each class section. Additionally, administrators can now leverage the same capabilities already available to teachers, such as Show previous grades and the new narrative view for traditional grade groups.

Billing clerks no longer need to manually clean up credits created by failed enrollment deposit payments. When an enrollment deposit payment updates to Failed, the system now automatically prevents the payment from posting and removes any related credits.

If any related items were already posted, the system will automatically reverse what was posted and delete anything not yet posted, so account balances remain accurate.

Billing clerks can now prevent statement recipients from receiving past due balance notifications for specific students.

To get started, open a student’s billing profile, find the Billing settings section, and select Exclude from Past due balance notifications. When enabled, statement recipients who would normally receive a past due balance notification for that student will no longer be notified.

To help track this across students, the Past due balances list now includes an optional column. To add it, open the list, select Columns, and choose Send past due notifications.

We’ve adjusted the Add a payment workflow to make it easier to select when payments should be processed using a Blackbaud Merchant Services account.

• Toggle the new Process payment option and choose a Blackbaud Merchant Services account from the drop-down.

Reference number and reference date have been moved below the Process payment field.

The Deferred Revenue Schedule report in the Accrual category can now be scheduled to run.

Report card and Transcript templates now have a new option available from the Context menu called View student/parent log. Selecting this option opens a new list that shows all students for the current year as well as the number of times that a student and parent printed them. Grading managers can utilize filters and columns to adjust the data being displayed. Keep in mind that it only counts when clicked from the app. This feature has been rolling out since the February 10th release.

In Academics, Grading, the Grades management page has been updated for Grading Managers to quickly access essential tools and settings in one streamlined workspace or hub.

The page retains options for adding diplomas and awards to student profiles and now includes quick links for faster grading tasks and setup page navigation.

The new Needs Attention section makes it easier for Grading Managers to identify items that may require action steps:

• Missing grades: Displays the number of teachers that have not entered required grades after a marking period has closed. Select the link to access Enter grades by class.

• Performance and Grade average calculations: Indicates performance or grade average calculations include information for the previous school year, but not the current or next year. Select a link to access Calculations.

Under Marking Periods, Grading Managers can now review and modify all marking period dates for the selected school level and term. They can also view the grade formulas assigned to each marking period. Upcoming enhancements will include the ability to add and edit formulas right from this page.

Select the gear icon to access the display settings for the Marking periods section.

To improve clarity and ease of use across grading workflows, we have updated our grading terminology to better align with how schools naturally talk and think about grading.

The following grading terms have been renamed:

• Standard grading > Traditional grading

• Assessment grading > Skills‑based grading

• Grade Plan Groups > Grade Groups

• Grade Plans > Marking Periods

• Grade Plan Grades > Grade Columns

• Assessment Skills > Skills

The new grading terms will appear throughout the system, including reports, lists, and setup pages, regardless of the area or persona you are working in.

The new names are designed to:

• Make the purpose of grading options and terms easier to understand at a glance.

• Reduce confusion during setup and day‑to‑day use.

• Provide clear consistency across all grading areas of the system.

• Lay the groundwork for future grading improvements and simplification.

Learning Profile Managers can now upload external files to use as student learning profile forms, giving schools more flexibility beyond existing templates.

Before uploading learning profile files for students, a Learning Profile Managers must create a learning profile form that allows file uploads.

Note: Note: Learning Profile Managers must be signed in with their own credentials (not impersonating another user) to view all fields when adding learning profiles.

1. In Academics, select Learning center.

2. Select Learning profile forms.

3. Select +New form, then choose File.

4. Enter the required information for the file upload profile form.

5. Select the roles that can access the form:

   • Report: Allows users with this role to view a student's learning profile.

   • Icon View: Displays a learning profile icon next to the student's name in the roster channel on class section pages.

Then add the learning profile form to a student. Set the Learning profile type to File and upload the external file. All other steps remain the same.

Uploaded files are encrypted and only visible to users with the roles defined in the form setup. When teachers or other authorized users view the student’s learning profile, the uploaded file is displayed in place of the learning profile form report used for learning profile template forms.

Note: This feature will be rolling out throughout the week, so you may not see it available immediately after this update goes live.

For Gradebook grades list and Report card grades list:

• Student names are now shown as preferred first name (else first name), preferred last name (else last name), and suffix.

• Three new Columns are available for preferred first name (else first name), preferred last name (else last name), and pronouns.

• For the Report card grades list, the column previously called Nickname was also renamed to Preferred name.

Tip: Tip: Check out the Core section of What’s New for more list enhancements.

These updates are a continuation of efforts to expand the use of preferred names in the system.

Now, when a student is withdrawn, any future course requests will be removed as well so you no longer need to manually go in and delete them. On the withdrawal confirmation screen, you'll see all the course requests that will be deleted.

Billing clerks can now import enrollment deposits for groups using Student ID as the unique identifier, reducing matching errors and speeding up entry.

To get started, start the Add enrollment deposits to group workflow from the Billing management Overview page and choose From a spreadsheet. Select one of the new templates:

• Student name with student ID

• Student name with enrollment deposit data and student ID

We’ve improved lists in Education Management.

Users list includes new columns for:

• First/primary language,

• Languages spoken at home,

• In-state resident,

• Resides in,

• Resides in since,

• U.S. Nonresident,

• and Name pronunciation.

Tip: Tip: For details about the Name pronunciation column, see last week’s release information. This column was added to Users and Students lists.

Gradebook grades list and Report card grades list (in Academics) include the following updates:

• Student names are now shown as preferred first name (else first name), preferred last name (else last name), and suffix.

• Three new Columns are available for preferred first name (else first name), preferred last name (else last name), and pronouns.

• For the Report card grades list, the column previously called Nickname was also renamed to Preferred name.

These updates are a continuation of efforts to expand the use of preferred names in the system. They also benefit efforts for demographic reporting, as well as diversity, equity, and inclusion.

When an adjustment is made to a Pending family’s account, the Reason for Adjustment is now recorded in the Billing Adjustment Audit Trail.

To improve clarity and ease of use across grading workflows, we’re updating our grading terminology to better align with how schools naturally talk and think about grading. These changes are planned for the February 17 release.

The following grading terms will be renamed:

• Standard grading > Traditional grading

• Assessment grading > Skills‑based grading

• Grade Plan Groups > Grade Groups

• Grade Plans > Marking Periods

• Grade Plan Grades > Grade Columns

• Assessment Skills > Skills

The new grading terms will appear throughout the system, including reports, lists, and setup pages, regardless of the area or persona you are working in.

The new names are designed to:

• Make the purpose of grading options and terms easier to understand at a glance.

• Reduce confusion during setup and day‑to‑day use.

• Provide clear consistency across all grading areas of the system.

• Lay the groundwork for future grading improvements and simplification.

Report card and Transcript templates now have a new option available from the Context menu called View student/parent log. Selecting this option opens a new list that shows all students for the current year as well as the number of times that a student and parent printed them. Grading managers can utilize filters and columns to adjust the data being displayed. Keep in mind that it only counts when clicked from the app.

Billing clerks can now automatically send email or SMS notifications when new charges are added, helping families plan for upcoming payments, using the new Charges added notification.

Each payer receives one digest across all of their students. Included charges are based on the charge date from the last send through the send date; past‑due charges, fully paid charges, and charges on a payment plan are excluded. Notifications send on a weekly or monthly schedule. Payers are opted in by default and can opt out at any time.

To get started, in Billing Management, open Notifications (Communications > Notifications), add the Charges added system trigger, and configure the notification as needed.

Billing clerks can now use Student ID as the matching identifier when importing payments, charges, and credits for groups from a spreadsheet.

To get started, use Add to group workflow in any of the Recent Payments, Charges, or Credits lists and choose From a spreadsheet. Select the template that includes Student ID, upload your file, and complete the import.

You can now show Name pronunciation as a Column for Students lists and UsersLists. Use the new column to quickly review or update recordings of names, such as before a graduation ceremony.

• Select the column header to sort the list. Descending order shows students whose names are recorded first. To show students without recordings first, sort in ascending order.

• When a recording of a name is available, Yes appears in the column as a clickable link. Select the link to view the user’s Contact card. Their profile will appear as fly-out next to the list. To listen to their name, select Play after their name in the heading.

• If no recording exists, the column appears blank for the student. Select their name to view the user’s Contact card. Their profile will appear as fly-out next to the list.

• To record a name pronunciation or replace an existing recording, Edit their General information.

In this update, we've completely moved Manage communities out of Podium and given it a fresh, modernized SKY list look and feel. It has everything you'd expect to see including customizable columns, filters, a search bar, and more.

To help users spot new activity, the landing page now displays the number of new enrollments and new payments since the user's last login directly on the Enrollments and Recent Payments tiles.

The In School Payments report now includes the ability to schedule the report.

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• and technology partners dedicated to shaping the future of education.

• Learn actionable insights and best practices to make an immediate impact at your school.

• Experience visionary keynotes, hands-on product labs, and real-world success stories.

• Build relationships with peers, partners, and Blackbaud experts through networking, roundtables, and our ever-popular Unconference.

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• Early bird pricing and registration: Now through Tuesday March 10, 2026

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Submit your session by March 3.

Want to learn how to opt-in to new features? Looking for a quick recap on these What's New letters? We've got all of this and more on our YouTube channel!

To improve clarity and ease of use across grading workflows, we’re updating our grading terminology to better align with how schools naturally talk and think about grading. These changes are planned for the February 17 release.

The following grading terms will be renamed:

• Standard grading > Traditional grading

• Assessment grading > Skills‑based grading

• Grade Plan Groups > Grade Groups

• Grade Plans > Marking Periods

• Grade Plan Grades > Grade Columns

• Assessment Skills > Skills

The new grading terms will appear throughout the system, including reports, lists, and setup pages, regardless of the area or persona you are working in.

The new names are designed to:

• Make the purpose of grading options and terms easier to understand at a glance.

• Reduce confusion during setup and day‑to‑day use.

• Provide clear consistency across all grading areas of the system.

• Lay the groundwork for future grading improvements and simplification.

Audio and video players

We’ve addressed an issue that prevented audio and video players from displaying in the new assignment grading interface.

Thanks to your feedback on the Idea Bank, we've added a new Selected students option when printing a Report Cards and Transcripts. Under Students to include, the Selected students based on setting can use a Specific students option. Selecting this allows you to look up students and add them to the modal, which will then only print their report cards or transcripts.

In this update, we've enhanced the Offering grid credit column on Report Cards or Transcripts by adding the Decimal precision field. This is also available on the Cumulative Credits on Transcripts.

In this update, we've added a new tile that allows you to view the Transcript actions list right from the Performance tab of a student.

Billing clerks can now import charges and credits for groups using Student ID as the unique identifier, reducing matching errors and speeding up data entry.

To get started, choose From a spreadsheet in the Add charges to group workflow and select one of the new templates:

• Student name with student ID

• Student name with charge data and student ID

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

Have you been keeping up with our latest YouTube Shorts? If not, have a look here.

Next meeting due date

When selecting Next meeting for an assignment Due date, the date selected will be at least one day after the Assigned date.

For example, if a class meets daily and a teacher creates an assignment on Monday morning, selecting Next meeting will set the Due date to Tuesday.

Full screen view of file submissions

For assignments with file submissions, teachers can now select the pop‑out icon next to the download icon to open the file in full screen.

Auto-save comments

This release also addresses an issue where grade, skill, and rubric comments did not save consistently.

Billing clerks can now set default GL accounts per billing year, helping ensure distributions post to the correct AR Summary and Deferred Revenue accounts each year.

When an override is set for a billing year, it’s used automatically; if no override is set, the global default accounts are used.

Billing clerks can now import charges and credits for groups using Student ID as the unique identifier, reducing matching errors and speeding up data entry.

To get started, choose From a spreadsheet in the Add charges to group workflow and select one of the new templates:

• Student name with student ID

• Student name with charge data and student ID

You can now choose which roles to include when running Bulk Set Emergency Contacts, giving you finer control over who receives contact details.

Schools can now enable and set up an Expire message for users when adding a new Decision type. When a decision date expires and when the decision is viewed after that date, the expired message will appear. This can be helpful when schools want to provide additional steps or instructions for what to do next. Please note that this feature launched on January 21.

Schools can now enable a new setting that displays the contract link in the acceptance message on the Candidate decision page. Please note that this feature launched on January 21.

In addition, the contract link on the Admissions progress page for a user with a single, valid contract will now directly open the contract directly rather than going to the Files and Forms page.

In this update, we've replaced the older Podium experience of Community categories with the newer SKYUX style list. You can access the modern style list through the typical method of Extracurricular, Community Groups, and then Setup. Similar to other SKY lists, you can:

Search, add new categories, or change the column data being displayed.

Reorder or sort the columns.

On each row, select the ellipsis (...) to view more options, such as Edit, Delete, or Mark as inactive.

We've added Secondary payer name and Third‑party payer name as new Additional Fields for custom reports in the Family Export category.

Join Mike Morrissette, Senior Product Manager for Blackbaud’s Learning Management System, for a practical, demo driven session on how to streamline assessment creation and strengthen academic integrity.

You’ll see a live demo of LMS Question Banks (for organizing and reusing questions), the AI Question Generator (to spark and tailor new questions by grade and difficulty), and the new LockDown Browser integration (to help secure online exams). Bring your questions—Mike will reserve time for Q&A.

Date: Thursday, January 22, 2026

Time: 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM EST

To attend, register here!

Assignment titles over 30 characters are now shortened on the assignment grading page, and HTML is removed for proper display.

Billing clerks can now see all distributions for a transaction.

To get started, open a transaction and select the new Distributions tab.

Additionally, a new Overview tab consolidates the other preexisting transaction sections.

As of this release, all versions of all school directories use your school’s default user name format. This includes online, printed, exported, and search results. Previously, you could configure other formats for printed and exported copies of directories, but formatting options were limited. Additionally, the printed and exported formats differed from the online version and results, which potentially caused confusion.

When you edit a directory, the options for name formatting now appear above the option to enable printing. Thus, you can select the desired name format for each directory. The name format you select affects all versions of that directory, including online, printed, exported, and search results.

Platform managers configure your school’s default user name format (and other name formats) in Core, Users, User profile settings, User name formats. Use placeholders to determine how the names should appear, including whether to show preferred first names, preferred last names, first names, last names, middle names, maiden names, prefixes, suffixes, and grad years. These placeholders give your school more flexibility to control how names appear. For example, you can choose to show your preferred first name and preferred last name, while hiding legal first names.

This update continues our efforts to expand the use of the newer user name format options throughout Blackbaud Education Management and simplifies the experience for managers.

With this release, we expanded the functionality which automatically formats phone numbers. Data imports now benefit from this standardized formatting, specifically in the General User and Phone Number types under the Contact Card-Import/Refresh category.

When you add or update phone numbers using a data import, your school’s automatic phone formatting applies. Phone numbers for your school’s default country will have the country code added automatically if you omitted them from the original import file. However, you must add the country codes for any phone numbers outside of your school’s default country; they won’t be added automatically and are required for validation for proper formatting.

Automatic phone formatting already exists any time a user adds or edits a phone number (including emergency contacts) via Contact cards in Core, Enrollment management, Academics, and Billing management profiles.

Remember, schools who want this functionality must first enable it. To do this, go Core, Users, User profile settings, Profile page settings. Then enable automatic phone formatting and select a preferred format for phone numbers in the United States and Canada.

See the online help for profile page settings.

Note: Valid phone numbers in the school's default country without a country code are accepted. However, phone numbers outside of the school's default country which omit “+” and a country code before the rest of the phone number aren’t accepted by the validation process.

Starting on January 21, Blackbaud Financial Aid Management’s IRS integration will begin rolling out to schools in waves over the coming weeks. With the integration, families can choose to allow Blackbaud to receive their verified tax documents directly and securely from the IRS, enabling quicker application review and confident award decisions.

The Enable IRS Integration option in General School Settings will update to Yes once the integration is turned on for your school.

Family experience

When completing the financial aid application, families applying to a school with the integration enabled will have a new option to choose their income verification method:

1. Upload all documents manually (as before).

2. Allow IRS data transfer: Families authorize Blackbaud to receive their Form 1040 directly from the IRS.

For families choosing IRS data transfer:

• They will e-sign two forms during the application process: Halcyon Consent Form and Form 8821 – Tax Information Authorization.

• After submitting the application and payment, families receive an email with a link to walk them through approving a tax information authorization request on IRS.gov using their ID.me account.

• Once approved, tax data flows securely to Blackbaud for review.

• Depending on school requirements, families may still need to manually upload additional documents.

Learn more in our recorded webinar and review the integration workflow in our parent help documentation.

We want to hear from you at bbdevdays virtually on June 2-4, 2026! Whether you’re skilled in pro-code solutions or low-code innovations, now’s your time to share your insights as a speaker and connect with the developer community.

Submit your session by March 3.

Join Mike Morrissette, Senior Product Manager for Blackbaud’s Learning Management System, for a practical, demo driven session on how to streamline assessment creation and strengthen academic integrity.

You’ll see a live demo of LMS Question Banks (for organizing and reusing questions), the AI Question Generator (to spark and tailor new questions by grade and difficulty), and the new LockDown Browser integration (to help secure online exams). Bring your questions—Mike will reserve time for Q&A.

Date: Thursday, January 22, 2026

Time: 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM EST

Register here!

Join us on January 15 for a live demo showcasing two powerful new integrations in Blackbaud Financial Aid Management:

• IRS Integration for faster, more accurate application processing

• Enrollment Management Integration for seamless data flow across systems

Learn how these updates can simplify your workflows and improve the experience for families and staff. A live Q&A will follow the demo.

Date: Thursday, January 15, 2026

Time: 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM EST

To attend, register here!

Organization admins can now enable all current and future generative AI features powered by Blackbaud AI with one global setting — giving your organization centralized control, clear compliance, and future-ready access to AI-powered tools that boost productivity and personalization.

If you don’t opt in, your organization remains opted out by default. This affects all Blackbaud solutions, including Raiser’s Edge NXT.

To learn more, see enable Generative AI features.

When enabled:

• Assessments cannot be opened in other browsers.

• Assessments run in full-screen mode and cannot be minimized.

• Browser actions are limited to Back, Forward, Refresh, Stop.

• Messaging, screen-sharing, virtual machine, and remote desktop apps are blocked.

• Print, screen capture, copy/paste, right-click menus, keyboard shortcuts, and task switching are disabled.

• Students cannot exit until their assessment is submitted.

Organization administrators can start a free 30-day trial and purchase the integration in Core, Settings, Activate new features, Premium add-ons.

Platform managers can access LockDown Browser installation files for school-managed devices, as well as Allow list, Block List, and Proctor exit passcode settings in Core, Settings, Integrationsettings, LockDown Browser. For details, see our help documentation.

Teacherexperience

Teacherssimply select Enable lockdown browser within their assessment settings. Allow students to resume independently is disabled when Enable lockdown browser is selected.

Student experience

If students manage their own devices, they must install LockDown Browser before accessing assessment questions. For more information on the student installation, see our Help documentation. LockDown Browser only needs to be installed once per device.

1. Students select Take or the assessment name to open the assessment.

2. Students can select Test LockDown Browser to ensure it is installed before they access the assessment questions. If it is not installed, they will receive an error.

3. Students select Begin test.

4. Students select Close applications and Continue to close any blocked applications.

5. LockDown Browser launches in full-screen mode and students complete the assessment.

• They can select the + icon at the top of the browser to open the Insert Symbol dialogue box.

• If Enable virtual calculator is selected for the assessment, they can select the calculator icon to open it.

6. When finished, students select Submit, then Close to exit LockDown Browser.

Note: If a student opens a submitted assessment to review their results, the results page also opens in LockDown Browser.

Learn more in our feature video.

Turnitin LTI 1.3 is now available. We recommend upgrading for improved security and an enhanced user experience.

Key enhancements in Turnitin LTI 1.3:

• Intuitive assignment creation workflow: Teacherscan now add Turnitin assignments directly from the assignment +Add dropdown.

  

• Modern Assignment Types: LTI 1.3 supports Turnitin’s new Standard Assignment, giving teachers access to the latest features and improvements.

• Automatic rostering: Student and teachersenrollments are synced automatically between Blackbaud and Turnitin.

• Better security and reliability: LTI 1.3 provides enhanced security and a smoother grade pass-back experience.

What Stays the Same?

• Student experience: The student assignment submission workflows are unchanged.

• Access to tools: Teachersstill have access to their rubrics, QuickMarks, and PeerMark questions from previous LTI 1.1 courses.

• Past assignments: Teachersand students can still access LTI 1.1 assignments and reports.

• Analytics: LTI 1.1 assignment analytics are still available.

Action Required:

• Turnitin is ending support for LTI 1.1 on December 31, 2026, with full deprecation on December 31, 2027. Please plan to upgrade to LTI 1.3.

• Only one version (LTI 1.1 or 1.3) should be enabled at a time.

For more information, see our help documentation and recorded webinar.

ICYMI: Parent Submitted Attendance

Originally launched back in December, we just wanted to give you a head up on an important new feature for Academics in case you missed it. We've added a Parent Submitted Attendance option for schools to enable. This is an opt in feature that allows parents and guardians to submit an absence, late arrival, or early dismissal request for their child. To get started, administrators can visit Academics, Attendance, and then Parent submit under the Settings section. You then select the School levels to include, add any Instruction text, and then set up the Confirmation notification that is sent to parents once the attendance has been submitted.

Once enabled, Parents can access this feature right from their portal and selecting their child. The student profile will have a +Report absence button which will allow the parent to select the Type of absence, the Absence start date and Absence end date. They’ll also need to enter the Reason for Absence and can enter additional comments before the Submit button can be selected.

Finally, when attendance has been submitted, the Needs attention tile on the Attendance Hub will display it for administrators. Select the link to be taken to the review screen, which displays all of the entries on the left and the specific submission details for the selected entry on the right. Admins will also see an overview of how the absence, dismissal, or late arrival will impact the student’s schedule and which class or activity they’ll be at during the times selected. Select Acknowledge to officially accept the submission.

For more information and a detailed run through of this process and how to use it, please visit our help center documentation.

When setting up Parent Submitted Attendance, we've added a new option for Boarding Schools. Enabling the option allows Parents to submit attendance for students that are marked as Boarding.

Transcript Categories Update

With this update, Transcript Categories has moved out of Podium and now uses a more updated and modern SKYUX-style list. In addition to a search bar, you can add a new Transcript category or edit the existing ones right from the displayed list.

We’ve updated the appearance of the access checker that platform managers use to review whether a user can “view as” another user. These changes make it easier to review the tasks that grant access and to understand why someone can (or can’t) “view as” another user. Find the “view as” access checker in Core, Security, Access checker. Functionality and access remain unchanged; this enhancement only affects the cosmetic layout.

Review default user name format for school directory

We recommend you review your school’s default user name format. This will prepare your school for an upcoming change.

Currently, if a platform manager has configured a school directory to allow users to print, they also configured how names are formatted for the printed copies. However, they can't determine the format of user names for the online directory (which uses your school’s default user name format), and thus the online version may differ from the printed copies. Additionally, the formatting options for printed copies are limited. For example, all options for printed formats show first names.

Many schools have already configured school directories to use the school’s default user name format for printed directories.

In a future release, all versions of the school directories (printed, exported, and online) will match. They will all use your school’s default user name format upon release. Thus, the printed and exported versions will match the current online version.

Platform managers configure the default user name format in Core, Users, User profile settings, User name formats. Use placeholders to determine how the names should appear, including whether to show preferred first names, preferred last names, first names, last names, middle names, maiden names, prefixes, suffixes, and grad years.

This upcoming change is intended to:

• reduce potential confusion regarding name formats for school directories,

• update the directory name format options to increase flexibility and add placeholder options which give you more control of the way names appear in directories,

• enable schools to show any name parts (including preferred last name) in school directories,

• enable schools to hide first name in school directories (including when printed or exported),

• enable you to choose a different user name format for each directory,

• simplify the experience for managers,

• and continue our efforts to expand the use of the newer user name format options throughout Blackbaud Education Management.

When working with contracts under Manage Contract forms, you can now enable both Due Date and Days after generated at the same time to set up a flexible due date schedule. Keep in mind that when you generate a contract, the due date is set to the last possible date, either the defined due date in the contract settings or the Days after generated resulting date.

In addition, when selecting Generate next to a contract form, the calculated Due date is shown for clarity though you can also override the originally set contract due date if needed.

Please note that this feature is currently in EAP. Schools can opt-in to this feature by going to Core,Settings, and then Activate new features.

To support the upcoming IRS integration, we have added a new field on both the school and parent sites that indicates whether a parent has chosen to allow IRS data transfer or opted to manually upload all financial documents.

On the school site:

1. Select Families, Manage Families, and select a family.

2. On the Main Family Page, locate the Application Data tile.

3. The new IRS Data Transfer field will display:

• Yes: The parent selected Allow IRS data transfer.

• No: The parent selected Upload all documents.

On the parent site:

Parents can review their selection on the My Applications page, where their IRS Data Transfer selection is displayed with their application information.

Join hundreds of private and independent school professionals, thought leaders,

• and technology partners dedicated to shaping the future of education.

• Learn actionable insights and best practices to make an immediate impact at your school.

• Experience visionary keynotes, hands-on product labs, and real-world success stories.

• Build relationships with peers, partners, and Blackbaud experts through networking, roundtables, and our ever-popular Unconference.

• Data driven insights, industry thought leadership, and more to empower strategic leadership and smart decisions.

Learn more and register

• Early bird pricing and registration: Now through Tuesday March 10, 2026

• Call for speakers: Submit your proposals now through Wednesday January 14, 2026

• Conference event: Wednesday July 15, 2026 – Friday July 17, 2026 in Boston, MA

We recommend platform managers review the intro text that appears when users edit their emergency contacts. To view and update your school’s text, go to Core, Users, User profile settings, Emergency contact settings.

Your school may have recently enabled automatic formatting and a preferred format for phone number from the United States and Canada (via Core, Users, User profile settings, Profile page settings). Thus, you may want to adjust the intro text to inform users their info will be reformatted.

When a platform manager adds or edits a school directory (via Core, Content, Directories), they determine whether users can print directory results.

Previously, to download directory information, a user would first select to print and a preview would appear. If they then attempted to download the preview, they would receive an Active Server Page Extended (.aspx) file. However, if they continued to print, they could select a PDF option as the print destination instead of a printer.

With this release, you can now export directory information as an Adobe (.pdf) file, without the extra steps related to a print preview. From a directory, select the print icon and then choose whether to:

• Print entire directory

• Print family directory

• Print search directory

• Export entire directory (.pdf)

• Export family directory (.pdf)

• Export search results (.pdf)

When a platform manager enables the print option for users, the export option will be enabled too, since users access all print and export options from the same print format menu.

Tip: Remember, only the online directories show the latest information about your school community. When you print or export, those results may become outdated and won’t show later changes to privacy settings. We therefore encourage users to use online directories instead of exported or printed copies.

Under Manage contract forms, we've added a Generate button to active contract forms. Selecting it from here opens a new window that allows schools to generate contracts. The preview window shows the number of students that will be impacted as well as a list of students who can be manually selected to have the contract generated. You'll also see student details including the Deposit and Tuition amount, Entering grade, and the contract due date.If any students are unavailable for contract generation, for reasons such as their contract has already been saved, submitted, or processed, they'll be shown as well. Select Generate to start the process or Cancel to exit without saving.

We’ve streamlined the Integrations experience and made LockDown Browser easier to find and manage. The page now lives under Core, System tools, Integrations.The LockDown Browser row now always shows an Active/Inactive status label.To get started, go to Core, System tools, Integrations, and select LockDown Browser:If LockDown Browser is active, the link opens the standard LockDown Browser settings page.If LockDown Browser is inactive, the link takes you to Activate New Features, Premium add‑ons to enable it.

When viewing the attendance statuses list, you now have an option to export it to a CSV file.

From the Learning Center, we've moved the Approve learning profiles page out of Podium and modernized it with SKYUX. Select the user on the left, and their profile appears on the right side, letting you add and edit as needed. When finished, you can Approve or Deny the profile, or use Save as draft to keep your edits for later.

(Arriving for all schools by the end of day on Dec 19) We're finally adding a Parent Submitted Attendance option for schools to enable. This is an opt in feature that allows parents and guardians to submit an absence, late arrival, or early dismissal request for their child. To get started, administrators can visit Academics, Attendance, and then Parent submit under the Settings section. You then select the School levels to include, add any Instruction text, and then set up the Confirmation notification that is sent to parents once the attendance has been submitted.

Once enabled, Parents can access this feature right from their portal and selecting their child. The student profile will have a +Report absence button which will allow the parent to select the Type of absence, the Absence start date and Absence end date. They’ll also need to enter the Reason for Absence and can enter additional comments before the Submit button can be selected.

Finally, when attendance has been submitted, the Needs attention tile on the Attendance Hub will display it for administrators. Select the link to be taken to the review screen, which displays all of the entries on the left and the specific submission details for the selected entry on the right. Admins will also see an overview of how the absence, dismissal, or late arrival will impact the student’s schedule and which class or activity they’ll be at during the times selected. Select Acknowledge to officially accept the submission.

For more information and a detailed run through of this process and how to use it, please visit our help center documentation.

We're excited to introduce our streamlined and modernized faculty assignment experience with this release. Designed to save time and reduce complexity, this update focuses on faster assignment creation, enhanced grading workflows, and customizable preferences to improve efficiency and usability.

Platform managers can check out a feature webinar and enable the new experience in Core, Settings, Activate new features. The legacy assignment creation and grading workflows will remain available alongside the new experiences until they are removed in Summer 2026.

Faster assignment creation workflow

• Revamped interface: The legacy assignment creation page is replaced with a clean, modern design that reduces visual clutter and eliminates unnecessary scrolling.

• Quick assignment workflow: A new Quick assignment option in the +Add assignment dropdown launches a simplified interface with two intuitive tabs, making assignment setup faster than ever.

• Familiar settings, improved layout: Every setting from the old assignment creation experience is still available, just reorganized into a more intuitive, user-friendly layout for easier navigation.

• Set-and-forget Preferences: Teachers can configure additional assignment creation preferences, such as default File submission , Evaluation method, and smart Due date and times, that automatically apply to new assignments, minimizing repetitive steps and saving time.

• Watch our short feature video.

Focused assignment grading experience

• Side-by-side layout: A redesigned grading interface displays student submissions on the left and a dedicated grading panel on the right for a more intuitive workflow.

• More space for student submissions: The new view maximizes screen real estate for the student submission, keeping the focus where it belongs.

• Flexible workflow: Teachers can toggle between the new grading experience and the classic view via the Use new grading interface toggle at the top of the page.

• Key features:

o Immediate access to comment boxes for quick feedback

o At-a-glance assignment status via a student dropdown

o Drill-in modals for detailed rubric grading without leaving the page

We’ve redesigned the Courses to include settings in Transcripts to make selections clearer.

Show courses in progress for the current year

• Yes: Includes courses the student is enrolled in during the current academic year where grades have not yet been entered.

• No: Hides current-year courses where the student is enrolled but hasn’t received grades yet.

Show enrolled previous terms/years courses

This replaces the first two radio button options previously found in the Courses to include section, consolidating them into a single, straightforward control.

Show dropped courses

Control whether dropped courses should appear, and if all should display or only those with grades.

With this release, we expanded the functionality which automatically formats phone numbers. Emergency contacts in Core now benefit from standardized formatting.

Automative phone formatting already exists any time a user adds or edits a phone number for an emergency contact via the Academics or Billing management profile. You also see this any time a user adds or edits an emergency contact phone number via Contact cards in Core or Enrollment management.

Remember, schools who want this functionality must first enable it. To do this, go Core, Users, User profile settings, Profile page settings. Then enable automatic phone formatting, select a preferred format for phone numbers in the United States and Canada, and enable validation.

See the online help for profile page settings.

With this release, we've updated how schools view and manage administrative reports. You’ll find the list of reports and related admin tasks in a single list of reports. However, when non-admin users view the list of reports, they only see the lists they have access to. Check out the fresh, modern interface in Core, Reporting, Reports.

Reports now appear in an updated list:

• Like all SKY lists, you can search and filter the reports.

• Select which columns of data to view, reorder the columns, and sort.

• On a report’s row, select the ellipsis (...) to view more options, such as to run a report or manage access.

• On a report’s row, you can also select the number of roles or users to view their names and manage access.

Platform managers determine which roles and users have access to view and generate reports. Some report categories are automatically associated with a manager role (such as billing clerk). You can also upload Crystal reports as custom reports and control access to them.

• For each report, you'll configure access by role or for individual users – just like before. To do this, go to a “capability” such as Core. Then select Reporting and Reports. Find the report in the list. On its row, select the number of roles or users to view their names and manage access.

• Only roles and users who also have the corresponding security roles and tasks appear as options for report access. (Go to Core, Security, Roles, and Tasks.)

• If a user has multiple roles and the roles have different access, then a role or setting that grants access will override a role that doesn't grant access. Thus, the user will have the highest access specified by their roles and settings.

This update is a continuation of our efforts to move functionality “off the bridge” (off Podium) and onto a modern SKY user experience. A future release will include additional enhancements for administrative reports, like report descriptions and editable notes!

We have reverted to our previous policy regarding income verification for financial aid applications. Families are again required to submit paystubs as part of the financial aid application process.

Paystubs once again serve as the primary method for verifying household income used in financial aid calculations. In addition, we have returned to using Estimated Annual Income (EAI) for financial aid calculations instead of Adjusted Gross Income (AGI).

What this means for applicants:

• Paystubs must be included with all financial aid applications.

• Income verification will be based on paystub data.

• Financial aid calculations will use Estimated Annual Income rather than AGI.

In case you missed it, we have new short videos for you to check out on our YouTube channel. Head here to get all caught up!

In this update, we've added Transcript Category and Transcript Abbreviation columns to the offering grid of Transcripts.

When viewing the attendance statuses list, you now have an option to export it to a CSV file.

From the Learning Center, we've moved the Approve learning profiles page out of Podium and modernized it with SKYUX. Select the user on the left, and their profile appears on the right side, letting you add and edit as needed. When finished, you can Approve or Deny the profile, or use Save as draft to keep your edits for later.

We've added the ability to add a new checklist step for a candidate that is able to log the user into their Blackbaud Financial Aid Management account. It can also display a Financial Aid application.

Product Update Briefings start tomorrow (November 18-20, 2025)! Imagine what you’ll achieve with the latest updates at your fingertips and an exclusive look at the innovation yet to come. Explore the possibilities in these virtual sessions led by product experts and register today to watch live or on-demand.

We heard you! For those of you who really enjoyed our short vertical-style videos, such as our What's New Recap in 60 Seconds or Less, we have some good news. They're back!

Head on over to our YouTube channell to have a look and while you're there, please consider subscribing. Thanks for watching!

Join Jessi Walters (product manager) to learn more about the new “view as student” capability. View a live demo of Blackbaud Education Management’s most highly requested enhancement. Thanks again to everyone who left comments in the Idea Bank or participated in the early adopter program.

December 3, 3:00 PM — 4:00 PM EDT

Register for the webinar.

Join hundreds of private and independent school professionals, thought leaders, and technology partners dedicated to shaping the future of education.

• Learn actionable insights and best practices to make an immediate impact at your school.

• Experience visionary keynotes, hands-on product labs, and real-world success stories.

• Build relationships with peers, partners, and Blackbaud experts through networking, roundtables, and our ever-popular Unconference.

• Data driven insights, industry thought leadership, and more to empower strategic leadership and smart decisions.

Learn more and register

• Early bird pricing and registration: Now through Tuesday March 10, 2026

• Call for speakers: Submit your proposals now through Wednesday January 14, 2026

• Conference event: Wednesday July 15, 2026 – Friday July 17, 2026 in Boston, MA

When viewing Diploma requirements, we’ve added a third status to go alongside In progress and Completed. Future will display for enrolled students that have not received any credits yet for a course that has not begun.

Billing clerks can now restrict payment plans to specific date ranges or to faculty families, providing more flexibility without creating multiple contract versions.

To get started, open a payment plan record from the Billing years settings page and look for the new Contracts settings section. From there, you can:

• Restrict availability to faculty.

• Set publish and expire dates to control when the plan appears on contracts.

• Enable payers to enroll in Auto-Pay during the contract process.

When a school runs a general user import, you must now enter exact and full gender values. They must match your school’s settings. For example, your school might enter “male,” “female,” “non-binary,” etc. Gender abbreviations (such as M, F, N, O, etc.) are no longer supported for general user import.

If your import includes pronouns, you must also include the exact and full values to match your school settings. For example, your school might enter "he/him," "she/her," "they/them," etc. Partial pronoun abbreviations (such as "he," "she," or "they") are not supported for general user import.

The import process doesn’t automatically add default pronouns based on gender values. Instead, you must explicitly include pronouns you want in the import. If you omit pronouns, the values will remain unchanged or blank on corresponding user contact cards.

This update improves data consistency and ensures that user contact cards display complete and standardized gender and pronoun information.

As of November 18, 2025 schools can choose to enable automatic phone formatting and select a preferred format for phone numbers in the United States and Canada. Do this from Core, Users, User profile settings, Profile page settings.

When enabled, the formats are automatically applied any time a user adds or edits a phone number via Contact cards in Core, Enrollment management, Academics, and Billing management. For phone numbers outside the U.S. and Canada, the international standard is applied.

With this release, we’ve expanded this functionality. Now, any time a user adds or edits a phone number for an emergency contact (via the Academics or Billing management profile) that phone number is also handled according to your school’s Profile page settings.

In a future release, you’ll see this updated experience for emergency contacts in Core, too.

In the Parent/Guardian Information section of the application, we’ve added a question asking parents if they have an ID.me account, which the IRS uses for secure authentication and identity verification. The addition of this question helps us prepare for the upcoming IRS integration and there is no change to functionality.

Product Update Briefings start tomorrow (November 18-20, 2025)! Imagine what you’ll achieve with the latest updates at your fingertips and an exclusive look at the innovation yet to come. Explore the possibilities in these virtual sessions led by product experts and register today to watch live or on-demand.

We heard you! For those of you who really enjoyed our short vertical-style videos, such as our What's New Recap in 60 Seconds or Less, we have some good news. They're back!

Head on over to our YouTube channell to have a look and while you're there, please consider subscribing. Thanks for watching!

Join Jessi Walters (product manager) to learn more about the new “view as student” capability. View a live demo of Blackbaud Education Management’s most highly requested enhancement. Thanks again to everyone who left comments in the Idea Bank or participated in the early adopter program.

December 3, 3:00 PM — 4:00 PM EDT

Register for the webinar.

Join hundreds of private and independent school professionals, thought leaders, and technology partners dedicated to shaping the future of education.

• Learn actionable insights and best practices to make an immediate impact at your school.

• Experience visionary keynotes, hands-on product labs, and real-world success stories.

• Build relationships with peers, partners, and Blackbaud experts through networking, roundtables, and our ever-popular Unconference.

• Data driven insights, industry thought leadership, and more to empower strategic leadership and smart decisions.

Learn more and register

• Early bird pricing and registration: Now through Tuesday March 10, 2026

• Call for speakers: Submit your proposals now through Wednesday January 14, 2026

• Conference event: Wednesday July 15, 2026 – Friday July 17, 2026 in Boston, MA

Under Student enrollment, schools can enable None assigned for the Advisor filter. This will display any students that currently don’t have a value in the Advisor column.

In this update, we've converted the Official notes types from Podium to a SKYUX style list. When accessing the page from Communications, Official Notes, then Official notes types, you'll see all active types, which you can edit, mark as inactive, delete, or edit he associated email notification. You also have access to customizable columns and filters to refine the data being displayed, and you can create a new type as well as which groups can access them.

Payers can now view and print their end-of-year statements directly from the payer portal, making it easier to access tax information without contacting the school.

To get started, Billing clerks can enable this feature in Core , Roles, Tasks under the End of Year Statements task and configure school details under Billing management, Settings, School settings. Enter your school name, address, and tax ID number to display on the statement.

Payers will see a new End of year statements navigation menu item under Billing in the payer portal. From there, they can select a calendar year (defaults to the previous year) and print the statement. Statements include all payment applications toward fees and enrollment deposits for the selected year.

Billing clerks can now view the past due balance directly in the Manage holds list, making it easier to determine when a hold should be removed.

To get started, navigate to Billing management, Communication, Holds, Manage holds. The new Past due balance column appears by default and is positioned before the Current balance column.

This column is only visible to users with Billing holds manager permissions.

Billing clerks can now copy settings from an existing miscellaneous fee when creating a new one, reducing manual entry and saving time.

To get started, select the Add misc fee dropdown and choose the new option, Copy from existing. All existing miscellaneous fees for the current billing year are then listed. After selecting a fee, all settings will copy to the new fee except for the name and description, which you can enter manually.

Schools can now choose to enable an automatic phone format for contact cards in Core, Enrollment Management, and 360 user profiles.

To benefit from this update, platform managers should:

1. Go to Core, Users, User profile settings, Profile page settings.

2. Select Edit.

3. Select a default country. To also enable a preferred phone format, the default country must be the United States or Canada.

4. Enable phone number validation.

5. Then select your school’s preferred format for phone numbers for the United States and Canada.

   • (555) 123-4567

   • 555-123-4567

   • 555.123.4567

   You’ll also select a preferred format for extensions.

   • x

   • ext.

   • Ext.

   • EXT

After your school enables these settings, the standardized formats automatically apply any time a user adds or edits a phone number via a contact card in Core, Enrollment Management, and 360 user profiles.

Additionally, users are now required to include a country code when they add or edit a phone number. Your school sets a default country, but users can change their country to select a different country code.

In this update, we’ve released enhanced decisions for the Candidate progress page as well as given it an updated look and feel.

First, Decision types and Decision texts are being removed, and in their place is the new Decisions tab which is still found under Admissions setup. Decisions is a modern SKY style list displaying all school decisions, complete with filters, columns, a search option, and sortable columns to better refine and find the data you need. The Candidate list also has more columns and filters available to pick from, like Decision viewed, Last viewed date, and Current grade.

Select Add decision type to create a new one, what type of decision it should be, and if it is active or not. Schools also have additional customization options in here including actions to take based on the candidate's decision, setting the school decision content display, as well as customize the Candidate decision options available, such as the Acknowledge, Accept, or Decline buttons. Better yet, these buttons can be customized to your school's specific needs, such as the display text and associated action.

In addition, from the Admissions progress candidate page, decisions have been built in so candidates can see when one is available for them. When the decision is viewed, a new page appears based on the type for the candidate with the custom header, body message, as well as buttons at the bottom. Schools can also customize the Congratulations or Let us know your decision buttons, while also adding a confetti effect when the decision has been accepted.

When creating a school form, a URL is generated that can be sent by a school to a user to allow them to assign it to themselves and submit it once finished. From Content and then School forms, select the URL button to find a Shareable Authenticated URL that can be copied and sent.

When creating a form, use the Recipients option to add individuals who can view and sign the form.

We’ve moved the EMS and Core related Standard Application Online settings to Core, System tools, and Integrations.

When creating a contract, we've added a new Incidental charges block that also can be used to sign up for autopay. While the block can be added to a contract from Enrollment management, Incidental Payment details need to be setup through Blackbaud Billing management.

From a parent's viewpoint, they'll see a new Contracts tab called Incidentals that will display the Incidental Auto Pay enrollment option. Incidental Charges are defined for the parent, with options to Enroll in autopay and either using a saved payment method or adding a new one.

With this update, we’ve moved the Bulk set emergency contacts option. You can now find it under Core, Users, and then Bulk set emergency contacts.

With this release, we've made the following updates to streamline the financial aid application process for families while offering schools greater flexibility.

Income verification methodology: Instead of paystubs, we’re now using Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) from Line 11 of IRS Form 1040 to verify a family’s income. This change reduces the document burden for families by eliminating the need for paystubs and ensures a more consistent assessment. For more information, see How does Financial Aid Management calculate a family's need?

Customized document requirements: Our Review Team will no longer review paystubs. However, schools may still require them by updating the Required documents in Settings, General School Settings.

Note: The options to require 1040 - U.S. Individual Income Tax Return and W-2 - Wage and Tax Statement cannot be modified at this time.

Tiles on the new landing page are now "sticky." When users rearrange tiles, their customized layout is preserved across sessions, ensuring a consistent and personalized experience.

Education management now supports Webhook API, enabling your applications to receive real-time notifications when events you subscribe to occur in Education Management environments. When an event is triggered, the API sends an HTTPS request to an endpoint you provide. Your application can then inspect the request payload to decide whether to take action.

Webhook API initial release launches with one event type: User record changed.

User record changed

com.blackbaud.education.user.change.v1

User record changed provides the user ID whenever any users' biographical information is updated. Using this ID, you can call a related service, such as GET User by ID, to compare the latest data with what your application currently uses.

Schools can now display custom, partner-provided data directly on the View communications page within user profiles by using the SKY API platform’s Add-ins feature.

To get started, partners can follow the steps for creating and integrating SKY Add-ins.

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

We heard you! For those of you who really enjoyed our short vertical-style videos, such as our What's New Recap in 60 Seconds or Less, we have some good news. They're back!

Head on over to our YouTube channel to have a look and while you're there, please consider subscribing. Thanks for watching!

This week in the Blackbaud Education management journal, we have a new entry for you to check out. We're doing a deeper dive into the recent release of View as User. We'll be answering common questions like what it is, where it is, and how you should be using it. Head over to our Journal page on the help center to have a look.

Join Jessi Walters (product manager) to learn more about the new “view as student” capability. This capability became generally available (GA) to all schools with last week’s release. View a live demo of Blackbaud Education Management’s most highly requested enhancement. Thanks again to everyone who left comments in the Idea Bank or participated in the early adopter program.

December 3, 3:00 PM — 4:00 PM EDT

Register for the webinar.

The moment you’ve been waiting for is here—registration for Blackbaud’s bi-annual Product update briefings is now open! Attend these virtual sessions on November 18-20 for exclusive insights on our new era of social impact technology, a look at product roadmaps, expert guidance, and leveled-up efficiency. Watch live or on-demand to see what’s to come and how it supports your mission.

K-12 Education Management

Thurs, Nov 20 | 12 PM EST

Have you seen our fresh coat of paint? We updated several user experiences, such as sign-in and navigation, to our latest visual styles.

Functionality remains the same. If your organization configured custom branding, then your school colors will apply to the refreshed sign-in experience.

You’ll notice these changes on pages and menus, such as:

• Blackbaud ID signin

• Blackbaud ID user profile

• Admin

• Omnibar

These visual changes will continue to roll out to the rest of the product as time allows.

Billing holds managers can now see the Past due balance in the Manage holds list, making it easier to determine when a hold should be removed after payment.

To get started, go to Billing management > Communication > Holds > Manage holds. The new Past due balance column appears before Current balance and is visible only to users with Billing holds manager role.

Billing clerks can now create new miscellaneous fees directly from the Billing years page, without needing to navigate to Settings first.

To get started, on the Billing years page, add a new miscellaneous fee. When entering a Fee name, choose New, enter the fee name in the window that appears, and save. The fee is automatically added to the Fees section on the Settings page.

Last week, we released our most wanted feature ever. “View as student” became live for all schools.

As part of last week’s update, we expanded the Impersonation History to also show “view as student” information. Platform managers find this history in Core, Security.

As of this week, they can now Export the history. Consider using the export to view the data in a third party spreadsheet application, such as Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets.

When a platform manager or list manager views the Household and Addresses list, they can now select to show separate columns for address field. Previously, the address fields were only shown together in the summary column.

Consider using the new columns for separate fields during your school’s data cleanup efforts, especially if you’re also planning to link records to Raiser’s Edge NXT.

When a content manager goes to Core, Content, Pushpages, they now see Issues as their landing page.

This saves time and “clicks” for users, since they’re more likely to manage upcoming issues rather than existing jobs or templates.

Admissions managers and notification recipients can now receive notifications when a review has been submitted. You can also select whether you want a notification for every submission or to receive a daily digest at a specific time once per day. From the Committee settings under Committee Review, select Administration Notifications to set up or edit these new notifications.

We've added new columns to the Candidates for review list:

• Date added (when the candidate was added to the committee)

• Review submitted date

• Date submitted for review summary

This week's journal highlights a number of big changes made to Academics over the past few months, with maybe one or two that you may not have known about. Check it out here.

With this update, Enroll groups has moved into Student Enrollment under Requests and Schedules as a button, and its corresponding tab has been removed. Athletics also has its own Enroll group option from the Manage teams page, though Extracurricular, Athletics, then Manage teams.

Select Enroll group to open a full modal window allowing you to add and search for members, then selecting the sections to add them to. In addition, we’ve added a new +Add a group of people option to select from a large group of users based on filtered criteria.

Finally, Paste a list of records can be used if you’re attempting to add users from a program outside of Blackbaud. When you press Save, BBEM will try to match records and if there isn’t a match, you’ll see a message saying no record has been found.

For more information, make sure to check out our help documentation.

Billing clerks can now apply payments and credits to specific installments on a payment plan, giving them more control over how funds are allocated.

To get started, use the Add a credit or Add a payment workflows, found in locations such as the Recent payments or Recent credits lists.

When applying a payment or credit to pay off specific charges, you can now select one or more payment plan installments and choose how much to apply to each, whether that means applying the full amount to a single installment or spreading it across several.

Payers can now view comments associated with transactions on both the Amount due page and the Upcoming payments section within the Payer portal.

This item was mistakenly reported as having been released on October 14. We apologize for the error and any inconvenience caused.

Billing clerks can now delete multiple payment plans at once, making it easier to clean up plans added mistakenly.

To get started, open the Payment plan list and pick the plans you want to delete. Then, select Delete from the task bar at the bottom.

This item was mistakenly reported as having been released on October 14. We apologize for the error and any inconvenience caused.

Billing clerks can now choose to keep payers enrolled in auto-pay when rolling over a payment plan.

To get started, start the Rollover payment plan process and select the new Maintain auto-pay enrollment checkbox. When selected, the system will automatically carry over auto-pay details from the previous year to the new plan, ensuring uninterrupted payment scheduling.

Note: This update only applies to schools within the United States.

You asked and it’s finally here! The most popular idea bank request is fulfilled and now available to all schools. Thank you to all who provided feedback in the user community’s idea bank and to schools who took part in the Early Adopter Program (EAP).

Your school can now enable some employees to view Blackbaud Education Management as though they were a specific student or advisee.

They won’t be able to save changes or take action on the student's behalf. It’s view-only. Consider using “view as” to help troubleshoot or to demonstrate functions and content as seen by students or advisees.

A platform manager should consider enabling these security tasks for the desired roles:

• View as any student - Enable this task for system admins. You must also select school level filters. If no filters are selected, members won’t have access to “view as,” even if the task is enabled for their role. The filters determine which students the members of the role can “view as.” To enable access to “view as” any student from the entire school, select all the filters. Otherwise, limit their access by selecting filters for specific school levels.

• View as my students - Enables teachers to view as any of their students. They can only view students who are on their rosters. They can only "view as" after the start date for access to the group page roster.

• View as my advisees - Enables advisers to view as any of their advisees. They can only view students who are in their advisory. They can only "view as" after the start date for access to the group page roster.

• View as access check - The access checker enables platform managers to review why a user can (or can't) "view as" another user. It also shows any limitations, such as school level or dates.

Your security roles affect how you'll access another user's view.

• From your roster, find a student or advisee and then go to their user profile. View their Contact card. Under the header, select View as user.

• From a school directory, find a student or advisee and go to their user profile. View their Contact card. Under the header, select View as user.

• Use the People finder to go to the user's profile in Academics, Enrollment management, Billing management, or Core. From the header, select View as user.

A blue “banner” will appear across the top of the user interface. This reminds you who you're viewing as and that any attempts to make changes won’t save. When you're done, select End viewing as.

The student you want to view must:

• have the student role or incoming student role,

• be enrolled or registered for the current school year,

• not be withdrawn.

Note: Social security numbers (SSN), credit cards, medical data, and other highly secured information is hidden from this view. To take action on another user's behalf, consider Impersonation instead.

Platform managers can view up to two years of history showing which users have used View as user, who they viewed, and when. From Core, select Security, then select Impersonation history. Filter by time or action. Then search by name. Use this to review activity for security or managerial purposes.

Platform managers can also review why a user can (or can’t) “view as” another user. From Core, select Security and then Access checker. Enter the name of the user who wants “view as” access and the name of who they want to see. Then select Check access. The security tasks for their access and any limitations (such as school level or dates) appear.

This release includes multiple enhancements to improve your school’s workflow for handling Blackbaud ID (BBID) accounts. Many of these updates are the direct result of feedback from users like you. Thank you.

• When a platform manager views the list of user accounts which are Registered, Awaiting response, and Unregistered, the filters and columns are now “sticky.” Thus, if you reorder the data or change which columns are shown, and then navigate away from the Blackbaud ID authentication list, your settings will remain when you return to it (in the same browser session).

This is helpful for admins who need to leave the list to view a user’s profile or who may be temporarily interrupted by other tasks.

• Additionally, you can now export the list of Registered users. An export option was already available for Awaiting response and Unregistered.

Consider using this new export as part of communication plans, such as to encourage users who haven’t logged in to do so, or to adjust user accounts for users who graduated or were lost through attrition.

• When Blackbaud ID indicates that an account has been updated, disconnected, or redacted (obfuscated), a reason is now listed in their Login history as well as the Access tab of their Core user profile. Reasons include:

  • User requested

    • For example, a user may contact Blackbaud and file a request asking to delete their account. Personally identifying information (PII) previously associated with the account is then obfuscated. For Education Management, the first and last names are never redacted. However, they will still be redacted outside of Education Management in the Blackbaud ID account.

  • User initiated

    • In the future, users may be able to request their account to be deleted via an option on their Blackbaud ID profile. Blackbaud will contact them via email to verify the request and to warn them that the deletion will be permanent. After verification, the account is deleted, and personally identifying information (PII) previously associated with the account is then obfuscated. For Education Management, the first and last names are never redacted. However, they will still be redacted outside of Education Management in the Blackbaud ID account.

  • Abandoned account

    • If the user has not logged in to any solution used by any organization for two years, then the account is considered abandoned. The account is deleted, and personally identifying information (PII) previously associated with the account is then obfuscated. For Education Management, the first and last names are never redacted. However, they will still be redacted outside of Education Management in the Blackbaud ID account.

  • User made edit

    • Users do this by logging into their Blackbaud ID profile from app.blackbaud.com and editing their Blackbaud ID email, after they confirm access to the email address and/or social sign-in account.

  • Identity Provider (IdP) made edit

    • Examples of identity providers include Microsoft (Azure AD), Google, Apple, and Facebook.

The Other relationship type is a type of parental relationship. Thus, it also appears in Lists as parent/child relationships. To improve clarity about this, we’ve added help text to the user interface where all relationship types are managed. Select the “i” to view the info tip. See this in Core, Users, User profile settings, Relationship types.

Schools can now choose to send Pushpage emails without click tracking to help reduce the likelihood of messages being flagged as spam by Gmail and other email providers. To get started, when managing a Pushpage email, uncheck the new setting, Check here if you would like to allow click tracking for messages. Unchecking will return 0 for job click counts. This setting, when unchecked, removes tracking from all links in the email. By default, this setting is checked.

This week, we're giving you an early look at enhanced decisions for the Candidate progress page. This feature is currently slated to be released in November, here's a quick look at what you can expect.

First, Decision types and Decision texts are being removed, and in their place is the new Decisions tab which is still found under Admissions setup. Decisions is a modern SKY style list displaying all school decisions, complete with filters, columns, a search option, and sortable columns to better refine and find the data you need. The Candidate list also has more columns and filters available to pick from, like Decision viewed, Last viewed date, and Current grade.

Select Add decision type to create a new one, what type of decision it should be, and if it is active or not. Schools also have additional customization options in here including actions to take based on the candidate's decision, setting the school decision content display, as well as customize the Candidate decision options available, such as the Acknowledge, Accept, or Decline buttons. Better yet, these buttons can be customized to your school's specific needs, such as the display text and associated action.

In addition, from the Admissions progress candidate page, decisions have been built in so candidates can see when one is available for them. When the decision is viewed, a new page appears based on the type for the candidate with the custom header, body message, as well as buttons at the bottom. School can also customize the Congratulations or Let us know your decision buttons, while also adding a confetti effect when the decision has been accepted.

From the Financial Aid section of the Student's Profile within Enrollment management, you can now select View financial aid history to open a modal window showing any update or deleted actions made to their financial aid record.

Blackbaud Tuition Management is moving to completely paperless invoicing beginning with the 2026-2027 school year. All billing correspondence will be delivered exclusively via email and with this release, paper invoice options are removed in the 2026-2027 school year.

This change was communicated to schools in September and aims to reduce environmental impact, streamline billing processes, and improve payment timeliness.

Action Required:

• Update your school’s billing communications to remove references to postal or “regular” mail.

• Encourage families to verify and update their email addresses to ensure invoice delivery.

See Blackbaud Tuition Management Paperless Billing – FAQs for more information.

That’s right, make sure to head over to our Journals page to check out some new content! This week, we're taking a deeper look at all of the quality of life changes we made to the Assign contract types list, from more column and filter options, to a new feature which will hopefully save you some time and a few clicks.

Recently, we also showcased more resources that you may or may not be aware of, while also giving you some quick tips on upcoming seasonal events like the rapidly approaching start to contract season.

Do you manage Blackbaud IDs? Join us for a webinar to discuss troubleshooting, account statuses, redactions, and more on Tuesday, October 14 at 3pm ET. Register here!

In this update, we've added a new placeholder for Preferredname|Firstname when sending Official Notes. In addition, the Nickname field is now called Preferred name.

We've added a couple of new placeholders you can use for your notifications. When working with Consequence Notifications, we've added Infraction Description as a placeholder, essentially the external description of the reported infraction.

For Infraction Notifications, we've added a bunch of new placeholders:

• Infraction Date

• Student Grade level

• Infraction Location

• Approval Status

• Additional Notes

When working with the Course Roster - By Teacher report, the mobile phone number is prioritized for parents, as indicated by the (M) icon next to the number. If only a home phone number is listed, that displays instead with a (H) indicator.

Billing clerks can now choose to keep a payer enrolled in auto-pay when using the Change payment plan wizard.

To get started, start the Change payment plan process and choose a new plan. After choosing a payment plan, select the new checkbox to preserve the payer’s auto-pay setup. The old plan will be terminated and a new one created behind the scenes to match the updated schedule.

This update only applies to schools within the United States.

Billing clerks can now choose to keep payers enrolled in auto-pay when rolling over a payment plan.

To get started, start the Rollover payment plan process and select the new Maintain auto-pay enrollment checkbox. When selected, the system will automatically carry over auto-pay details from the previous year to the new plan, ensuring uninterrupted payment scheduling.

This update only applies to schools within the United States.

Billing clerks can now delete multiple payment plans at once, making it easier to clean up plans added mistakenly.

To get started, open the Payment plan list and pick the plans you want to delete. Then, select Delete from the task bar at the bottom.

Billing clerks can now update account numbers on multiple distributions at once.

To get started, open the Distributions list and use the new multi-select option to select each necessary distribution row. Then, select Update GL account from the task bar at the bottom of the list. In the window that opens, search for an account using FENXT (if integrated), or manually enter the account number. Changes are logged in the Change history, showing both the original and updated values.

You can update up to 500 distributions at a time. If more than 500 are selected, only the first 500 will be processed. After saving, the list refreshes so you can continue with the next batch.

Billing clerks can now save drafts when adding credits to a group, making it easier to pause and return to in-progress batches.

To get started, use the Save draft button in the Add credits to group window found on the Recent credits list. Drafts are saved to Process history under the Drafts tab. From there, you can edit a draft to continue working or delete it if no longer needed. When editing a draft, previously entered data will repopulate in the grid.

This release includes multiple enhancements to improve your school’s workflow for handling Blackbaud ID (BBID) accounts. Many of these updates are the direct result of feedback from users like you. Thank you.

We've added a new column to show Last login date in the Registered list. See this in Core, Security, Blackbaud ID Authentication. Use this information to identify users who haven’t logged in for a while and are thus approaching inactivation (395 days) or redaction (730 days). This information already appeared as a column in Core, Users, User list.

Additionally, you can now Enable and Disable accounts in bulk, for users who are Registered or Awaiting response for Education Management. Do this in Core, Security, Blackbaud ID Authentication. This will not change a user’s Blackbaud ID. It only determines whether the BBID is associated with their user account in your school’s instance of Education Management. Thus, with this change, you can disable Education Management for users who are still connected to Blackbaud ID. Users with disabled accounts may retain access to other schools or solutions (such as Raiser’s Edge NXT). You can also re-enable accounts in bulk before contract season starts.

Do you manage BBIDs? Join product management for a webinar covering recent changes to account management in Education and tips and tricks for troubleshooting login hiccups. Register here!

Previously, when a school reviewed changes to user profile data, you could only acknowledge the changes shown on the first page of the list (100 items). Now, you can select to Acknowledge all changes, including those on subsequent pages. Find this in Core, Users, then Profile changes.

Schools who were previously unable to utilize this tool due to a massive backlog of changes are now able to start with a clean slate!

In a previous release, we also renamed Handle profile changes to Profile changes, Handled by to Acknowledged by, and Handled date to Acknowledged date.

Throughout Blackbaud Education Management, users enter and format content using a rich text editor. With this release, we’ve updated the editor on several pages to Tiny MCE version 7.0.1. Additional pages will be updated in the coming weeks.

This update ensures a secure, reliable, and updated experience for users whenever they need to add or edit content. Users may also call this a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor.

You’ll notice a difference in functionality if you attempt to copy and paste content from a third party application, such as Microsoft Word or Google Docs. Specifically, you’ll now select whether to clean or merge formatting when you copy and paste.

Schools can now choose to send Pushpage emails without click tracking to help reduce the likelihood of messages being flagged as spam by Gmail and other email providers.

To get started, when managing a Pushpage email, uncheck the new setting, Check here if you would like to allow click tracking for messages. Unchecking will return 0 for job click counts. This setting, when unchecked, removes tracking from all links in the email. By default, this setting is checked.

With this release, we've added some quality-of-life improvements to the Assign contract types list. First off, this list is now full screen, making it easier to view the data.

New filters are also available to help refine the data being displayed. None Assigned only displays users who do not have any contracts assigned to them. Using this makes it easier to identify those users and make corrections as needed. Once assigned, the user is removed from this filtered list.

Other options include:

• Previous year contract type

• Last generated

• Contract status

• Financial aid type

• Financial aid requested

One other thing to note is that School year has been renamed to Contract year. This filter option also combines with Entering year. Keep in mind that the Entering year must match the Contract year.

We've also added several new column options which can be enabled for the values to display on the main list:

• Current contract with Status

• Previous contract with Status

• Hold

• Hold type

• Hold comment

• School Program

Finally, we've also added a new Assign and generate option when assigning a contract type. Not only does it let you assign a contract to the selected user, but you can immediately generate the contract for them as well.

With this release, teachers can now enter the same standard report card grade for multiple students at once by selecting Bulk edit.

Grading managers can now choose whether teachers select grade labels or abbreviations when entering report card grades.

In Academics, Grades, Grading setup, Grade translations, edit a translation to set Value to use when teachers enter grades to Grade label or Abbreviation.

Note: This setting only applies when entering grades for a grade category set to Translate score on input.

Payers can now view their upcoming payments and due dates directly in the payer portal, helping them plan their finances more effectively.

To get started, log in to the payer portal and look for the new Upcoming payments section on the Current bill page. The section shows a list of upcoming due dates and total amounts. Selecting an amount opens a detailed breakdown of the charges that make up that total.

To better support flexible billing schedules, Canadian Pre-authorized (PAD) agreements now support variable dates featured in payment plans.

Thanks to feedback from schools, this release includes multiple enhancements to how schools manage authentication via Blackbaud ID.

Soon, users will have two new options for “social sign-in.” Currently, they can use Apple or Google. Starting September 30, 2025, they will also be able to sign in with Facebook or Microsoft. You can hide or reorder these in your organization’s Branding settings.

• Like other social sign-ins, users who want to use a social sign-in should select Continue with Facebook or Continue with Microsoft to authenticate. Users must share their email address. If they don’t share their email address, they can’t access Blackbaud solutions or receive critical emails from Blackbaud.

  • By default, the option to share your email address will be selected when you sign up. If you change this selection, follow our instructions to fix the setup and share your email address.

  • Users can turn off Facebook or Microsoft authentication at any time and instead sign in through Blackbaud’s secure authentication service using another authentication method. They can use any type of email address to sign in through Blackbaud’s service, including the email address from their Facebook or Microsoft accounts.

• An organization admin can hide or reorder these options via Branding. Scroll to the next update in this week’s enhancement list to learn about new options for authentication option sorting.

See Social Sign-in for details.

Also starting on September 30, 2025, organization admins will have additional control over your school’s Blackbaud ID login screen – you will be able to hide and sort authentication options.

• From the Omnibar, go to Admin, select Settings, and then Branding.

• Under Display order for sign-in options, select which options should appear on your school’s sign-in page. To reorder the options, drag and drop them. Remember to Publish your changes.

• By default, Continue with Microsoft and Continue with Facebook will appear at the bottom of the list of authentication options. Only the first four options will be visible to users when the sign-in page loads. If you show more than four, users must select More sign-in options to view the remaining options. Make sure your preferred options are at the top of the sort order.

  

• A couple important things to note about authentication options:

  • The option for Continue with email is required, so it can’t be hidden. It will always appear on your school’s sign-in page.

  • If someone’s BBID already uses an authentication option you choose to hide, our login page logic will automatically redirect them through their authentication method, regardless of which button they select, thus ensuring all existing users can still log in.

See Branding for details.

Additionally, in Core, Security, Blackbaud ID Authentication:

• We have temporarily paused the process of marking Registered accounts inactive in Education Management. We will notify you before resuming – after we release a few enhancements to make it easier to manage these accounts.

• When Blackbaud ID redacts an account previously used to log into your school, we now preserve the username instead of accepting a redacted version of it.

  • We never redacted the first or last names, though they will still be redacted outside of Education Management in the Blackbaud ID account.

  • Since the username will be preserved in Education Management, integrations that depend on this information should continue to function. This is especially useful for schools with integrations, such as Classlink.

• Coming soon: We will add a new column to show Last login date in the Registered list. (This information already appears as a column in Core, Users, User list.) Use this information to identify users who haven’t logged in for a while, and are thus approaching inactivation (395 days) or redaction (730 days).

• Coming soon: We will add options to Enable and Disable accounts in bulk, for users who are Registered or Awaiting response. These options already exist for Unregistered users. You can also do this from an individual’s Core user profile.

  • We expect this change to make it easier for your school to reenable accounts in bulk, especially before contract season starts.

  • With this change, you will be able to disable Education Management for users who are still connected to Blackbaud ID.

  • This will not change a user’s Blackbaud ID. It only determines whether the BBID is associated with their user account in Education Management.

• Coming soon: When BBID indicates that an account has been updated, disconnected, and/or redacted, the Access tab of their Core user profile, as well as their Login history, will indicate a reason.

Handle profile changes has been renamed to Profile changes. Likewise, the Handled by and Handled date are now Acknowledged by and Acknowledged date. Select the date to sort by the Acknowledged date. Find this in Core, Users, Profile changes.

The corresponding task description was also renamed. See this in Core, Security, Roles, Tasks. However, the task name remains unchanged due to technical complexity.

We’ve introduced support for Auto-Pay for incidentals, allowing payers to automatically cover charges outside of standard payment plans. Once configured in the Settings section, payers can enroll in incidentals-focused Auto-Pay plans, and billing clerks can manage these enrollments from familiar locations like individual billing profiles and the Auto-pay List.

Tip: Join Product Manager Julia Meseck on September 24 for a live demo of the new Auto-pay for Incidentals feature in Blackbaud Billing Management™, designed to streamline billing. In this session, Julia will demonstrate how schools can leverage this functionality.

Here are the new features for payers and billing clerks as part of the update:

Payers

Payer portal

• Payers can now enroll in Auto-Pay for incidentals via the Payer portal. They can manage their enrollment there by pausing and re-enrolling when necessary.

• Payers can view a breakdown of which charges are included in a scheduled payment along with details about the payment method used in the transaction.

Contracts

• Payers can enroll in Auto-Pay for incidentals as part of the contract signing process, either optionally or as required by the back office.

Billing clerks

Billing years

• A new Incidentals tab on the Auto-pay settings configuration page enables Billing clerks to activate and configure plan specifications, such as due date, eligible payment methods, and convenience fees.

Billing profiles

• Enroll payers in Auto-pay for incidentals under the Auto-pay section on billing profiles using the Add Incidental Auto-Pay button, and manage existing enrollments on their behalf from the Incidentals tab.

Auto-pay list

• The Auto-pay list now features information and filters supporting Auto-pay for incidentals, notably through the Auto-pay plan type column, which distinguishes between Payment plan and Incidental driven Auto-Pay plans.

Notifications

• A new notification type titled, Upcoming incidental auto-pay payment reminder, is available to alert payers via SMS or email three business days prior to the due date.

Standard Invoices now include the following details:

• Custom fee descriptions

• Student last names

If your school has not uploaded bank information or completed the Beneficial Ownership form, a reminder to complete these tasks is displayed in the Blackbaud Updates tile on the new landing page.

For more information on uploading school bank information or completing the Beneficial Ownership form, see Manage School Finance Information.

Note: These reminders are not displayed if your school has already completed these tasks.

In case you missed it, administrators can select terms for school levels outside of the one selected when adding a transcript. Essentially, this will allow specific classes to be displayed that are not specific to the template's school level. From the Offering Grid, select Show terms from all school levels to display terms that are able to be selected.

In addition, the Edit grade and Edit attendance columns have a checkbox above the term for Show terms from all school levels that allows other school level terms and marking periods to be selected.

For more detailed steps with this process, including how to print courses and grades from different school levels on a Transcript, make sure to check out our help documentation.

On the Current bill page in the payer portal, we’ve added an Auto-pay column to the Charges list, enabling payers to see which charges are scheduled for automatic debit (indicated with a checkmark).

To get started, in the payer portal, open the Current bill page and select the Amount due link to view the breakdown. In the Charges section, review the new Auto‑pay column to see which items will be paid automatically.

If a user has no activity for 395 days and an admin hasn’t re-enabled them in the last 30 days, then their account is considered inactive and will be automatically disabled for security purposes. To avoid this, a user should have at least one of these actions:

• log in,

• be invited to Blackbaud ID,

• connect to Blackbaud ID,

• be manually enabled.

When a user’s account is disabled, a message indicating that they were “Inactivated by the system on <date/time>” appears on their Core user profile, under Access. Users with disabled accounts should contact your school so a platform manager can re-enable them.

For each school, each night, a maximum of 500 accounts may be marked inactive and disabled. If your school has more than 500 accounts that meet these criteria, those accounts will be handled in “waves” of 500 accounts per night.

Previously, only non-Blackbaud ID accounts were marked inactive and disabled. Now, all accounts, including Blackbaud ID (BBID) accounts, are handled the same for security purposes.

The Official notes list is now live for all schools! The feature gives schools a location where they can not only see all of their official notes but better organize them as well. Use the search bar to find a specific entry, add filters to refine what’s being displayed, or add columns to the list as well.

Use the context menu to open the official note, showcasing the full timeline of replies, with each marked by a date and time as well. Alternatively, select the Subject from the main list to also pull up this information. From here, you can also write and send a reply. Finally, Delete can be used to remove an official note permanently.

The Official Notes list can be found from the Related Links section on the EMS Homepage, or by selecting Official notes reply from the Review Center counter. For more information, please visit the help center or check out the journal.

With this release, the Opponent Contract Report has been moved onto the Manage opponents page. You can use Opponent contract report text to edit the text that appears when being sent to confirm an athletic event.

When adding a transcript, administrators can now select terms for school levels outside of the one selected on the transcript. Essentially, this will allow specific classes to be displayed that are not specific to the template's school level. From the Offering Grid, select Show terms from all school levels to display terms that are able to be selected.

In addition, the Edit grade and Edit attendance columns have a checkbox above the term for Show terms from all school levels that allows other school level terms and marking periods to be selected.

We’ve updated the delimiter used in the recurring description field for Canadian Pre-authorized (PAD) agreements to prevent unintentional line breaks in variable amount scenarios. The delimiter has changed from a comma (,) to a pipe (|).

This update ensures that recurring schedules display correctly, especially for locales like fr-CA, where commas are used as decimal separators.

Billing clerks can now include the student’s name in upcoming incidental auto-pay reminder notifications, so payers know which student the reminder is for.

To use this update, edit the Upcoming incidental payment reminder notification template and add the Student name merge field.

Note: This change is only applicable to schools participating in the Incidental Auto-Pay Early Adopter Program (EAP).

Billing clerks can now see which charges make up the scheduled payment amount for a student’s incidental auto-pay schedule. The scheduled amount is now a clickable link that opens a flyout with a detailed list of charges.

To view the charges, go Auto-Pay list, select an Incidental plan type in the list, and then, in the flyout, under Schedule, select a scheduled Amount.

Note: This change is only applicable to schools participating in the Incidental Auto-Pay Early Adopter Program (EAP).

With this release, we’ve updated how schools handle mail merges. Check out the fresh, modern interface in Core, Communication, Mail Merge.

From there you’ll determine who can access communication templates, create and edit templates, manage jobs, and view mailing labels.

Mail merge jobs now appear in an updated list.

• Like all SKY lists, you can search, sort, and filter the jobs.

• Above the list, select + New to create one.

• On a job’s row, select the ellipsis (...) to view more options, such as to view and download the results, see mailing labels, or to delete a job.

• Select the number of recipients to view their names and related information.

Platform managers and admissions managers determine which roles and users have access to communication templates for each application type or category description.

• For each application type, you'll configure access by role or for individual users. To do this in Core, select Communication, Mail merge, Template access.

• Only roles and users who have security roles and tasks for mail merge appear as options for template access. (Go to Core, Security, Roles, and Tasks.)

• If a user has multiple roles and the roles have different access, then a role or setting that grants access will override a role that doesn't grant access. Thus, the user will have the highest access specified by their roles and settings.

For each role or user, select the type of access role members or users should have for communication templates.

• Create and use master - Users can create, access, and use master templates in this application type. They can also create, access, and use their own user templates in this application type.

• Create and use own- Users can use the master templates in this application type but not create them. They can also create, access, and use their own user templates in this application type.

• Use master only - Users can use the master templates in this application type but not create them. They can't create, access, or use their own user templates in this application type.

• No access - Users can't create, access, or use any templates in this application type.

Users with access to templates can manage them from Core, Communication, Mail merge, Communication templates. Communication templates also now appear in a modern SKY list.

This update is a continuation of our efforts to move functionality “off the bridge” (off Podium) and onto a modern SKY user experience.

If a user has no activity for 395 days and an admin hasn’t re-enabled them in the last 30 days, then their account is automatically marked inactive for security purposes, and their username is disabled. To avoid this, a user should have at least one of these actions:

• log in,

• be invited to Blackbaud ID,

• connect to Blackbaud ID,

• be manually enabled.

When a user’s account is disabled, a message indicating that they were “Inactivated by the system on <date/time>” appears on their Core user profile, under Access. Users with disabled accounts should contact your school so a platform manager can re-enable them.

The Family Export custom report now includes Watchlist Family (yes/no) as an available field under Additional Fields.

The redesigned landing page now includes a reformatted Recent Payments tile. Select a payer's name to access their main account page or select View all payments to access the Payments Center.

In the Enrollment tile, we’ve also added a Recent Enrollments tab that lists the most recently enrolled families and their enrollment methods. Selecting the primary account holder's name takes you to a family's main account page.

In case you've missed it, we've been publishing new journal content! Recently, we revealed the latest on the Official Notes List feature recently added to Enrollment management. In addition, we created 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!

More column options have been added to the Manage official notes list. You can now add Last emailed, Last printed, and Both should be blank if value is not set.

Billing clerks can now view the reason a payment failed directly in the Recent payments list, helping to identify trends without drilling into individual records.

The new optional Failed reason column is available for display and export. The value in the column only appears for payments with a failed authorization status.

To add the column, open the Recent payments list, select Columns, and choose Failed reason.

From Control panel, Security, User management, when an organization admin edits a user’s roles, the All School role now appears as an option and is selected by default.

Previously, the All School role didn’t appear as an option in Control panel, Security, User Management, even though all users have this role in Education Management. Thus, if a school attempted to remove all other roles from a user, an error prevented them from saving the changes and a message indicated that the user would have no role.

With this update, you can now add a new user with only the All School role, and you can successfully remove all other admin roles from an existing user while retaining the All School role. This is especially useful for managing users who have security roles in other solutions (such as Raiser’s Edge NXT), and are linked to a user in Education Management, but don’t have any admin roles in Education Management.

Note: If you select to remove the All School role from a user via Control panel, Security, User management, the user will still retain the All School role in Education Management. The All School role will appear disabled in Control panel, Security, User Management, even though it remains enabled in Education Management. This appearance is temporary. When you refresh the user management page, the All School role will again appear enabled, as expected.