Manage Deceased Users

In the unfortunate event that someone passes away, 'Blackbaud's Education Management' products provide tools that can help schools handle these users.

Enable an indicator

Platform managers can enable an indicator from the relationship list on the Contact card that appears next to users who have passed away.

Select Core.
Select Security.
Select Profile access.
Under Profile relationship access, the Deceased relationships option can be enabled.

Platform managers can do this without first impersonating a specific user.

Hide or show deceased users

Privacy settings for Contact card relationships can also be controlled, which lets you either completely hide deceased users or keep them visible for others to see.

Things to consider

The loss of life is never an easy thing to experience. As you review your school's policies and procedures, plan which actions your school might take to ease the grieving process for your community. Consider the following scenarios as your school works through the next steps:

Schools may want to communicate a recent passing to parents and students. One of the most efficient ways to send a notice of passing is through Pushpage (newsletter), which enables you to create HTML emails that can be sent out to all or specific users in your database.
In the event that a teacher cannot finish the school year (either due to a life event such as maternity leave or an unfortunate event such as passing away) classes can be transitioned to a different teacher through the manage option on the roster section of Faculty, Classes. Alternatively, teachers can be changed through Academics, Scheduling, Requests and schedules , Course sections, select the class and then update Teacher.
If a student passes away mid-school year, teachers and administrators have the option to either hide or delete discussions posts if needed. This process does not happen automatically.
Managers can also move students to a different room or dorm after a roommate has passed away through Extracurricular , Residence life , Dorm management. From here, select the building and then either the total residents or Manage residents.The student roster will appear and enable you to drop, change, or note an error with the student being there.

Before you remove a deceased user

Due to the sensitive nature of losing an individual, ensure that all areas below are addressed so the deceased user's information does not inadvertently show up in reports or Pushpage (newsletter) e-mail lists.

Make sure your school's database is immediately updated.
Check with your school's data contact to see if a Data Import is in progress. If so, wait until it is done and then make the changes in the database.
If making the change cannot wait until the data import is complete, contact Blackbaud Customer Support to see if the deceased's information can be omitted from the data import.

Remove a deceased user

Select Core.
Select People finder.
Enter and select the name of the individual you want to work with. The selected individual's profile page appears.
Select Contact card.
Edit General information:
1. Select the Deceased option.
2. Enter the date deceased (if known).
3. Select Save.
Edit Digital:
1. Remove the E-mail address.
2. Remove the CC E-mail address.
3. Select Save.
In Address :
1. Edit each address.
2. Change the Salutation information.
  
  Changing the Salutation before unlinking the address is more efficient because it changes the Salutation in all profiles the address is shared with.
3. Select Save & Exit.
4. Delete or unshare the user's address so they don't inadvertently show up on reports, especially those with mailing labels.
In Phone :
1. Edit each phone number and select Delete. Delete phone numbers from the profile only so they don't appear on reports.
2. Select Remove for all users and select Confirm.
In Sign In Information :
1. For Disabled/Locked, select Yes.

To completely remove a deceased user from the Directory, a platform manager must first enable the option to Allow users to remove their name from the online directory.

When this option is enabled, platform managers can change a user's privacy settings to hide all information. Select Do not include my name, or any information about me in the directory to l completely hide the user within the Directory.

Update users related to the deceased

Select Core.
Select PeopleFinder.
Enter and select the name of the individual you want to work with. The selected individual's profile page appears.
Select Manageunder Emergency contacts.
1. Move each contact to Inactive.
2. Select Save.
In the user's Relationships:
1. Select Manage.
2. Select Remove to completely disable that user from the list OR
  - Select No contact if it corresponds with the deceased parent.
  - Select Resides with if this is the relationship the child now lives with.
3. Clear any of the remaining options that correspond with a deceased parent or guardian:
  - Resides with
  - List as parent
  - Parental access
4. If desired, enter text in Notes/comments from Manage relationships indicating that this parent is deceased.
5. Select Save.
  
  Tip: To remove the deceased user from appearing in the relationship tile altogether, you must delete the relationship entirely. When you unlink the account, it'll be removed from the listing but it will remain in the system.

Hide the deceased indicator from grieving relatives

When a profile is marked Deceased, this is indicated by default in General information on the user’s Contact card. The Deceased date also appears.

Platform managers can choose to hide this information from users based on each user’s role. Do this by editing the profile publish access. This affects all users with the selected roles.

Consider hiding the indicator and date for users who are grieving the loss of close relatives. For example, this information for the student to parent and parent to student role combinations, so that when these users view their own profile relationships or the profiles of their loved ones, they don’t see a stark reminder of loss.

Use the PeopleFinder to go to a deceased user's profile and view the individual's Settings. Then update their general privacy settings. Do this to hide the indicator and date by viewer role on a single record, instead of all users with those roles. Alternatively, a platform manager can impersonate a deceased profile and update the account’s settings for privacy.

Exclude or include deceased from a directory

Platform managers determine whether to include deceased individuals in directories. You likely determined this when each directory was created.

If your policieschanged, you edit each school directory to include or exclude deceased people.

Exclude or include deceased from a list

When you use a "SKY" list, deceased people are excluded from the list results by default (Include deceased is No).

To include them, Filter based on the Contact card too Include deceased as "Yes."

Tip: For additional support and assistance coping with the loss of a student, staff, or family member, the U.S. Department of Education provides an informative PDF that can be a valuable resource. To discuss this topic with your peers, visit the K-12 user community.