The Month in Review: October 2021 Feature Releases
Published
Spooky skeletons! October is coming to an end! Before the month flies off like a bunch of bats into the moonlight, let’s take one final look back at everything we added to the Education management products inside of October 2021.
Well, would you look at that. The spookiest month is nearly at an end. We hope you’ve had a terrifyingly good month and are ready for the sugar rush of Halloween I just a few days from now. While we make the final preparations on our Jack-O-Lanterns, let’s have a recap on everything that changed with the Blackbaud Education Management products for October.
Academics
Academics once again led the way in terms of changes this month, starting with Seating charts. Faculty can create and view seating charts for their classes. In future releases, they will be enabled to take attendance via the seating chart. To check this out under Faculty, head to Classes, then select a class name. Near the top of the page, below the class name, you will see a new button labeled View seating chart. Select it to open the seating chart in a new window.
This month also saw a number of changes to the Area of study page in Grading setup. For example, the primary button on this page is now labeled + Add, with three options that display when you select it: Add major, Add minor, and Add concentration. The Sort and More... buttons have been removed, and a Columns button allows you to choose which columns display. Select the header on any column to sort by that column. The page is now full-screen width, so it will adapt to the width of your browser window automatically. The page will now list up to 15 areas of study before creating a second page of results (previously the threshold was 10).
In addition:
This month in Core, we wanted to remind you of a couple upcoming security changes. Starting October 19, 2021, if a user has not logged in for a while, the account is considered inactive and will be disabled for security reasons. A couple of things to note about this:
Users whose accounts are locked or disabled for inactivity will continue to receive PushPages (Newsletters), emails, and notifications that they’ve opted into. List managers should use the Disabled column and filter in the User list to review which accounts have been disabled, locked, or inactivated.
In addition, also starting October 19, 2021, we’ll require stronger passwords for users who don’t use Blackbaud ID. This is necessary to increase security. Users with weak passwords will be prompted to create stronger ones when they attempt to login. You are not required to change passwords prior to this date.
Also released this month:
During the October month for the EMS team, they updated some of the labels of Billing management contracts for re/enrollment managers.
Also this month:
For September, Billing clerks can now opt to include the amount due as of today date on billing statements. The date defaults to the same day the payer prints a billing statement to better communicate that the amount due is currently owed and not specific to a previous statement period.
In addition:
And that’s going to put a bow on the month of October. We’ve got a jam-packed month of blogs coming throughout November, so I hope you’ll join us! See you next Tuesday!
Academics
Academics once again led the way in terms of changes this month, starting with Seating charts. Faculty can create and view seating charts for their classes. In future releases, they will be enabled to take attendance via the seating chart. To check this out under Faculty, head to Classes, then select a class name. Near the top of the page, below the class name, you will see a new button labeled View seating chart. Select it to open the seating chart in a new window.
This month also saw a number of changes to the Area of study page in Grading setup. For example, the primary button on this page is now labeled + Add, with three options that display when you select it: Add major, Add minor, and Add concentration. The Sort and More... buttons have been removed, and a Columns button allows you to choose which columns display. Select the header on any column to sort by that column. The page is now full-screen width, so it will adapt to the width of your browser window automatically. The page will now list up to 15 areas of study before creating a second page of results (previously the threshold was 10).
In addition:
- The Transcript Builder will automatically check for space constraints and prevent elements from shifting off of the page and becoming inaccessible when users rearrange the layout.
- Unicode characters are supported in numerous fields, including Assessment Skills and Grade Plan Grades.
- Attendance managers can count attendance across multiple terms to calculate full-year truancy rates. Previously, attendance rules always ran on a per-term basis.
- A faculty nurse can create a list of students with athletic clearance information to verify they are eligible to play sports for the year. In addition, they can filter a list of athletic clearances by school year.
- The Rename option has been removed from the context menus on the Area of study pages in Grading setup.
- When adding courses to a Degree requirement, the Course name search bar will exclude inactive courses and show a maximum of 10 search results. If the current course selected is inactive, it will remain a valid choice for its row.
This month in Core, we wanted to remind you of a couple upcoming security changes. Starting October 19, 2021, if a user has not logged in for a while, the account is considered inactive and will be disabled for security reasons. A couple of things to note about this:
- If a “legacy” user does not sign into Education Management for 365 days, their account will be disabled/locked. This policy is new.
- If a user is re-enabled/unlocked and their “legacy” password expired during their 365 days of inactivity, the user will be prompted to reset their password the first time they sign in after their account is re-enabled.
Users whose accounts are locked or disabled for inactivity will continue to receive PushPages (Newsletters), emails, and notifications that they’ve opted into. List managers should use the Disabled column and filter in the User list to review which accounts have been disabled, locked, or inactivated.
In addition, also starting October 19, 2021, we’ll require stronger passwords for users who don’t use Blackbaud ID. This is necessary to increase security. Users with weak passwords will be prompted to create stronger ones when they attempt to login. You are not required to change passwords prior to this date.
Also released this month:
- When a SKY reporting manager views Performance by Department, the names of each department now indicate that they are static, not clickable links.
- We've added a counter to the Core home screen that displays the number of unhandled profile changes waiting.
- When sensitive situations occur, like divorce or a death in the family, a contact card manager at your school can now add a notice to the student’s profile under their Contact Card.
- If a user has a relationship with at least one person at a shared address, they can be added to a shared address too. Users don’t need relationships with everyone at the shared address.
During the October month for the EMS team, they updated some of the labels of Billing management contracts for re/enrollment managers.
Also this month:
- We now have an option for Enrollment management schools to turn on BBID for users. This can be enabled from Enrollment, Admissions, Admissions set up, then Applications.
- We've added Step Parent as a relationship choice for when parents of candidates create a new account, inquiry, or application.
- Re/enrollment managers now have a column on the cover page that displays the contract name.
- We’ve added support for additional file types including .avi, .flv, .f4v, .mpg, .mpeg, .rm, .wmv, .mp4, .m4v, .mov, and .qt.
For September, Billing clerks can now opt to include the amount due as of today date on billing statements. The date defaults to the same day the payer prints a billing statement to better communicate that the amount due is currently owed and not specific to a previous statement period.
In addition:
- Billing clerks can now opt to show the payer user id on billing statements.
And that’s going to put a bow on the month of October. We’ve got a jam-packed month of blogs coming throughout November, so I hope you’ll join us! See you next Tuesday!
News
Blackbaud Higher Education Solutions™ Announcements
10/26/2021 9:00am EDT
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