The Month in Review: October 2020 Feature Releases
Believe it or not, we’re rapidly approaching the end of the year. With another month under our belts, let’s take a moment to look back at everything we added to the Education management products for October 2020.Is it really November? I hope you had a Happy Halloween and I don’t know about you but it’s a little strange to think that Thanksgiving is now right around the corner.
Regardless, the start of a new month means it’s time that we all take a look back. In this case, let’s comb through October 2020 for the Education management products and discuss all of our latest additions and features. Alright so with that said, let’s get started!
Academics
In the month of October, Academics once again led the way with the most updates to the product.
The Academics dashboard is definitely more unique than the other education products as schools can add numerous tiles to the screen. In order to make finding the right documentation even easier, we’ve added targeted help links to each tile. Select the question mark icon to pull up a help reference for that specific area of the dashboard.
We’ve also made a number of updates to the Edit student enrollment area. When viewing the offering type, you now have access to a sort tool for parameters like course a-z, z-a, course preference form first to last, and block schedule order. In addition, the grid display can be modified from the settings.
Other updates this month include:
List managers were given a new advanced lists template for the Group Contact Tracing category. These can be used to pull rosters for classes and athletic teams, allowing for easier contact for when parents need to be notified of COVID-19 exposure. Edit the Attendance Taken Calendar Date and the Absence Calendar date in the template’s search criteria. The default dates are 12/31/2099 so replace these with the date of possible exposure and contact with the contagious student.
Additionally, edit the template’s search criteria to use a valid User Base User ID. The default ID is 9999999. Replace this with the ID of the student who is contagious. Do this in both conditions that rely on User Base User ID.
In addition, contact card managers can now opt in to receive a notification when a profile is changed.
Enrollment management
After launching in August, we’ve continued to make improvements and updates to Student checklists. In October, we added a warning that appears when an admissions staffer attempts to link an inactive School or Medical form to a checklist step. Parents and students should no longer be able to proceed to an inactive form either.
Speaking of Student Checklist, if you want a visual overview of what this feature is, we now have a new video on our Blackbaud YouTube Channel you can check out. Make sure to subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on all the latest content we have coming up.
We also made a ton of list updates this month as well. In the Visits, interviews, and Events list now have the Attendee email, Parent Email and Attendee name columns. The Application status filter on the Candidate list was converted to a multi-select, and admissions managers can now display candidates with a manually attached application. For the Process Recommendation list, the Recommender email column can now be added.
In addition, the EMS product also gained the following updates in October:
In October, the School website team made a few quality of life improvements. The Custom Page Title now overrides the default prefix/suffix Site Settings. For Emergency banners that are displayed behind a password, schools can now select between one-time only or persistent.
For users editing assignment added or changed, notifications now have the Class Parameter available to use in the message. In addition, Student Name parameters have been added to assignment missing or graded notifications.
If you want the full and complete details of everything we’ve added to the Education management products in August, make sure to visit our What’s New letter. Use the Recent option at the top of the page to view past and archived releases. Want to stay updated whenever we have a new release? Get notified via email by signing up for our mailing list here.
That’s going to do it for this week though we have plenty more for you on the way in 2020. Make sure to stay tuned and as always, stay safe and we’ll talk again next week!
Regardless, the start of a new month means it’s time that we all take a look back. In this case, let’s comb through October 2020 for the Education management products and discuss all of our latest additions and features. Alright so with that said, let’s get started!
Academics
In the month of October, Academics once again led the way with the most updates to the product.
The Academics dashboard is definitely more unique than the other education products as schools can add numerous tiles to the screen. In order to make finding the right documentation even easier, we’ve added targeted help links to each tile. Select the question mark icon to pull up a help reference for that specific area of the dashboard.
We’ve also made a number of updates to the Edit student enrollment area. When viewing the offering type, you now have access to a sort tool for parameters like course a-z, z-a, course preference form first to last, and block schedule order. In addition, the grid display can be modified from the settings.
Other updates this month include:
- Teachers now see a missing assignments button from their class roster.
- The Assignment center and section assignments list views now display the full width of the available page.
- For work that is an assignment, assessment, or discussion, an optional Format column appears on Assignment list views.
- When a teacher is setting up their Gradebook settings. They can now enter in decimal values for assignment weights. These weights with decimals will be factored into the grade calculations.
- Teachers working in a Mastery or Hybrid course can now evaluate graded discussions based on content-area and transferable skill settings.
List managers were given a new advanced lists template for the Group Contact Tracing category. These can be used to pull rosters for classes and athletic teams, allowing for easier contact for when parents need to be notified of COVID-19 exposure. Edit the Attendance Taken Calendar Date and the Absence Calendar date in the template’s search criteria. The default dates are 12/31/2099 so replace these with the date of possible exposure and contact with the contagious student.
Additionally, edit the template’s search criteria to use a valid User Base User ID. The default ID is 9999999. Replace this with the ID of the student who is contagious. Do this in both conditions that rely on User Base User ID.
In addition, contact card managers can now opt in to receive a notification when a profile is changed.
Enrollment management
After launching in August, we’ve continued to make improvements and updates to Student checklists. In October, we added a warning that appears when an admissions staffer attempts to link an inactive School or Medical form to a checklist step. Parents and students should no longer be able to proceed to an inactive form either.
Speaking of Student Checklist, if you want a visual overview of what this feature is, we now have a new video on our Blackbaud YouTube Channel you can check out. Make sure to subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on all the latest content we have coming up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqKGl6B0IzUWe also made a ton of list updates this month as well. In the Visits, interviews, and Events list now have the Attendee email, Parent Email and Attendee name columns. The Application status filter on the Candidate list was converted to a multi-select, and admissions managers can now display candidates with a manually attached application. For the Process Recommendation list, the Recommender email column can now be added.
In addition, the EMS product also gained the following updates in October:
- Admissions managers were given more placeholder options for Official Notes Templates like household salutations, custom candidate fields, and more.
- The email address defaulted to the top when using the Username formula for the Username generator.
- We’ve updated the EMS product replacing the old Smart Tuition label with Tuition management.
In October, the School website team made a few quality of life improvements. The Custom Page Title now overrides the default prefix/suffix Site Settings. For Emergency banners that are displayed behind a password, schools can now select between one-time only or persistent.
For users editing assignment added or changed, notifications now have the Class Parameter available to use in the message. In addition, Student Name parameters have been added to assignment missing or graded notifications.
If you want the full and complete details of everything we’ve added to the Education management products in August, make sure to visit our What’s New letter. Use the Recent option at the top of the page to view past and archived releases. Want to stay updated whenever we have a new release? Get notified via email by signing up for our mailing list here.
That’s going to do it for this week though we have plenty more for you on the way in 2020. Make sure to stay tuned and as always, stay safe and we’ll talk again next week!
2
Comments
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RE: "The default ID is 9999999. Replace this with the ID of the student who is contagious." I appreciate the contact tracing addition. How can I make it work if the person in question is a teacher and not a student?0
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Marybeth McKavic Hey Marybeth, so I just confirmed with the Core team that this feature is intended for students only at this time. I can't speak to whether or not the feature will be expanded to faculty at some point, though the team is aware of the want for it.0
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