Tips and Tricks: Getting Help When You Need It

As I've mentioned in past, at the various events Blackbaud would host or attend, we'd have tons of swag and handouts attendees could have. While the world is significantly changed from how it was in 2019 and beyond, digital events are the norm. Since we can't hand out things in person anymore, we're providing a tip sheet in blog form, highlighting all of our help offerings as well as a brief look at future plans for when you're currently inside the product. Enjoy!

The How-To Center
While the Help Panel is available inside of the product, the How-To Center is your place to go when outside of it. While it contains all of the information that you can find from the Help Panel, it also offers much more than that.

Visiting the website, you can see everything from release notes, the latest community blog posts, seasonally relevant information, as well as our latest videos and playlists. Of course, if you don’t see what you need, the search bar is always available. Ready for more? Visit the How-To Center here.

Embedded Help
One of the newer aspects to the Education management products is Embedded Help. In an effort to really get you the help you need, when you need it, embedded help allows us to use context-sensitive help at the very location where you're at. By targeting areas of the product where there may be more confusion or questions, we can give users direct access to specific topics and content right in that space.

For now, Embedded Help is located in select locations under the Academics section of the Education management products. Specifically, you can see these icons from Requests and Schedules and Student schedule tile on the Overview tab. We have plans to expand this feature to other products in 2022 so stay tuned for more information as we roll it out over time!

The Help Panel
Probably something that most of you are already familiar with is the help panel. When working inside the Education management system, you’ll see a Question Mark symbol on the top right corner. Selecting this pulls the help panel out displaying a help topic related to the page you’re currently on. If need be, you can also search for topics along with many other things.

Did you know? Platform managers control who can see the help panel. Naturally, we recommend that the Help Panel Task is enabled for all school employees to be made available for reference or help.

Video Central
We also offer videos you can watch and learn about various topics and features from the Education management system. Whether you’re interested in learning about how a something works, newly added features, or anything Education management related, make sure to visit our channel here.

Even More Resources!
We’ve covered a lot of topics here already, but there’s even more to discuss. Our Knowledgebase, while containing out help panel details, also includes customer support details for extra troubleshooting. Interested in more best practices, podcasts, events, and the latest industry trends? Check out the k12Hub. Finally, if you’re looking for a bit more in-depth details, you can join instructor-led classes online for a variety of topics with Blackbaud University.

While much of this is likely information that many of you already knew, it’s always good to take a moment to provide a bit of a refresher just in case. Thanks for reading everyone and I hope that at least some part of this blog today helped you out. See you next time!