The Month In Review: February 2022 Feature Releases
Published
It’s the start of a new month which means it’s time to review everything we added to the Education management products this past February.
As the shortest month of the year, February is over in the blink of an eye. Even with a shorter time frame, it doesn’t mean that there weren’t any exciting developments this past month.
So, let’s take one last look back with the Month In Review blog! This iteration is taking a look at February 2022 to see all of the latest updates, features, and changes that arrived for the Education Management products. Let’s jump in!
Academics
The Academics teams did a bit of everything in February, as there were a number of updates made to various sections of the product. For example, Assignments, in particular, were a focus. When in Assignment Details, teachers now have the option to view assignments from dropped students via the More link. Along those same lines, when adding an assignment, assessments, or discussion, Assignment Type now displays a red asterisk when the field is set to required.
Gradebook was also updated to allow educators to perform bulk actions on a Rubric Assignment. In addition, A student's profile picture now appears for teachers when they open a specific student's gradebook within the gradebook. However, if a student does not have a profile picture, their initials are displayed instead.
Other updates in February:
This month for Billing management, the team made the Add drop-down is available on the Work with transactions list, optimizing the workflow for Billing clerks as they seek to add credit, payment, summary charge, detailed charge, and enrollment deposit transaction records to student records.
Also this month:
In February, the Core team added a new Relation Management Data Import type which adds the ability to update existing alumni affiliation records. Update existing records by first changing the class_of cell from a previous data import, and then reimporting the data, to make the necessary changes.
Enrollment management
This month for EMS, we introduced some major UI overhauls for Assign contract type, Financial Aid Awards, and Enroll/Inactivate Candidates. Better yet, the team has reduced the number of steps needed for Enroll/Inactive Candidates from 6 to 3, while the functionality remains the same as it was before the update.
Also this month:
In January, the School Website team made additional changes to lists. Specifically, users viewing the subscribed or unsubscribed list can now filter on the following fields:
For Tuition management, the team has made a few updates in preparation for changes to keep the product compliant with NACHA Regulations. Specifically, it now requires Account Holder Names when a payer enters in new payment information.
Additionally, all new accounts must now be screened to ensure the account is open, active, and can receive ACH transactions prior to a payment being processed. This will be done by sending a file to the receiving institution to confirm the accuracy of the information entered. Account information deemed correct will be processed on the fourth business day and follow the standard remittance process.
By the way, have you checked out our newly redesigned parent portal? The interface and branding has been completely overhauled to give users a better overall experience. We’ve also overhauled the look of paper invoices, e-invoices, and payment reminder emails to match this effort.
Financial Aid Management
For Financial Aid management, enterprise users can now filter an Enterprise Award Summary to show only specific budgets. The list of budgets that appears in this dialog will depend on whether you select the Include school budgets option. If you do not select it, then only enterprise budgets will appear. If you do select it, then school budgets will also appear.
Also this month:
If you want the full and complete details of everything we’ve added to the Education management products in February, 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 wrap things up for today. We have a lot of good content planned for the rest of this month as well, so make sure to stay tuned. In fact, we may just have something lined up for you later this week. Don’t miss it! See you then!
So, let’s take one last look back with the Month In Review blog! This iteration is taking a look at February 2022 to see all of the latest updates, features, and changes that arrived for the Education Management products. Let’s jump in!
Academics
The Academics teams did a bit of everything in February, as there were a number of updates made to various sections of the product. For example, Assignments, in particular, were a focus. When in Assignment Details, teachers now have the option to view assignments from dropped students via the More link. Along those same lines, when adding an assignment, assessments, or discussion, Assignment Type now displays a red asterisk when the field is set to required.
Gradebook was also updated to allow educators to perform bulk actions on a Rubric Assignment. In addition, A student's profile picture now appears for teachers when they open a specific student's gradebook within the gradebook. However, if a student does not have a profile picture, their initials are displayed instead.
Other updates in February:
- A column labeled Email has been added as an option on the Consequences list. It displays the email address of the student.
- When a student is dropped from a class, they'll no longer receive notifications when a teacher changes an assignment grade.
- When a student, parent, advisor, or administrator is viewing Requirements on a student’s academic profile, requirements that are part of a requirement group will display a Course group column.
- Administrators can associate an award with a group. This setting is optional. If you select an Academic, Activity, Advisory, or Athletics group, then it becomes a part of the award for that student.
This month for Billing management, the team made the Add drop-down is available on the Work with transactions list, optimizing the workflow for Billing clerks as they seek to add credit, payment, summary charge, detailed charge, and enrollment deposit transaction records to student records.
Also this month:
- When a billing clerk creates a file to post to the general ledger, a distribution summary appears after they configure parameters. Review the number of distributions, totals, debit and credit amounts, dates, transaction types, and accounts. Use the data to confirm that accounts are balanced. If the data appears correct, select Mark the transactions as posted.
- When a billing clerk goes to Work with transactions to date, they can now select +Add to create more transactions without needing to return to the previous screen.
- When payers access Billing, they can now select View details for and then choose a previous school year if one exists. Data for the prior billing year appears for them to review and print.
- When a payer accesses their Current bill or statement and there aren’t outstanding charges due but there are unapplied payments or credits, it now indicates a positive credit balance and indicates $0.00 due.
- When a billing clerk runs the aged accounts receivables (AAR) report, it now returns balances calculated in a way that better reflects school expectations.
In February, the Core team added a new Relation Management Data Import type which adds the ability to update existing alumni affiliation records. Update existing records by first changing the class_of cell from a previous data import, and then reimporting the data, to make the necessary changes.
Enrollment management
This month for EMS, we introduced some major UI overhauls for Assign contract type, Financial Aid Awards, and Enroll/Inactivate Candidates. Better yet, the team has reduced the number of steps needed for Enroll/Inactive Candidates from 6 to 3, while the functionality remains the same as it was before the update.
Also this month:
- Admissions managers now have a column option and filter for Is Latino/Hispanic on Candidates list and other inherited lists.
In January, the School Website team made additional changes to lists. Specifically, users viewing the subscribed or unsubscribed list can now filter on the following fields:
- Grad Year
- Role
- Email status
- SMS status
- Users can now search for User, Preferred name, Email and Sms columns based on full or partial match inside of the Subscribed or Unsubscribed lists.
- Notification management now displays a counter for users that are eligible to be subscribed to a notification but have opted out.
- While viewing notifications, selecting the subscribed counter now launches a new tab that displays those who have subscribed to email, text or both for delivery of the notification.
- When filtering Notifications for roles, the results now show all notifications that are eligible or available, but not yet enabled for a role.
For Tuition management, the team has made a few updates in preparation for changes to keep the product compliant with NACHA Regulations. Specifically, it now requires Account Holder Names when a payer enters in new payment information.
Additionally, all new accounts must now be screened to ensure the account is open, active, and can receive ACH transactions prior to a payment being processed. This will be done by sending a file to the receiving institution to confirm the accuracy of the information entered. Account information deemed correct will be processed on the fourth business day and follow the standard remittance process.
By the way, have you checked out our newly redesigned parent portal? The interface and branding has been completely overhauled to give users a better overall experience. We’ve also overhauled the look of paper invoices, e-invoices, and payment reminder emails to match this effort.
Financial Aid Management
For Financial Aid management, enterprise users can now filter an Enterprise Award Summary to show only specific budgets. The list of budgets that appears in this dialog will depend on whether you select the Include school budgets option. If you do not select it, then only enterprise budgets will appear. If you do select it, then school budgets will also appear.
Also this month:
- A new Business Owner Fee will affect applicants who indicate that they are business owners. Existing clients will not see a change in pricing.
- The “Upcoming Grade” field has been re-labeled Grade level for <year> on the Dependent Information and Select a School tiles to help clear confusion.
If you want the full and complete details of everything we’ve added to the Education management products in February, 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 wrap things up for today. We have a lot of good content planned for the rest of this month as well, so make sure to stay tuned. In fact, we may just have something lined up for you later this week. Don’t miss it! See you then!
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Blackbaud K-12 Solutions™ Blog
03/01/2022 9:00am EST
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Thanks for this very informative updates, Derek.