Blackbaud’s Education Management Solutions: What’s New For September 20, 2022

Published

Here are all of the latest changes, updates, and new features for the Education management products for September 20th, 2022.

Learning resources

WISEdata Tutorial for Wisconsin schools

A tutorial is available for Wisconsin schools participating in the state's parental choice program. The WISEdata Tutorial for Wisconsin Schools explains how to add or create WISE ID numbers for students, enter WISEdata for a student or in bulk, and generate a WISEdata list.
Blackbaud's Student Information System is certified compliant through Ed-Fi Version 5.x (22/23) for the following features: Digital Equity on SIS, Student Identity Integration, and Choice Audit Requirements. For up-to-date information and e-learning courses on WISEdata, WISEid, and WISEstaff, see the Wisconsin DPI help site.

Academics

New name format for Report Cards and Transcripts

When building a Report Card or Transcript template, you can now choose to display student names in the format “Last name, First name.” For teachers, you can now select the name formats “Prefix Last name Suffix” or “Prefix First name Last Name Suffix.”

New Grouping Header option for Transcripts

When building a Transcript template, you can now choose to display courses under a Transcript Category header. In the Transcript Builder, this option is available on the Design tab when you add or edit a course section in a Courses/Groups grid. Under the Sort/group heading, go to the menu heading Display grouping headers using the following. Transcript category now appears as an option in the dropdown menu.

Billing management (Early Adopter Program)

Auto-Pay is now available to US K-12 Schools

Auto-Pay is now available to all US K-12 schools, enabling payers to automatically make payments against charges included in their payment plans.
The following new features are available to payers and billing clerks, respectively:

Payers:

Enroll in Auto-Pay from the Current bill to automatically pay the upcoming payment plan installment amount on the scheduled due date.
Suspend and resume automatic withdrawal.
Change payment method.
View Auto-Pay status (e.g., Active, On Hold, Terminated).
View next payment date and amount.

The features above are all accessed from the Current bill page (Billing > Current bill).

Billing clerks
Set-up (Billing > Billing years > Auto-Pay)

Enable credit cards or direct debit as available payment methods.

Append a convenience fee of up to 4% for credit card processing.

Determine when the convenience fee posts to the general ledger.

Notify clients automatically via an email or text notification two days before an upcoming payment due date with custom messaging.

Minimally, one of the above notification types must be selected.
Once activated, notifications cannot be disabled and only their custom messaging is editable.

Administration (Billing profile > Auto-Pay)

Enroll payers in Auto-Pay, put existing Auto-Pay accounts on hold, and terminate Auto-Pay for specific accounts.
Review the status of all changes made to Auto-Pay.
Change the payment method on behalf of the payer.

Reporting (Lists > Student lists)

Report on statistics using the new Next payment date, Current year autopay, and Next year autopay columns available in the Students list.

Platform managers can no longer impersonate Billing clerks without having the necessary roles

Platform Managers with the ability to impersonate can no longer access sensitive areas of Billing management if they do not have the Billing clerk role.
Specifically, Platform Mangers who impersonate without the Billing clerk role will not see:

Billing management as an option on the persona menu when impersonating Billing clerks.
Billing as an option on the navigation, barring access to the payer portal when impersonating payers.

These changes overall seek to protect sensitive financial information from unauthorized personnel.

Add a Reference date and Reference number to payments

Billing clerks can now enter a Reference date and Reference number when adding or editing payments for all payment methods; these fields replace the Check date and Check number fields unique to the Check payment method.

Core

Logo File Names

When changing or uploading a new banner logo under Core, Settings, Application style settings, Web app style, then Banner logo tile, the file names no longer overlap if they're over 17 characters long. Instead, names and titles will now line break.

Blackbaud ID: Migrate by September 27, 2022

Platform managers should migrate users to Blackbaud ID via the links on the Core home dashboard. They can also export user lists for use in mail merges and other communications.
Ensure your school’s users are on BBID by September 27, 2022.
Authenticating with Blackbaud ID:

ensures an even more secure authentication process,
enables users to further enhance security by enabling multi-factor authentication through text messages or mobile authenticators,
enables users to login to multiple Blackbaud solutions and support resources with a single username and password,
enables users to login with “social authentication” via Google’s authentication requirements, password resets, and other support needs,
enables users to help themselves reset forgotten passwords, rather than platform managers needing to provide tech support for forgotten passwords,
enables schools to enable an optional SSO for any roles they prefer, so that those users sign in with the school’s identity providers and the school can then manage the users in their claimed domains.

View the online help for Blackbaud ID.

Blackbaud ID: Platform managers

As of the Tuesday Sept 27 release, any user who attempts to login without Blackbaud ID will see an error message that prevents them from logging in. To resolve the error, a platform manager must connect the user to Blackbaud ID from the user’s profile (Access tab) or from Core, Security, Blackbaud Authentication. When the user accepts the invitation, they’ll use their email address and a password to login with Blackbaud ID.
We’ve automatically converted all users with the platform manager role to Awaiting response if they weren’t yet registered for Blackbaud ID. When they attempt to login with a legacy username and password, they’re then prompted to convert it to use Blackbaud ID with an email address and password.
Platform managers who already use Blackbaud ID remain Registered and thus their login hasn’t changed.
API and Integrations

API & Integrations

(School) SKY API

For information about recently added endpoints and updates, view the School API and OneRoster API changelogs.

Subscribe to “What’s New”

To receive email notifications when the What’s new update appears, make sure to subscribe to the K12 community’s blog by logging into the community site and selecting the Subscribe button.
To manage your community subscriptions:

Log into the community and locate your name and profile picture in the upper right corner.
Select the drop-down arrow and select My Account.
From the My Account page, select the Subscriptions tab and scroll down to the Blogs section.
Locate Blackbaud K-12 Education solutions Blog. If you want to be notified as soon as the What’s new content goes live on the community, select the Instant option. You can also opt for Daily and Weekly notifications.
Scroll to the end of the page and select Save changes.

What’s Recent

Missed any of our weekly releases? You can catch up on everything in our Month in Review blog posts, which cover every feature and update Education management releases each month.

News Blackbaud K-12 Solutions™ Blog 09/19/2022 1:30pm EDT

Added by Bob Costanzo

Check back soon!