Blackbaud’s Education Management Solutions: What’s New For February 7, 2023

Published

Here are the latest changes, updates, and new features for the Education management products for February 7, 2023.

K-12 Community Blog

Make sure to read up on all the new blog posts in the community, right here.

Check out our new video series on Assessments here!

Academics

Assign weights on skills when Mastery Calculation is set to Weighted Average in individual gradebook setup

When selecting Weighted Average for the Mastery Calculation method for individual gradebook setups, users can now assign a weight on skills in assignments. The weight defaults to 1 and only applies when the weighted computation method is selected.

New columns on Requests and Recommendations List

The following columns have been added as options on the Requests and recommendations list:

Home phone
Home 2 phone
Wireless phone
Email
Bad email
Home address
Home 2 address
Primary address
Parents
Parents’ Email
Parents’ wireless phone

The Nickname column has been re-labeled Preferred name.

To view the list, select Scheduling, then Requests and recommendations list. Select Columns to choose which columns appear on the list, then Apply changes.

Class attendance list for schools taking attendance By Day

The Class attendance list now displays attendance data for schools that take attendance By Day or By Period. Previously this list only functioned for schools that took attendance by period.

Coming soon: New academic profiles

We are planning to roll out a new version of Academic Profiles to all schools in the first quarter of 2023.

Just like the old Academic Profile, the new 360 Profile displays when you select a student or alumnus via the People finder in Academics. The new profile contains the same features and capabilities as the older Academic Profile (plus a few new tools that we’ll show off in the Community post linked below), but arranged under new tab headings in a more accessible format. Depending on your role at the school, some or all of the following profile areas will be available to you.

To see screenshots of the upcoming 360 Profile and an explanation of the new features, check out the announcement in the K-12 Education Solutions Community.

Core

October 3, 2023 – Blackbaud ID requires Multi-factor Authentication

Starting October 2023, Blackbaud will begin to require faculty and staff users of Blackbaud Education Management® (BBEM) to enable multi-factor authentication (MFA) on their Blackbaud ID (BBID) username and password. These users have roles with Application or Employee/Volunteer types.

The requirement will be enforced in “waves.” The first wave of schools will require MFA as of October 3, 2023. If, by this summer, your organization has not yet established an SSO connection, then we will send you an email with the exact date on which your users will be required to use MFA.

Exemptions
The following users are exempt from Blackbaud’s MFA requirement for BBID and their login experiences will not be affected:

Users who login with a single sign on (SSO),
Users who login with Sign in with Google,
Users who login with Sign in with Apple,
Students, alumni, parents, and non-administrative users of Blackbaud Education Management. These users have only Constituent or Other role types.

What is MFA?
Multi-factor authentication (MFA) requires a user to successfully validate at least two of three factors to authenticate before gaining access to your solution and data. Blackbaud ID will require MFA using your password (what you use today) and a unique, time-based, one-time code accessed on a secondary device. We are proactively making this change, following industry-standard security measures, to help protect your organization and your data.

Try MFA early
We recommend testing MFA with a cloned role at your school’s convenience. For example, require users who have the nurse role to login with MFA and BBID. The nurse could complete the login using a numeric code sent to their phone for additional security.

As a platform manager, go to Core, Security, Roles, and search for a role. On the role’s row, select more (…) and then select to Enforce MFA.
Platform managers can also Remove MFA enforcement from here (during your testing phase). When you disable the MFA requirement for a role, users in the affected roles may still be prompted to login with MFA. However, after logging in, the user can go to their individual BBID profile to opt out of MFA.

When MFA is required for a school role, those users can view their BBID profile, but can’t opt out of MFA.

Encourage your users to act now by enabling MFA on their Blackbaud ID if they have not already done so.

Miscellaneous
Please note:

Users who login with single sign on (SSO), Sign in with Google, or Sign in with Apple, will not be prompted to use Blackbaud’s MFA, even if the school enforces MFA for one of their roles.
Users who use Sign in with Google or Sign in with Apple may be prompted to use an MFA that is managed by Google or Apple, even when Blackbaud doesn’t require MFA. These “social sign ins” are subject to the third party’s authentication processes, instead of Blackbaud’s process.
Users who are already required to use MFA because they also use their BBID for other Blackbaud applications, such as Raiser’s Edge NXT, will still require MFA, regardless of their MFA settings for their roles in Education Management.

To learn more about multi-factor authentication for Blackbaud ID and to prepare for this change, view the online help and this Knowledgebase article.

Please contact Support or your Customer Success Manager with any questions.

Tuition management

Manually send a welcome email

School users can manually generate and send a welcome email to a family via the family page ahead of it being automatically generated. Sending the welcome email manually overrides the automatic email settings for that family, so they will not receive the same welcome email twice unless you opt to re-send it.

To use this feature, open a Main Family Page and navigate to Welcome Email and Invoice Settings. A new button is labeled Generate And Send Welcome Email. A confirmation screen will open. Select Yes to generate and send the email. A PDF copy of the welcome email will appear in the family’s Welcome Letter And Invoice Activity Log.

If you need to send another copy of the welcome email, select Resend Welcome Email.

On Hold payments considered in Total Amount Due on invoices

If a family has an On Hold payment on their account when their invoice is generated, the On Hold payment amount is not included in the Total Amount Due on the invoice.

API and Integrations

School API

New

We’ve added a new endpoint, DELETE Result delete.

DELETE Result delete accepts one required parameter, ID. Use DELETE Result delete to remove the assignment gradebook grade associated with the ID included in the request.

Additionally, OneRoster API managers can now configure whether rostering data returned in various responses use the Preferred name, if available, or the First name, always, for user records.

This change applies to data returned in the following endpoints:

The page featuring this change is found by navigating to Core > Settings > Integration settings > OneRoster Settings > Add/Edit OneRoster Settings > Rostering options.

Visit the School API and OneRoster API changelog

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

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 02/06/2023 12:22pm EST

Added by Derek Nichols

Check back soon!