The Month in Review: May 2023 Feature Releases
Published
The summer months are kicking off, but before we give into the heat, we need to take one last look back at May. Let’s kick off the Month in Review and see what sort of content arrived for the Education management products!
Can you feel that? Summer. It’s close. As the current school year begins to wind down (make sure to check out our Annual Procedures blog if you missed it), we’re just getting warmed up here on team Blackbaud Education management.
That’s right, it’s time to discuss new features and updates! With June (basically) here, it’s time to get to our monthly look back at all of the new stuff to come out during the month of May for Blackbaud’s Education management products. So, let’s get started!
Academics
This month, the Academics team released a new Student attendance statuses list to help attendance managers quickly determine which students are present for the day and, if class attendance is taken, to help locate those students on campus. From the Home page in Academics, go to the Find me now tile. You will see a new link that takes you to the Student attendance statuses list. This list displays all students within a School Level, alongside their current attendance Status (Present, Absent, or Awaiting class attendance), Current obligation, Previous obligation, and Next obligation.
You can filter this list based on Status or search for students by name. The list shows each student’s status based on their most recent or current obligation that records attendance.
Also in May:
Billing clerks can now utilize the Notes list to easily identify and export notes linked to student profiles. Notes are displayed on a per-row basis, with the contents of each note organized under the Title and Description columns. Additional columns, like Type, provide even more context to better understand each note.
Billing clerks can select a Student name to expand the student summary, providing them with direct access to adding and changing notes for the students in the list.
More updates in May:
Platform managers can customize various messages and labels throughout Blackbaud Education Management. Do this from Core, Settings, Custom labels & text, Custom text messages.
Previously, one of the items you could edit was called Sign in help/Request login. This item is now called Login page information. We’ve also updated the description that helps you determine what to enter for this item.
Also this month:
Enrollment management
Continuing to build upon the new look and feel Event management experience, the EMS team added another component to it called Event form submissions. Admissions managers can now select the number of form submissions displayed for the listed events to open the Registration form submissions list which shows all the data collected in the event registration form and important details like when it was submitted, address information, who submitted it, and more. Admissions managers also have a few more options at their disposal. They can either export this list into a CSV file or select View Registration to generate a print friendly version of that specific form.
In addition, EMS has taken the Create Candidate experience and overhauled it to the SKY list style seen in other places within Blackbaud's Education management products. Functionally, it remains pretty much the same as you remember, though now, you can use the customizable filters and columns to tailor the experience to what you want. In addition, there's a search bar for finding specific candidates, there's a User Criteria Search which lets you drill down even further by incorporating details like grad years, roles, User ID, and more. Candidate Criteria lets you either create a new candidate record for an existing user or Create a new child with a candidate record for an existing parent. For more, make sure to visit our online help.
Other updates this month:
To assist schools in complying with US privacy laws, Advanced School Users can now delete a family's information at their request. Deleting a family permanently and irreversibly removes their account, application, and documents for all years that they exist in BBFAM.
Tuition Management
Schools can track a payer’s request to opt out of targeted advertisements or the sale of their personal information using the Privacy fields on payer accounts. If your school engages in targeted advertising or in the sale or sharing of personal information, you can use these fields to identify payers who want to opt out of those practices. With this release, you can report on opt out preferences with a custom report.
______________________
That’s going to do it for May 2023. Even with June here, we’re not slowing down on the blog posts like we typically do. We have plenty more planned so make sure to stay up to date by subscribing so you don’t miss a thing. See you right back here next week for more BBEM content!
That’s right, it’s time to discuss new features and updates! With June (basically) here, it’s time to get to our monthly look back at all of the new stuff to come out during the month of May for Blackbaud’s Education management products. So, let’s get started!
Academics
This month, the Academics team released a new Student attendance statuses list to help attendance managers quickly determine which students are present for the day and, if class attendance is taken, to help locate those students on campus. From the Home page in Academics, go to the Find me now tile. You will see a new link that takes you to the Student attendance statuses list. This list displays all students within a School Level, alongside their current attendance Status (Present, Absent, or Awaiting class attendance), Current obligation, Previous obligation, and Next obligation.
You can filter this list based on Status or search for students by name. The list shows each student’s status based on their most recent or current obligation that records attendance.
Also in May:
- For schools still using Old Transcripts, the new 360 Academic Profile now supports the ability to download student transcripts as Word documents and the option to copy a pre-filled learning profile for a student from one academic year to the next.
- An Abbreviation is no longer required when adding an assignment or graded discussion. Teachers can continue to add abbreviations if they wish, and they can choose to display abbreviations or full assignment names in their gradebook settings.
Billing clerks can now utilize the Notes list to easily identify and export notes linked to student profiles. Notes are displayed on a per-row basis, with the contents of each note organized under the Title and Description columns. Additional columns, like Type, provide even more context to better understand each note.
Billing clerks can select a Student name to expand the student summary, providing them with direct access to adding and changing notes for the students in the list.
More updates in May:
- The Needs Attention section now displays a new notification indicating the number of auto-pay plans that are on hold. Billing clerks can monitor this notification to identify when payers have suspended automatic payments.
Platform managers can customize various messages and labels throughout Blackbaud Education Management. Do this from Core, Settings, Custom labels & text, Custom text messages.
Previously, one of the items you could edit was called Sign in help/Request login. This item is now called Login page information. We’ve also updated the description that helps you determine what to enter for this item.
Also this month:
- Schools can contact their Blackbaud account representative to ask to join an early adopter program (EAP) which significantly enhances the experience for managing roles and role membership.
- Authentication rules has been renamed. This feature is now called Login page settings instead. Platform managers will continue to access it from the same location in Core, Security, Authentication settings.
- Platform managers can also configure a customized message that will appear above each user’s Privacy setting page. It appears under the heading for Privacy settings and above the heading for General settings.
Enrollment management
Continuing to build upon the new look and feel Event management experience, the EMS team added another component to it called Event form submissions. Admissions managers can now select the number of form submissions displayed for the listed events to open the Registration form submissions list which shows all the data collected in the event registration form and important details like when it was submitted, address information, who submitted it, and more. Admissions managers also have a few more options at their disposal. They can either export this list into a CSV file or select View Registration to generate a print friendly version of that specific form.
In addition, EMS has taken the Create Candidate experience and overhauled it to the SKY list style seen in other places within Blackbaud's Education management products. Functionally, it remains pretty much the same as you remember, though now, you can use the customizable filters and columns to tailor the experience to what you want. In addition, there's a search bar for finding specific candidates, there's a User Criteria Search which lets you drill down even further by incorporating details like grad years, roles, User ID, and more. Candidate Criteria lets you either create a new candidate record for an existing user or Create a new child with a candidate record for an existing parent. For more, make sure to visit our online help.
Other updates this month:
- The dashboard counter no longer includes Event Registration Forms that are missing/not using a Candidate Block.
- When creating an Event Registration form, the Candidate Block is now required and will generate an error if the field is left out completely. By making candidate information required, it not only avoids any potential confusion or issues that may occur with a parent-only registration form, but it also forms a relationship that can be established back to a candidate record.
To assist schools in complying with US privacy laws, Advanced School Users can now delete a family's information at their request. Deleting a family permanently and irreversibly removes their account, application, and documents for all years that they exist in BBFAM.
Tuition Management
Schools can track a payer’s request to opt out of targeted advertisements or the sale of their personal information using the Privacy fields on payer accounts. If your school engages in targeted advertising or in the sale or sharing of personal information, you can use these fields to identify payers who want to opt out of those practices. With this release, you can report on opt out preferences with a custom report.
______________________
That’s going to do it for May 2023. Even with June here, we’re not slowing down on the blog posts like we typically do. We have plenty more planned so make sure to stay up to date by subscribing so you don’t miss a thing. See you right back here next week for more BBEM content!
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Blackbaud K-12 Solutions™ Blog
05/30/2023 9:00am EDT
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