Blackbaud’s Education Management Solutions: What’s New For June 6, 2023

Katie Burckhalter · June 2023

Here are the latest changes, updates, and new features for the Education management products for June 6, 2023.

Academics

Resize Assignment text fields

Teachers can now resize text fields when adding or editing assignments. To expand a field, select and drag the bottom border to accommodate a long Description, Discussion prompt, or Title.

Export GPA calculations

Grading Managers can now export the data used to calculate a student's GPA to Excel.

In Academics, select the student in the People Finder.
Select Performance.
Select the student's GPA in the GPAs tile to open the Grade average detail.
Select Export calculation to download the information displayed to a .CSV file.

Convert assessments to the new experience

Teachers can now convert assessments created with the old builder to the new experience by copying or importing the old assessments. Assessments created with the old builder can no longer be copied or imported without converting.

The following items are carried over to the new experience:

Settings present in both the new and old builder. Settings only available in the new builder are disabled by default.
Question text
Answer text
Photo and Download media uploaded to questions

The following items are not converted and must be updated manually in the converted copies:

Embedded media in questions
Audio files
Allow Save for Later setting. This setting is replaced by Allow students to resume independently in the new experience and is disabled by default in the converted copies.
Grades, comments, and student submissions from the original assessment.

Items that are not converted are still accessible in the original assessments if needed for reference when updating the new copies.

Teachers can convert multiple assessments at once using Import Assignments. They can also select additional class sections to add an assessment to when importing, whereas copying will only add an assessment to the original class sections.

Convert assessments to the new experience using Import assignments:

From the Assignment Center or class Assignments tab, select More > Import Assignments.
Find and select the old assessments you want to import. Then select Next.
A message explains that importing will convert the selected assessments to the new experience and that embedded media in questions, audio files, and the Allow Save for Later setting will not convert.
Select the class sections you want to import the assessments to. Then select Next.
Set the Assigned and Due dates and times and the Publish status for the new instances of the assessments.
Select Save and close to complete the import.

New instances of an assessment created by import will have the same name as the original assessment. While you can set the Publish status on new instances of an assessment via import, you must mark assessments Ready for taking before students can begin the assessment.

Convert an assessment to the new experience using Copy:

From the Assignment Center or class Assignments tab, select the context menu next to the assessment > Make a copy.
A message explains that the assessment will be copied to the new experience and embedded media in questions, audio files, and the Allow Save for Later setting will not convert.
Select Yes to proceed and create a converted copy of the assessment.
The page will refresh and a new copy of the assessment titled Copy of [assessment name] will be listed.

The Publish status for the new copy of the assessment will default to No. If you do not see the new copy of the assessment, check your filters to ensure you're not excluding the copy from your assignment view. Additionally, you will need to publish the new copy of the assessment and set it to Ready for taking before students can take the assessment.

Billing management

CAD: Save direct debit payment methods

Canadian payers can now save direct debit payment methods exclusively using the Payment methods page in the Payer portal. Saved direct debit payment methods are eligible to be used in payments three days after being added.

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Payers can take advantage of saving direct debit information by logging in, selecting Billing in the navigation, and then selecting Payment methods. Once on the Payment methods page, select Add bank account.

Core

Roles and tasks - early adopter program (EAP)

Platform managers at schools that are active in the early adopter program for the updated user interface for managing roles and role membership will notice the following enhancements with this release:

When you view the “tree” of domains and tasks for a role, you have multiple domains expanded, you select a task within a domain, and then you select to Collapse All, the domains will remain expanded, but the tasks will collapse.
When you view the “tree” of domains and tasks, you expand a domain, and then expand a domain lower in the “tree”, the focus now shifts to the most recently expanded domain.

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:

Recordings will also be available on demand after each webinar event.

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

Extracurricular

Name format in Team page rosters

When viewing the Roster tab on Team pages, users will now see names on the roster follow the format set in Core > Users > User profile settings > User name formats. Previously, Preferred name had to be set to display for each player on the roster individually. With this change, Preferred name displays for all players if it is included in the User Name Format configured in Core.

Financial Aid management

Additional real estate address field

In the Real Estate section of the financial aid application, families can now enter the addresses for additional properties they own.

Opt out of sale of information and opt out of targeted ads

To assist schools in complying with US privacy laws, the Special Circumstances section of the financial aid application now includes statements for families to indicate that they want to opt out of the sale of personal information or opt out of targeted advertisements.
School users can review a family’s Special Circumstances selections, including these opt-out options, on the family’s Application Details page.

API and Integrations

School API and OneRoster API

For information about recently added endpoints and other 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.