Here are the latest changes, updates, and new features for the Education management products for August 1, 2023.

Learning resources

Tuition Management

Join customer support experts at 2 p.m. ET Wednesday, August 2 for useful tips, tricks, and recommendations for back-to-school season with Tuition Management. You can register here.

Webinar: Multi-factor authentication for Blackbaud ID

To learn more about multi-factor authentication (MFA) for Blackbaud ID (BBID) and to prepare for this change view the webinar on August 9th at 2:00 PM ET. Recordings will also be available on demand after the webinar event.

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Academics

Keyboard gradebook grade entry

In the gradebook, faculty can now use their keyboards to enter letter grades and skills. Previously, letter grades and skills could not be selected from the dropdown popover using only a keyboard.

1. In the gradebook, select a grade field to activate editing mode for that grade field. If using your keyboard, navigate to the grade field and press Enter to activate editing mode.
2. Use the up/down arrows, letter, or number keys on your keyboard to choose a letter grade or skill rating.
   
   Tip: To display the dropdown with letter grade and skill rating choices, press Enter again.
3. Once the desired letter grade or skill rating is selected, press Tab on your keyboard to move down to the next student row. If you’re editing the bottom row, press esc to exit editing mode.

Tip: To close the letter grade/skill dropdown and move down to the next student row, press Tab twice.

• Editing mode is indicated by a blue outline around the grade field.
• You can exit editing mode by pressing esc on your keyboard. Press esc twice to exit editing mode if the grade/skill dropdown is visible.
• When the grade/skill dropdown is visible, you can select the desired grade or skill rating, then press Enter to exit editing mode.
• When you’re not in editing mode, use the arrow keys to navigate between grade fields.
• Letters I (Incomplete), L (Late), M (Missing), X (Exempt), and C (Collected) are keyboard shortcuts for gradebook indicators. Typing these letters without pressing Enter to activate editing mode updates the gradebook indicators. To enter a letter grade using these letters, activate editing mode first by pressing Enter on your keyboard, then type the letter grade.
• To open the full Evaluate assignment modal, press the spacebar on your keyboard.
  
  

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Billing management (Limited Availability)

Blackbaud Billing management is available to customers not currently using Blackbaud Tuition management.

Post miscellaneous fees to general ledger accounts based on matched student criteria

Miscellaneous fees now possess additional dimensions to help determine to which account distributions are posted. Under GL distributions, Billing clerks first select a different set of GL accounts based on each student and then choose from the available dimensions, which include:

• Board type
• Grade level
• International/domestic
• Payment plan
• Program

Once dimensions are selected, Billing clerks define which conditions (e.g., Board type is Boarding, Payment plan is Any payment plan, etc.) must be met by a student for their miscellaneous fee to be posted to a particular account.

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Core

User profile settings: Pronouns

Previously, platform managers configured table values for genders and chose a default pronoun via a single tab within Core, Users, User profile settings, Gender, because pronouns could not be edited.

Now, platform managers configure table values for pronouns, which are no longer dependent on gender values. To do so, use the new tab in Core, Users, User profile settings, Pronouns.

After you configure table values for pronouns, you can edit table values for genders to configure the default pronouns – if any – for each gender. When you enter contact card data for a user, the default pronouns for the selected gender appear, but you can select different preferred pronouns.

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,

· this Knowledgebase article,

· view the webinar on August 9th at 2:00 PM ET.

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

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

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Enrollment management

Events

We've added new delete options for admissions managers when working with events. When viewing an Event Attendeee list, admissions managers can now select Deleted Attendees to see a list of everyone who registered but was deleted. This displays the Attendee name, Date registered, Date deleted, and who deleted the registration.



On the Form Submissions list, admissions managers can now delete registration forms in bulk. Select the form submissions and then Delete to remove the records. A confirmation modal appears to confirm the deletion and to help prevent accidental clicks. The details are then logged for auditing as needed.



Finally, admissions managers can also delete an event registration from the Process event registration page. A delete button appears at the bottom after a registration is selected, which then causes a confirmation window to appear. Please note that this is a full deletion of the registration record and all associated signups. The deletion is also logged for auditing purposes.

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Financial Aid management

HEIC and HEIF files are now accepted

The Financial Aid application now accepts HEIC and HEIF file types for document uploads.

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Tuition management

Impersonate a payer

Administrators and Finance Users can now impersonate payers to view Tuition Management from their perspective.



Through impersonation, you can navigate as a payer to view account information and billing details. However, you cannot make any changes on behalf of the payer, such as processing payments, stopping or resuming auto debits, and modifying billing or account information.



Additionally, when impersonating a payer with accounts at multiple schools, you cannot select Switch school account to access the payer’s account at another school.



Impersonate a payer:

1. Select Families > View All Families.

2. Search for and select the family of the payer you want to impersonate.

3. Hover over the blue arrow on the left to expand the flyout menu.

4. Select Impersonation > Impersonate.

5. The payer’s view of the account will open in a new browser tab. Your personal instance of Tuition Management will remain open in the original browser tab.

6. Once you’re done impersonating, close the impersonation browser tab.



Once a family is selected, you can also impersonate a payer by selecting Families > Impersonate or by selecting the Impersonate shortcut in the green banner:





You can only impersonate one payer at a time. If you attempt to open a second impersonation without closing the first one, you will receive a message indicating that only one impersonate window can be open at a time.

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API and Integrations

School API

We’ve added a new endpoint, POST Medical allergies/conditions create (BETA); this endpoint is in BETA and may be removed or replaced with a 90-day deprecation period.

Successful requests to the POST Medical allergies/conditions create (BETA) endpoint add new allergies or conditions for a student, and authorization requires a user with the Nurse role.

School API and OneRoster API

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

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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.

· June 2023

· May 2023

· April 2023

· March 2023

· February 2023

· January 2023