The Month In Review: July 2023 Feature Releases

I don’t want to alarm anyone, but the calendar has flipped to August. Yes, that means that school is now around the corner. I’m sorry; it had to be said.

Even with the new school year looming, let’s take a moment to go back to July. With the start of a new month, it’s time to take one last look back at all of the latest features and updates to arrive for Blackbaud’s education management solutions during the month of July. So, without further ado, let’s get to it!

Academics
This month, the Academics team added a new Student enrollment area under Activities, allowing you to manage enrollment values in a list-style format. From Scheduling and then Requests and Schedules, switch to Activities to see the new Student Enrollment area, which shows things like the student name, grade level, and advisor.

The list can be exported, a filter can be used to change the displayed data, and columns can be added or removed as needed. Select Edit and then switch the dropdown to Activities to view and add new ones as needed. Please note that this change has also been applied to Extracurricular as well.

Also in July:

• Schools can now edit Enrollment dates from the Student section of Manage Classes. Previously, schools had to delete and then add the enrollment date again to change it effectively. With this change, schools can select Edit enrollment details to alter the field.
• A new filter called As of Today/Time is available with Student Attendance Statuses, which display a student's attendance at the exact moment in time. If a date selected is in a previous academic year, students enrolled at that time continue to display as expected.
• Once a grade calculation has been processed, Grading Managers can now export the results to a .CSV file.
• Students can now hover over the comment icon to view their assignment comments when viewing their learning progressions.

Blackbaud Billing Management™
Billing clerks can now review a report of when payments are added using Add payments to group; reports provide a complete list of all students and their related payment details that were part of the run, providing an additional audit trail for tracking payment processes. Each report is stored in and accessed from Process history. You can access Process history by selecting View previous run history on the Add payments to group window or from a notification that appears right after adding payments to a group.

More updates in July:

• Electronic payments that do not successfully process now show a status of Failed to payers in the Payer portal, helping to indicate that the payer should resubmit the payment.
• We’ve added the Billing year column to the Payment application export for both charges and enrollment deposits, providing Billing clerks with additional details to include in annual tax correspondences.
• The Delete option for payments processed by BBMS was removed.
• The Work with transactions page now incorporates the student’s preferred name in the heading. For example, if a student’s full name is James William Henry, but the student goes by William, the name appears as James “William” Henry on the page, mirroring the billing profile heading format.
• We’ve added an audit log for enrollment deposits, enabling Billing clerks to identify changes throughout the deposits’ lifecycle. The log contains examples of when the enrollment deposit was created, updated, and deleted and by whom.

Core
Platform managers use Core, Security, Profile access, Profile publish access to configure which profile data each role can publish for other roles to view. Now, platform managers can configure these settings to disable the option "Include my name, but do not include any other information about me." When enabled, this option appears to users in their Account settings, Privacy settings. By disabling this option for a role, such as for students, platform managers prevent those users from removing their information from the school’s directory.

Also this month:

• Previously, platform managers configured genders and pronouns from a single tab within Core, Users, User profile settings, Gender because pronouns mapped to specific gender values. Now, platform managers will notice a separate pronoun tab within User profile settings. In a future release, you’ll be able to use this new tab to configure options for pronouns separately from gender values.
• Platform managers typically Connect and Invite a single user to Blackbaud ID from the Access tab of the user’s profile in Core. Now, if the user’s account is disabled, locked out, or inactive, an alert appears on the screen that the platform manager uses to confirm the user’s email address for their username.
• Previously, if a user had a past employee role and a current application role (such as group owner), then the user had the Friend persona, but the persona wasn’t listed in the User list. This is fixed; past employees are now listed as friend personas in the User list.

Blackbaud Enrollment Management™
In July, the EMS team made several updates to Student Checklist. First, we've added the ability to decline a School Form or Medical Form (if enabled) right from the Student Checklist. A warning confirmation message appears when Decline is selected to prevent an accidental click. Admissions managers can also assign a student checklist right from the student's record. If needed, a search option or filter can be used for selecting the correct checklist.

The Parent/Student and Admin view now displays the status of the school form for other recipients. The Student Checklist Step is only completed once all recipients have completed their requirements, whether submitting or declining the School Form. For example, one parent will see a message indicating the form is missing a required signature from the other parent on a school form, medical form, or contract step. Signed and accepted displays if the step was signed and accepted by the logged-in parent or Declined if the logged-in parent selected that option. These updated messages replace the old Fill Out and Continue buttons if the form associated with the step has been signed and accepted or declined.

Finally, step labels have been further updated to clarify the Due date (if any) associated with a step, showing the current status and the specific due date.

Administrators now see a status indicator and a popover icon displaying if any missing signature requirements for Checklist Steps are associated with a School Form, Medical Form, or Contract. This list shows the signatures and who’s acceptance of the form is required for it to be marked complete.

Other updates this month:

• Admissions managers can now delete an attendee's registration option from the Attendee options list. For example, if someone mistakenly signed up for the wrong option, admissions managers can delete that specific instance instead of just marking it as canceled. Keep in mind that this will only delete the selected registration option for the attendee, not their full registration.

• The Submission count for School Forms no longer includes forms that were declined. The School Forms page now has a dedicated count showing the number of declined forms. Additionally, Inactive and Archived School Forms can no longer be selected for a Checklist Step.
• We've added the ability to make edits to forms that are locked. When attempting to edit a locked form, a blue banner now appears at the top, indicating that the form is in use and locked for editing. However, admissions managers can now select Edit Form on the left side, which will open a warning screen that needs to be confirmed before the form can be edited. Keep in mind that only text-based fields (text blocks, field names, etc.) can be edited.

Tuition Management
In July, Tuition management added several new fields to custom reporting. The following fields are now available under Additional Fields when creating custom reports in the Advanced Reports category:

• Failed Fee Amount
• Failed Fee Date Applied: The date the fee was applied to a family's account.
• Failed Fee Paid Date: The date payment was allocated toward the fee and considered paid.

Also in July:

• Payers are now notified by email if their ACH payment for a Buy Now Give Now (BNGN) transaction fails.
• Failed credit card payments for BNGN payments do not trigger a notification, as credit card payments are declined at the point of purchase.
• The maximum limit for bank account payments has increased from $150,000 to $250,000. Credit card limits remain $150,000, and Buy Now Give Now (BNGN) payments are limited to $10,000.

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With that, we’re now all caught up on everything that happened in July 2023. Of course, we have plenty more planned this month and in the near future, so make sure to stay up to date by subscribing to the Community so you don’t miss a thing. See you right here next week for more Blackbaud education management solutions content!