Domain Setting for Email Inbox Navigating Away from Education Management

Geoffrey Goodfellow

In Core > Security > Authentication Setting > Domain Setting, there is a convenient feature where you can add your email domain to Core which allows an email inbox link to show in the top main bar in Education Management for all of our users that have domain emails. In our case, we use Gmail, so for teachers to have a Gmail link at the top of all their screens that immediately opens their Gmail without the need to login again is a great thing.

However, one criticism is that it opens the Gmail inbox in the same tab as Educational Management is running, so after teachers are done using Gmail, there is no easy way to get back to their classrooms in the LMS. I would love to find a default way to make this Gmail link open in a new tab of the browser. This would allow them to keep the LMS running while working in their email. I know if you hold Ctrl while clicking the Gmail link, it will force a new browser tab, but not everyone knows that trick or remembers to use it each time. I know with HTML that I can add target="_blank" to force URLs to open in a new tab, but that option isn't available with the way you need to enter your email domain into Core.

Has anyone else experienced this problem? Solved this problem? Have anything in the Idea Bank to request a fix for such a problem? Know any Blackbaud developer I could “@mention” in the Community to get it considered? It seems like a relatively easy fix, but Customer Support didn't really have any answers other than to create an idea about it which I'm afraid would get little traction for such a minor thing.

Angie Addison

Hi! Thanks for your comment - I love the little things, sometimes those are the things that make everyone so much happier! Let me take this to my team and see if we can fix this one up for you quickly. I'm with you, it seems this one should be easy enough to address. Stay tuned.

Geoffrey Goodfellow

@Angie Addison , were you ever able to get this little fix implemented? A teacher brought it up again to me this morning and made me think of our conversation from August.

Angie Addison

Hi @Geoffrey Goodfellow! We actually just did look into that a couple weeks ago and sadly as sometimes turns out with the things that seem like they ‘should’ be the easiest we ran into some snags. It turns out that the change would have to be made in multiple places not all owned by the same dev team because different pages are basically wrapped in their own navigation and then it turned out that some of our UX that's on a different platform doesn't support that behavior so we have to get it in front of that team to see if they can take on updating it. We haven't given up yet but that's current state. Sorry it isn't as quick or easy as I'd hoped.

Geoffrey Goodfellow

Thanks for the detailed update! Much appreciated.

Geoffrey Goodfellow

@Angie Addison, had a teacher ask me about the Gmail link navigating away from the LMS again, and it reminded me of our Community thread here. Any progress on this item?

Jessi Walters

@Geoffrey Goodfellow Hi there! Angie isn't at Blackbaud anymore, so I'll chime in. As we work to bring the Blackbaud Omnibar into Education Management, and then subsequently move our navigation into the Omnibar area, we will have an opportunity to have this link open in a new tab. The information Angie shared previously is still valid. I don't have a timeline for the navigation shift yet; it's still under research.

Let me know if you're interested in the Omnibar EAP, which will launch in roughly a month! Email me to learn more: jessi dot walters at blackbaud dot com

Geoffrey Goodfellow

@Jessi Walters Thanks for the update, Jessi! Ironically, I noticed more recently that gmail does now open in a new tab, so go figure. I look forward to seeing the updates to the omnibar area.