Impending Sign-On and Blackbaud ID Updates

Veronica Zermani

I just read over the impending updates for the sign on process. This is terrible timing as we are about to onboard our new parents and students for the upcoming school year. This change is scheduled for March 12th, and the very next day we are having our new parents sign in for the first time. This gives us a very tiny window to test and provide accurate instructions.

It seems as though Blackbaud does not know the general schedule of a school year, nor do they consult school admins/staff when rolling out updates (ie. making course codes visible in Academics, limiting adv. list outputs, and the lack of immediacy and remorse in dealing with the official notes incident, and these are just the most recent examples off the top of my head).

This is already a busy and stressful time for our admissions staff and this upcoming change adds to the stress of creating a seamless “welcome” to our newest community members.

Coco Parham

@Veronica Zermani It looks like the updates are in April here, with the webinar in March. At least that might help. “ Blackbaud ID will receive modernizing updates in April. Join product management for a webinar on Thursday, March 14 to learn more”.

Veronica Zermani

@Coco Parham
Thank you. They mentioned updating the login process on March 12th. It's not a huge deal, just poor timing when we're trying to onboard new users to an already clunky system.

Coco Parham

@Veronica Zermani I agree! it is a bit clunky. I saw the March 12th change in Core. I missed that before. I hope that doesn't cause too much of a problem. Out IT person doesnt think it should since our new parents will only see the new page and have no comparison to the old one. Good luck with onboarding!

Bryna Gleich

Just wanted to drop some resources here for anyone joining the conversation who maybe hasn't seen the info yet:

• Posted in the Feb 27 release notes for Core - Info about a slight change going into affect on March 12.
  • This only affects users who are “awaiting response” or whose username doesn't exist. So most people won't notice this update. The basic workflow is the same; we just removed an intermediary screen that's no longer relevant, thus streamlining the process.
• Posted in the current release notes for March 5 for education - Notice about upcoming webinar and changes that will come in April.
  • The webinar for education users is March 14. A recording will be available afterwards to watch if you miss the live session.
  • Changes for April improve branding, reliability, etc. As part of those April changes, users who use MFA or social sign in will need to take a one time action. It's the same action they've taken in the past when they initially setup, so it should be an action that's already familiar to them. SSO isn't affected by the April changes.
• Posted in user community news - Information for all Blackbaud solutions about changes coming in April and some action that will need to be taken between May and October.
  • More details about the May-Oct action will be provided later. The action for May-Oct only affects SSO and only needs to be done by the admin. Admins have done this sort of action before, so it should be familiar to them as well. End users of the SSO shouldn't notice a change as long as the admin step is completed.
• Posted in the K-12 user community blog - Repeats some of the information already stated in the above sources. Adds some additional information about frequently asked questions and details specific to education solutions.

You might have also seen emails about these or seen a notice on your Core dashboard.

• Join us for a webinar hosted by Jessi Walters and John Vogel (product managers) on March 14 at 2 p.m. EDT for Blackbaud's Education solutions. Register at Education and Blackbaud ID Modernization.
• View newly published BBID documentation. This includes a template which you can customize to communicate with your school community about the subtle but impactful changes they might notice.

(Edited: Fixed the links in bullets # 1 & 2)