The Month in Review: September 2022 Feature Releases

Derek Nichols

October already? Sheesh, where does the time go? Well, before we get too deep into the spookiest month of the year, let’s take one last look back at September with the Month In Review.It’s finally October which means fall weather, pumpkin spice (for better or worse), as well as the spookiest time of the year. However, we're not here to talk about any of that.

No, we’re taking a slight detour by going back in time to September where we can discuss all of the good stuff that launched for Blackbaud’s Education Management Solutions. So get comfortable and grab some apple cider as we dive head first into the Month in Review.

Academics
This month, we’ve tweaked Transcripts to display academic performance subcategories with either their full descriptions or abbreviations. In the Transcript Builder, on the Design form, add or edit an Academic performance area on the transcript template. You will now see two options under Display value using. Select Subcategory name or Subcategory abbreviation.

For schools using degree requirements, the Requirements tab on a student profile now displays credit overages as they are applied toward a General Elective Requirement. Students, parents, and advisors with access to a student’s profile can see this feature. For a degree with an elective requirement, “Credit overage from <requirement name>” will display the number of credits applied toward the elective from another requirement. Want more details? See the help topic Degrees.

Also this month:

• When building a Report Card or Transcript template, you can now choose to display student names in the format “Last name, First name.” For teachers, you can now select the name formats “Prefix Last name Suffix” or “Prefix First name Last Name Suffix.”
• When building a Transcript template, you can now choose to display courses under a Transcript Category header. In the Transcript Builder, this option is available on the Design tab when you add or edit a course section in a Courses/Groups grid.
• On the Edit student enrollment screen, the Find a section button now includes a + icon to make it stand out. The functionality remains the same.
• On the Edit student enrollment screen, there is no longer a limit on the number of classes that can display when using Find a section. Previously the limit was set to 50 rows.

Billing management
Auto-Pay finally arrived to Billing management this month for all K12 schools in the US! As expected, this enables payers to automatically make payments against charges included in their payment plans. Payers can access this from the Current bill page (Billing, Current bill), Billing clerks from Billing, Billing Years, Auto-Pay, administrators can find it under Billing Profile, then Auto-Pay, and for Reporting, it can be seen from Student lists.

More updates in September:

• Platform Managers with the ability to impersonate can no longer access sensitive areas of Billing management if they do not have the Billing clerk role.
• Billing clerks can now enter a Reference date and Reference number when adding or editing payments for all payment methods; these fields replace the Check date and Check number fields unique to the Check payment method.
• Billing clerks can now use Statement builder to include a student’s Preferred name on billing statements. The student name format on a statement, when including a Preferred name, is as follows: Preferred name Last name; if a Preferred name is unavailable, the field defaults to First name.
• Internal comments can now be included when creating or editing individual credit records and adding credit to a group of students. Comments can be viewed when reviewing credit records.
• When adding charges to a group, Billing clerks now see a notification if a student does not have a statement recipient associated with their account; the notification is represented as a red triangle with an exclamation mark that, when hovered over, shows the notification text.

Core
September was a major month for BBID. As of Tuesday September 27, all users must now sign in with Blackbaud ID. Users who attempt to login without Blackbaud ID will see an error message preventing them from signing in. To resolve the error, a platform manager must connect the user to Blackbaud ID. To learn more, view the online help for Blackbaud ID.

Also released this month:

• Previously, the text for the Job title field was limited to 100 characters. Now, users can enter longer titles, up to 255 characters.
• When changing or uploading a new banner logo under Core, Settings, Application style settings, Web app style, then Banner logo tile, the file names no longer overlap if they're over 17 characters long. Instead, names and titles will now line break.

Tuition Management
As of September 27, school users must now sign in to Blackbaud Tuition Management with Blackbaud ID (BBID). This change does not affect parents signing into Tuition Management. Parent accounts will be switched to BBID at a later date.

Some users may already have a BBID if they use other Blackbaud products, while others will need to create a BBID and link it to their existing Tuition Management account. School users signing into Tuition Management will have the option to Skip for now and forego the BBID linking process up to 10 times, after which they will be prompted to either choose Sign in or Create a Blackbaud ID. Users will see how many skips they have left each time they sign in.

Also this month:

• In preparation for Mastercard’s recurring payments requirements that go into effect next year, the Automatic Debit Reminder email has been updated to include information on how to contact Tuition Management to stop an automatic payment.

Financial Aid Management
Similar to Tuition management, school users must now sign into Blackbaud Financial Aid Management (BBFAM) with Blackbaud ID (BBID) by September 27 though it won’t impact parents signing into the product.
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That’s going to do it for this week, but thanks, as always, for stopping by to check out the blog. We have some exciting reveals coming up in October, so make sure to be on the look out for that soon!

Also, if you haven’t yet, do make sure to subscribe to stay up to date on all of the upcoming content as well as (likely) putting a smile on our faces for the support. See you next week everyone!

Courtney Stern

Thank you for the reminders!