The Month in Review: February 2023 Feature Releases

Derek Nichols

Don’t look now, but we’re head long into March! So, before we go any further, let’s have one last look back at all of the changes made to Blackbaud’s Education management products in February.Hello and welcome to March! Spring is rapidly approaching and so to comes the warmer weather associated with it. Also, allergies, but let’s not bring that up.

Alongside the new month comes the Month in Review, our monthly look back at all of the new content that arrived inside of Blackbaud’s Education management products. So before we get too far into March, let’s take one final look back at everything that happened in February. Enjoy!

Academics
This month in February, we made a number of new additions to the Requests and Recommendations list. First, we updated the Nickname column to Preferred name. We also added a number of new columns allow you to customize this list even more by adding the following data points:

• Home phone
• Home 2 phone
• Wireless phone
• Email
• Bad email
• Home address
• Home 2 address
• Primary address
• Parents
• Parents’ Email
• Parents’ wireless phone

Also in February:

• When printing assessments, the Number of blank lines to display is required, even if the assessment does not include essay questions. The Number of blank lines to display now defaults to 5 so faculty can print without manually entering a value in this field.
• When searching for a student’s name to add an infraction, if more than 10 student names match the search text, a Show matches option will appear. Select it to expand the list of results.
• Teachers can now select Allow for partial credit on Multiple Choice questions in assessments. Points awarded will be divided equally by the number of correct answers.
• In the Assignment Center and on class Assignments pages, teachers now see a banner linking to a survey on the new Assessment experience. The banner also links to the new Assessments video playlist, which includes videos on Assessment Settings, building Assessment Content, the Student Assessment Experience, and the Teacher Assessment Evaluation Experience.
• The Class attendance list now displays attendance data for schools that take attendance By Day or By Period. Previously this list only functioned for schools that took attendance by period.
• When selecting Weighted Average for the Mastery Calculation method for individual gradebook setups, users can now assign a weight on skills in assignments. The weight defaults to 1 and only applies when the weighted computation method is selected.

Billing management
For Billing management, we’ve added the ability to generate charges for students individually via billing profiles, saving time for Billing clerks when preparing students for billing. This new feature is available on the billing profile, found by navigating to Billing management > People Finder > Activity > More > Generate charges.

More updates in February:

• Reference date and reference number are two new optional columns on the Recent payments list.
• We’ve added a new option under Auto-Pay configuration settings, Allow payers to self-enroll in auto-pay. When enabled, payers can enroll themselves in Auto-Pay. When disabled, only Billing clerks can enroll payers in Auto-Pay.
• Past due reminders to payers can now be customized to communicate the total amount past due within the notification method using the new Past due amount merge field. The Past due amount communicated is the total past due as of the date the notification is sent.

Enrollment management
For EMS in February, we made editing user data available for all schools when processing Applications, Inquiries, or Event Registrations. Admissions managers now have access to Edit Users which enables them to modify user information entered on the form. A list of users appears on the left and each can be selected to change data like Prefix, First Name, Home Phone, Data of birth, and more.

Other updates this month:

• Admissions managers now have a Virtual Link placeholder when working with Event registration options notifications.
• We've updated the Financial Aid Awards list, giving it a more modern look and feel for admissions and reenrollment managers and aligning it with other areas like the Candidates list or Visits & interview openings list. The new experience can be accessed through Enrollment management, Financial Aid, and then Financial Aid Awards.

Extracurricular
Yes, we have an update for Extracurricular users! Athletic Group Managers can now oversee individual team schedules in a calendar or list view. To access team schedules from Extracurricular, select Athletics > Athletics setup > [team name] > Schedule.

Managers can add, reschedule, cancel, and delete games, as well as add, cancel, and delete single practices. Select Directions and Details for an event to view more information, including the Location address, driving Directions, Transportation and Dismissal details, and Additional notes.

Tuition Management
For Tuition management, we have an exciting update for welcome emails. School users can manually generate and send a welcome email to a family via the family page ahead of it being automatically generated. Sending the welcome email manually overrides the automatic email settings for that family, so they will not receive the same welcome email twice unless you opt to re-send it.


To use this feature, open a Main Family Page and navigate to Welcome Email and Invoice Settings. A new button is labeled Generate And Send Welcome Email. A confirmation screen will open. Select Yes to generate and send the email. A PDF copy of the welcome email will appear in the family’s Welcome Letter And Invoice Activity Log.


If you need to send another copy of the welcome email, select Resend Welcome Email.

Also this month:

• If a family has an On Hold payment on their account when their invoice is generated, the On Hold payment amount is not included in the Total Amount Due on the invoice.
• The balances and totals in the Estimated Remittance and Billed And Paid reports now include On Hold payments undergoing NACHA validation.
• The Buy Now Give Now Item Details report now returns results when the selected billing item is associated with an On Hold payment.

Financial Aid Management
This month in Financial Aid Management, parent users access Blackbaud Financial Aid Management (BBFAM) with a Blackbaud ID (BBID) login. New parents creating BBFAM accounts will be prompted to create a BBID. Parents with an existing BBFAM account will enter their username and password to link their BBFAM user to a new or existing BBID.

On a different note, if an application payment fails, parents now receive the following message with additional details and instructions:

The application payment has not been processed, please ensure all payment information entered is correct. If you see multiple charges on your bank statement please be advised only the successful payment will be debited and the rest will be removed.

The previous message only stated that an error occurred while submitting the application.


Also this month:

• When running Enterprise budgets, the Enterprise Grant Distribution Report now includes Awarded Amount.
• Parents can access applications for different years in multiple browser tabs, but they cannot open the same application for a single year in multiple browser tabs. Parents who attempt to open the same application in multiple browser tabs will be logged out of the Financial Aid Parent site.

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That’s going to do it for February 2023. Onward to March! We have plenty of new content coming your way this month so make sure to subscribe to stay up to date on all of the upcoming content! As always, we’ll see you right back here next week. See you then!