Blackbaud’s Education Management Solutions: What’s New For October 3, 2023

Bob Costanzo

Here are the latest changes, updates, and new features for the Education management products for October 3, 2023.

Academics

Student assessment results page displays Take again

If a student has any remaining attempts to complete an assessment, Take again displays on their assessment results page. We've removed the Show "Take again" button if multiple attempts enabled option in the Student results page settings in the new assessment builder. Previously, teachers had to enable this option so students could select Take again from their results page.

Name Pronunciation

We’re rolling out another wave of Name Pronunciation to schools this week.



Name pronunciation gives users and administrators the ability to record an audio sample of how their name is pronounced. The recording is then added to their profile page next to their name as an audio icon where anyone can select it to listen to the audio sample. Platform managers will need to first enable this feature from Core, Security, and then Profile Access. Under User fields, change Name Pronunciation to Yes, which then makes it available under General Information from a user's Contact Card.



Select Edit and then Name Pronunciation to bring up a modal, which allows the user to record an audio sample of how to say their name. Some users may also need to grant the web browser access when prompted to use their microphone. Once the audio sample is recorded, the user can play it back, record it again, or completely delete it. The audio recording then appears on the user’s profile page as an icon after their full name. Click on the audio icon to hear the recording play.



For more details, check out our online help here.

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Core

Edit a user’s affinity

Recently, we updated the Access tab of user profiles in Core to show Affinity information via a tile, instead of a separate page.

Now, you can also Edit a user’s affinities from the tile. This replaces the Affinity categories button, which no longer appears near the top of the Access tab.

Blackbaud ID requires Multi-factor Authentication

As of this release, Blackbaud requires faculty, admin, and staff users of Blackbaud Education Management® (BBEM) at the first “wave” of schools to use multi-factor authentication (MFA) on their Blackbaud ID (BBID) username and password. These users have roles with Application or Employee/Volunteer types.



Not sure which “wave” your school is in? An alert appears at the topic of the Core home dashboard for platform managers to indicate the enforcement date for your school.



To learn more, view the webinar recording (25 minutes) from Product Manager Jessi Walters.

Exemptions

The following users are exempt from Blackbaud’s MFA requirement for BBID and their login experiences will not be affected:

• Users who login with a Single Sign-on (SSO),

• Users who login with Sign in with Google,

• Users who login with Sign in with Apple,

• Students, alumni, parents, and non-administrative users of Blackbaud Education Management. These users have only Constituent or Other role types.

What is MFA?

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) requires a user to successfully validate at least two of three factors to authenticate before gaining access to your solution and data. Blackbaud ID will require MFA using your password (what you use today) and a unique, time-based, one-time code accessed on a secondary device. We are proactively making this change, following industry-standard security measures, to help protect your organization and your data.



Miscellaneous

Please note:

• Users who use Sign in with Google or Sign in with Apple may be prompted to use an MFA that is managed by Google or Apple, even when Blackbaud doesn’t require MFA. These “social sign ins” are subject to the third party’s authentication processes, instead of Blackbaud’s process.

• Users who are already required to use MFA because they also use their BBID for other Blackbaud applications, such as Raiser’s Edge NXT, will still require MFA, regardless of their MFA settings for their roles in Education Management.

To learn more about multi-factor authentication for Blackbaud ID and to prepare for this change:

• view the online help,

• review this Knowledgebase article,

• view the webinar recording (25 minutes).

Please contact Support or your Customer Success Manager with any questions.

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Enrollment management

Candidate Preferred Name

The Candidate Nickname field has been changed to Preferred Name when using the Apply another child modal from the Admissions Progress page or from Resources. In addition, we've updated Nickname placeholder to Preferred Name when composing an Official Note as well.

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Financial Aid management

Multi-factor Authentication requirement

Beginning in October, Blackbaud will require school users accessing Blackbaud Financial Aid Management® to enable multi-factor authentication (MFA) on their Blackbaud ID (BBID) accounts.

The MFA requirement will be rolled out in waves beginning October 3rd. Users can act now and enable MFA on their Blackbaud ID ahead of the October requirement.



What is MFA?

Multi-factor authentication requires a user to successfully enter two or more factors to prove their identity when signing in to gain access to your solution and data. In addition to their Blackbaud ID username and password, users will be required to enter a unique, time-based, one-time code accessed on a secondary device. We are proactively making this change, following industry-standard security measures, to help safeguard your organization and your data.



Who is required to enable MFA?

Users accessing the Blackbaud Financial Aid Management school site.



Who is exempt?

MFA is not required for parents and guardians accessing the Blackbaud Financial Aid Management parent site.

School users who authenticate via Single Sign-on (SSO), Sign in with Google, or Sign in with Apple are not required to enable MFA.



For more information, please review this Knowledgebase article.

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Tuition management

Export Payment History

When viewing a family’s Payment History, you can now select Export to download the information as a CSV file.

Multi-factor Authentication requirement

In October, Blackbaud will require school users accessing Blackbaud Tuition Management® to enable multi-factor authentication (MFA) on their Blackbaud ID (BBID) accounts.



The MFA requirement will be rolled out in waves beginning October 3rd. Users can act now and enable MFA on their Blackbaud ID ahead of the October requirement.



What is MFA?

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) requires a user to successfully enter two or more factors to prove their identity when signing in to gain access to your solution and data. In addition to their Blackbaud ID username and password, users will be required to enter a unique, time-based, one-time code accessed on a secondary device. We are proactively making this change, following industry-standard security measures, to help safeguard your organization and your data.



Who is required to enable MFA?

Users accessing the Blackbaud Tuition Management school site.

Who is exempt?



MFA is not required for payers, parents, and guardians accessing the Tuition Management parent site.



School users who authenticate via Single Sign-on (SSO), Sign in with Google, or Sign in with Apple are not required to enable MFA.

For more information, please review this Knowledgebase article.

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API and Integrations

School API

New

We’ve added a new endpoint for updating medication records for a student.

• PATCH Medical medications update updates the medications for a student corresponding to the provided medication_id with the accompanying request body details.

Use the value of value[i].id returned in GET Medical medications for a student (BETA) as the medication_id.



We’ve added a new endpoint for adding medical athletic requirements for a student.

• POST Medical athletic requirements adds new athletic requirements for a student corresponding to the provided user_id with the accompanying request body details; athlethic_requirements accepts an array of objects, enabling the addition of multiple athletic requirements records in a single call.

Use the value of value[i].id returned throughout various GET Users endpoints as the user_id.

OneRoster

Changed

Users with a status of tobedeleted are no longer included in the users.csv OneRoster export file.

School API and OneRoster API

For information about recently added endpoints and other updates, view the School API and OneRoster API changelog.