Blackbaud’s Education Management Solutions: What’s New For October 10, 2023

Bryna Gleich
Bryna Gleich Blackbaud Employee
Tenth Anniversary Kudos 3 Name Dropper Participant
in Blackbaud K-12 Education Solutions™ Blog
Here are the latest changes, updates, and new features for the Education management products for October 10, 2023.

Academics

Activities

When working with Activities from the Requests and schedules area of Academics, we've created a more consistent visual experience by removing Podium. Tabs now display in the typical list style found elsewhere in the product, making it much easier to view and work with the data. Each tab has available filters, customizable columns, as well as a search bar for finding something specific in the list.

Course retake

Administrators can now enable or disable the option for courses to be retaken. This also applies to users working with the Academic Course-Insert and Academic Course-Update imports.

The setting can be found from Academics, Scheduling, and then Courses list. From here, find the specific course, select it to have a flyout window appear where you can then select Edit Course. Course Retake is the final option in this list, so to enable it, make sure to select Course can be retaken which opens up additional settings. Schools can select Unlimited number of times to allow students to continue retaking as necessary or Specific number of times and then the actual number of attempts that can be made. Select Save & Close to save the changes or Cancel to back out. If schools need to update a large number, these settings can also be updated through the Course import in Core.

Keep an eye out here for grading changes related to Course Retake in the coming weeks.

We've also added support for retaken courses related to Degrees/Diplomas. Keep in mind that it does not connect to the settings on the course, but simply allows multiple takes of a course that receives credit to go towards requirements. Previously, only the attempt with the highest grade did.

Core

Grant or revoke access to view social security numbers

Faculty and staff who need to view social security numbers must be granted special access. Now, when a platform manager grants special access, they’ll go to the user’s profile in Core, select the Access tab, select Grant special access, and then confirm the change. To remove the access, select Revoke special access and then confirm the change. (This replaces the button previously called Special access and updates the corresponding user interface.)

Recently, we also made it easier to view which users have special access. To quickly find them all, go to the User List in Core and select to show a Column for Special access. Select a name from the list to go to the user’s profile to change their access.

Blackbaud ID requires Multi-factor Authentication

As of this release, Blackbaud requires faculty, admin, and staff users of Blackbaud Education Management® (BBEM) at the second “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, 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:

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

Enrollment management

We want to hear from you!

We've added a survey to the Enrollment management dashboard. If you're someone who manages student success or retention, we'd love to understand a bit more about your approach.

Alternatively, the survey link for K12 can be found here.

Financial Aid management

Enrollment Management Integration survey

Please take a few moments to complete the Financial Aid Management and Enrollment Management Integration survey. Users can also access the survey from the banner on the school site. We look forward to your feedback!

Set up your 2024-2025 application session

With the new Multi-Year functionality that we released last year, an administrator must log in and set up your school’s 2024-2025 application year with open and close dates so your school is visible to families completing the application. Your school can decide which application years are open and when they are available. You have the flexibility to keep either the 23-24, 24-25, or both years open during the date ranges of your choosing.

When you create a new year, your settings from the previous year roll forward into the new year. Take a moment to review your settings and make any necessary changes, such as updating your custom questions, before families begin applying.

Set up the 24-25 application year:

  • Select Settings, then Manage School Years.
  • Select Add.
  • Under Session, select 2024-2025.
  • Select the Open Date and Close Date.
  • Select Save.

Multi-factor Authentication requirement

Blackbaud is requiring school users accessing Blackbaud Financial Aid Management® to enable multi-factor authentication (MFA) on their Blackbaud ID (BBID) accounts. The requirement is being rolled out in waves throughout the month of October.

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 are 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.

Tuition management

Modifying bank accounts with On Hold payments

School Site

When updating the bank account information for a payer with an On Hold payment, school users now receive a warning that the On Hold payment will be failed if they continue with their changes. Users can select Continue to proceed or select Cancel to keep the On Hold payment and update the bank account information after the payment comes off hold.

Parent Site

When a payer updates their bank account information while they have an On Hold payment, the updated account information is now added as a new bank account record. The old bank account with the On Hold payment remains active.

If a payer attempts to delete a bank account with an On Hold payment, a message explains that they can delete the bank account after the payment comes off hold or contact the Parent Contact Center to fail the On Hold payment and delete the account.

Buy Now Give Now payments require phone number

Buy Now Give Now payments now require a valid phone number.

Multi-factor Authentication requirement

Blackbaud is requiring school users accessing Blackbaud Tuition Management® to enable multi-factor authentication (MFA) on their Blackbaud ID (BBID) accounts. The requirement is being rolled out in waves throughout the month of October.

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 are 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.

API and Integrations

School API

We’ve added two new endpoints for deleting medical allergies and deleting medical conditions.

  • DELETE Medical allergies removes an allergy record from a student that matches the provided allergy_id parameter included in the request.
  • DELETE Medical conditions removes a condition record from a student that matches the provided condition_id parameter included in the request.

School API and OneRoster API

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

Subscribe to “What’s New”

To receive email notifications when the What’s new update appears, make sure to subscribe to he K12 community’s blog by logging into the community site and selecting the Subscribe button.

To manage your community subscriptions:

  1. Log into the community and locate your name and profile picture in the upper right corner.
  2. Select the drop-down arrow and select My Account.
  3. From the My Account page, select the Subscriptions tab and scroll down to the Blogs section.
  4. Locate Blackbaud K-12 Education solutions Blog. If you want to be notified as soon as the What’s new content goes live on the community, select the Instant option. You can also opt for Daily and Weekly notifications.
  5. Scroll to the end of the page and select Save changes.

What’s Recent

Missed any of our weekly releases? You can catch up on everything in our Month in Review blog posts, which cover every feature and update Education management releases each month.

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