Student Checklists and School Forms

Derek Porter
Derek Porter
Tenth Anniversary Kudos 1 Name Dropper Participant
in Blackbaud Enrollment Management System™

We are looking to use student checklists for the first time this summer to publish various forms to parents. I was wondering about reminders, since they can be set both for the individual forms themselves as well as checklist steps. I'm guessing that if they are both set, they will both be sent - is that true? I don't believe we'd want that, but since we only used form reminders last year, I want to be sure we remove them if we decide to use the checklist step reminders instead.

How do you all handle this? I like that the form reminders have more options and can be sent at multiple intervals. Just trying to get my head around the quirks and see what's working, or not, for others. Thank you!

Comments

  • Lauren Marcus Eisenberg
    Lauren Marcus Eisenberg
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 Name Dropper Participant

    @Derek Porter I started using student checklists when they first became available. I will NOT be using them again. Too many significant issues. The most egregious are:

    • When a form is assigned to the student/family exclusively in the checklist, initially, the form will not show when parent visits Forms to Review. However, once the parent starts the form, it will show in Forms to Review.
    • Conversely, forms are assigned through student checklists subsequently show in "Forms to Review" as well as "Checklists to Review"
      • This is confusing to parents who return to complete outstanding tasks. If they click into Checklists to Review, they lose the link to "Forms to Review" but not vice versa.
    • Save filters: one must constantly recreate filters
    • It isn't possible to send general/overview checklist reminder, i.e., a message along the lines of "you have the following outstanding checklist items"
    • After the step due date, it isn't possible to push out reminders.


  • Kathy Hannon
    Kathy Hannon
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 K-12 Fall 2025 Product Update Briefing Badge Name Dropper

    @Derek Porter we have been using Student Checklists since they launched - we use the checklist for our back to school paperwork and our parents like having the checklist to see what has and hasn't been completed. We also make the forms able to move to next form. It's been a learning curve and I believe that the reminder is within the Checklist (unless BB has changed that) and it only allows 1 choice for when but you can go in and change (just have to remember). We moved to just doing push page to all parents reminding that paperwork is live and due date - send this reminder once a week for 3 weeks before school starts. We have a 95% completion by due date and then 100% about a week after when we send emails to parents who haven't completed (I have a list for outstanding parents per form).

  • Brian LeBlanc
    Brian LeBlanc
    Kudos 5 Fourth Anniversary Name Dropper Participant

    @Derek Porter We set the reminder in the individual forms, although in the interest of not bombarding our families with a million reminder emails (albeit there are advantages to that as well!), we only set the reminder to send on what we decide is the most important form. In our case, that's the emergency contact and carpool pickup form. The assumption is that most people do all of them at the same time, so if one is missing, chances are others are as well.

    To your point, setting reminders within the forms allows for more than one reminder. We have them set to start three weeks out and parents will eventually get five reminders to complete their paperwork.

    One thing I need to warn you about: if you collect uploaded forms through a checklist, they will be placed in Files and Forms in Core, but if you ever delete that checklist or unassign it to students, the forms will be deleted as well. We learned this the hard way when a bunch of our forms were inadvertently deleted when I was removing old checklists. The popup box when you unassign a checklist will say that files uploaded will remain in Files and Forms, but that is not the case - don't get caught like we did!

  • Coco Parham
    Coco Parham
    Eighth Anniversary Kudos 5 December 2025 Monthly Challenge Name Dropper

    @Derek Porter I have been hesitant to use them. I think it creates more work for me, since the forms are for different departments and they are checking to see the progress of who has submitted them (I assign the forms to students but I am not “responsible” for them). Instead we use the reminder built in but honestly it is easier for our Communications Dept to send out reminders, using mailchimp so we can check to see who is opening the email, if needed. We have to send out multiple reminders, I'm afraid.

    In a perfect world, it would be nice to have certain forms completed (for ex. health forms) before students can see their class schedule, But I am told they need to see their schedule for summer reading requirements in certain English classes. Oh well.

  • Kathy Hannon
    Kathy Hannon
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 K-12 Fall 2025 Product Update Briefing Badge Name Dropper

    @Brian LeBlanc thank you! I didn't realize the forms would be deleted when checklist is removed - we have, as per our policy, always archived our checklists. Nice to know that's a potential issue

  • Derek Porter
    Derek Porter
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 1 Name Dropper Participant

    Thank you all very much for the very helpful feedback. The checklists do seem to be another one of those features that look great on the surface, but have important caveats to be aware of. I appreciate sharing your thoughts and experiences.

    I decided to hold my breath and try them out for this summer, using the reminders in the forms only. It's only been a few days, but so far, we've been getting forms submitted and I haven't heard of any issues yet. I know it's early, but fingers crossed..

    But thanks again for sharing the potential gotchas we should look out for. Wish me luck ?

  • John Ronan
    John Ronan
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 Name Dropper Participant

    I would only add to/amend @Coco Parham's note to say that the pushpage facility can tell you who has read the email…

  • Eleanor Rizzo
    Eleanor Rizzo
    Fourth Anniversary Kudos 1 Name Dropper Participant

    @Derek Porter Do you know… is it safe to assume that if we set up reminders now for forms that were assigned earlier this month that BB will send reminder emails only for forms that have not yet been submitted? (I wouldn't want to set up reminders now and then have reminders sent for completed forms just because we didn't set up the reminders when we initially assigned the forms.)

  • Eleanor Rizzo
    Eleanor Rizzo
    Fourth Anniversary Kudos 1 Name Dropper Participant

    @Derek Porter Hi there. Just check in to see if you have any insight from your experience this summer… Is it safe to assume that if we set up reminders for forms after the forms were assigned that BB will send reminder emails only for forms that have not yet been submitted? (I wouldn't want to set up reminders after the fact and then have reminders sent for completed forms just because we didn't set up the reminders when we initially assigned the forms.)

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