Blocks can't be changed because attendance has been taken

Jack Armitage · October 2023

Is anyone else frustrated by the change recently made by Blackbaud, which locks the block a class has been scheduled into because attendance has been taken for that class? Changing the block that a class has been scheduled into has never been a problem - until now.

I needed to change the block for a class and discovered that option was no longer there; the block was locked because attendance had been taken at some point for that class. I contacted support and was told that I had to go through the attendance - back to the start of the year(!) - and remove all attendance records from that class. Then I could change the block - and put all of the attendance records back in! It used to be as simple as going to “Set section Info” and selecting a new block.

I'm sure that there are going to be more situations like this, where a block will need to be changed, so I am reaching out to see if other schools are happy about this change.

Jack Armitage

Dwight-Englewood School, Englewood, NJ

Lisa Saunders · October 2023

@Jack Armitage
Hi Jack, we are also frustrated by this setting. it Takes more time now to make a block change for anyone with negative attendance entries. We record the attendance then renter it as needed but extra clicks and extra detail steps. Would love a better process for this. For entries like music lessons and learning center appointments which change frequently we have abandoned dealing with the attendance and I will often delete the section and recreate it (If it is a one person section) as that is faster.

Lisa Saunders

Brooks School

Jack Armitage · October 2023

@Lisa Saunders
The change I made today was to -

Create a new section in the “Manage Classes” module (with the block I wanted to change to)

Transfer all the students from the original section into the new section. This has to be done individually for each student, because there is no “transfer group” process anymore either!

Delete the old (original) section.

This used to be so easy. There was no need to change how blocks were connected to classes. Whose idea was it to link attendance records to the blocks; attendance should be linked to the class. I suspect that who ever came up with this idea has never had to maintain a school schedule!

Boyd Reilly · October 2023

@Jack Armitage

So, if you click the dots to the left of the class you can pick the Transfer option to move the student into a new block:

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Thanks.

Boyd

Jacqueline Koca · October 2023

Hi all!

This change was made due to determining this was one of the root causes of attendance data being orphaned and unconnected to meeting times. The orphaned data was then causing discrepancies in attendance reporting depending on where you viewed attendance data in the app. We know that it can be critical that attendance data is accurate especially in the case of state reporting or legal requests so we took the initial action of locking down the block field to prevent further orphaned data.

That being said, based on the use cases provided via feedback to an idea bank idea, we were able to determine a better long term solution. Barring any issues during final quality testing, as of 10/31 you will be able to edit the block on the section again. Changing the block will change all meetings for the class moving forward, while retaining the original meeting times for past meetings.

Thank you all for your feedback!
Jacqueline, SIS Product Manager

David Gillespie · October 2023

@Jacqueline Koca
That's the perfect solution!! Those of us who have been with BB/WH for a long time knew we could always change a section's block number “before” but didn't realize attendance was being orphaned. I appreciate the explanation and the change there; too often in previous years changes were made to the system that were probably for some good reason but never explained, and when users protested we were just met with a shrug. I know we all appreciate the proactive work on both fronts. Thank you!

Ben Taylor · October 2023

@Jack Armitage On balance this change is frustrating to me, but I am a little divided. Obviously fixing orphaned data can be important for schools using automatic infractions and other tools to manage attendance issues. But being able to change blocks was hugely helpful to us managing some peculiarities in our schedule where when a teacher begins a coaching season we needed to shift their class to an “X” block that had slightly different meeting times. The minutiae there aren't worth getting into.

So, on the one hand it is super frustrating to not be able to just toggle the block, but on the other, being forced to go into daily schedule calendar and change the times just for the weeks that will be affected has some real advantages - it is far more work, but can be “set-and-forget," and might be worth the extra work in our case.

The time-period I am extremely worried about, though, is the very beginning of the year when invariably at least a few schedule changes bubble up due to unforeseen circumstances. Fixing those will now be quite difficult, and often have to be done quite quickly.

Kris Deardorff · October 2023

@Jacqueline Koca Thank you so much!!

Trudy Howard · October 2023

@Jacqueline Koca Hi Jaquenline. We are not seeing the ability to edit the block on our sections today. Is there an update on this?

Jacqueline Koca · November 2023

Hi @Trudy Howard!

We did take an extra day or two for some final QA testing before releasing the changes to unlock the blocks on the Manage Classes modal and the Set Section info page. As of 11/2, classes where attendance has already been taken can have the block edited again.

Thank you!
Jacqueline

Trudy Howard · November 2023

@Jacqueline Koca Thank you!

Blocks can't be changed because attendance has been taken

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