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Cisco Duo vs. Blackbaud Education Management Solutions

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Cisco Duo

    Score9.4 out of 10
    N/ACisco Duo is a two-factor authentication system (2FA), acquired by Cisco in October 2018. It provides single sign-on (SSO) and endpoint visibility, as well as access controls and policy controlled adaptive authentication.

    $3

    per month per user

    Blackbaud Education Management Solutions

    Score7.1 out of 10
    N/ABlackbaud Education Management Solutions is a unified student management system for K–12 private schools. Blackbaud Enrollment Management System™: Gives schools and families the ability to track admissions progress from first impressions all the way through the application process to acceptance, enrollment, and tuition payment. Blackbaud Learning Management System™: Track students' academic performance and progression…N/A
    Pricing
    Cisco DuoBlackbaud Education Management Solutions
    Editions & Modules
    Duo Essentials
    $3
    per month per user
    Duo Advantage
    $6
    per month per user
    Duo Premier
    $9
    per month per user
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Cisco DuoBlackbaud Education Management Solutions
    Free Trial
    YesNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeRequired
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Cisco DuoBlackbaud Education Management Solutions
    Considered Both Products
    Cisco
    No answer on this topic
    Blackbaud
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    99%
    Would buy again
    129 Answers
    73%
    Would buy again
    11 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    99%
    Delivers good value for the price
    118 Answers
    85%
    Delivers good value for the price
    11 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    99%
    Happy with the feature set
    129 Answers
    87%
    Happy with the feature set
    13 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    99%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    94 Answers
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    7 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    98%
    Implementation went as expected
    106 Answers
    83%
    Implementation went as expected
    10 Answers
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    Cisco DuoBlackbaud Education Management Solutions
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    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Cisco DuoBlackbaud Education Management Solutions
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.4
    (196 ratings)
    7.0
    (120 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    9.9
    (9 ratings)
    7.5
    (9 ratings)
    Usability
    10.0
    (76 ratings)
    6.5
    (7 ratings)
    Availability
    9.9
    (8 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    9.8
    (3 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    9.9
    (89 ratings)
    7.0
    (115 ratings)
    Online Training
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.9
    (9 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Configurability
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    9.9
    (8 ratings)
    7.0
    (21 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    9.8
    (3 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Cisco DuoBlackbaud Education Management Solutions
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Cisco
    For secure access to apps and business data, I recommend Cisco Duo. It offers SSO, MFA, and Passwordless access, ensuring teams can securely access business data. It is easy to customize and comes with top-tier security features. It protects business data, apps, and users.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Blackbaud
    A good, and constantly improving solution for private schools. I don't know that a lot of its functionality would be well suited to public schools, but maybe? The integration with other Blackbaud software is a huge plus for us, as we have several of their other products including their flagship Raiser's Edge. Smaller schools may not need the sophistication of Blackbaud solutions, and it is not an inexpensive option.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Cisco
    • We use Cisco Duo with different type of device and application, but we never face any difficulties to integrate Cisco Duo with any of them.
    • We integrated Cisco Duo with some of our active directory and some of the OS are quite old but Cisco Duo works totally fine with them.
    • The end user application is very easy to use. We never had any complain from non tech team members of having trouble of using Cisco Duo.
    • There are several authentication methods available rather than passcode. I personally like the push notification which is always on time and quite fast.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Blackbaud
    • Seamless integration between the LMS, EMS and SIS modules
    • Real-time, effective chat support helps me not only with urgent needs but also to work through possibilities for increasing how we use the product.
    • Feature upgrades monthly that respond to voiced needs from users
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Cisco
    • Should have device to device connection ability whereas internet is not met.
    • Changes of device can be sorted and easily made using a second email address or any other identification method.
    • Troubleshooting should be easy to sort out. One time, a Duo admin deleted the authentication group, and some employees were not getting push notifications. It was very hard to find out the cause. Duo should have some troubleshooting finder.
    • Sometimes push notifications are delayed, and the code does not work. At that time, we need to enroll the device again. Not sure why it happens. Duo should give reasons for the error.
    Read full review
    Blackbaud
    • Forms - lack of conditional questions
    • Gradebook -lack of links to assignments
    • Not being able to customize displays, for example, Grading tab - we just finished 1st semester and teachers could only see the current quarter but not the 1st one which is still part of the first semester. Lack of customization in assessments.
    • Scheduling- even though re-running generating schedules, we're still getting a high number of unscheduled students. Lack of being able to limit the number of scheduled classes in a row for teachers.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Cisco
    There are a lot of competing solutions on the market; however, Duo "just works", and there is little to no learning curve for the new members to be acclimated to it. As long as that continues I see it as the preferred option moving forward
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Blackbaud
    It is a solid product. We have some issues with the capabilities of the website building components and the out dated technology behind its communications software but overall Blackbaud Education Management Software services to combine numerous functions into one product.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Cisco
    La interfaz es intuitiva y fácil de navegar, lo que permite a los usuarios administrar sus dispositivos y acceder a las políticas sin problemas. La integración con las aplicaciones SSO y SaaS facilita aún más el proceso de acceso, mejorando la experiencia del usuario.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Blackbaud
    Blackbaud EMS is very usable from my perspective. I am a power user and get lots of valuable functionality. It is, however, a complex system. Sometimes necessarily complex to accommodate flexibility for diverse customer needs. Some complexity seems unnecessary and/or hold-over functionality from earlier versions; nice to see this type being evolved away from over time. It is valuable to receive regular updates to the system along with good release notes of what changed and notices of significant changes in advance.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Cisco
    In the last 5+ years we've been using Duo, there may have been 1 outage that impacted us. We do receive periodic notifications of issues but, for the most part, they impact carriers or functionality that we either don't use, or do not care about.
    Read full review
    Blackbaud
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    Cisco
    We do not see any degradation of performance of the protected applications. There are occasional lags in receiving the push but no show stooppers.
    Read full review
    Blackbaud
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    Cisco
    I have not needed direct support for Cisco Secure Access by Duo as I have not had a problem with it, but I have full confidence that the support is outstanding. It is now a core component of the corporate technology stack - a problem would mean a serious degradation in the ability of the company to function.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Blackbaud
    Decent support however the chat feature can take a great amount of time out of the workday. If for instance you are waiting for someone to respond in the chat and there is a fire drill, if you are not responding within a few minutes, you are disconnected and have to start all over again. It would be great if you could submit your problem and then whoever has the most experience, can respond. The training in the Blackbaud University is good but also time-consuming - a 3 hr training in the middle of a workday is a lot to ask. I like the 90-minute sessions. It would also be great to offer a shorter webinar to update on any changes implemented. Other than the email I subscribed to, there is no information on how these updates actually work.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    In-Person Training
    Cisco
    There was no in person training but checking the box was the only way I could complete all of the questions.
    Read full review
    Blackbaud
    No answers on this topic
    Online Training
    Cisco
    This was not organized training but the videos that Duo provides to teach you how to install a particular integration are top notch.
    Read full review
    Blackbaud
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation Rating
    Cisco
    Documentation could have been better. I had to piece together different KB/admin guides to make certain things work and I also had to use third-party guides to get bits of information that were missing from Cisco Duo documentation. Support was also engaged multiple times to figure out an issue and after some back and forth it was usually determined that the information I needed was hidden somewhere else and had no direct correlation with the document that was linked from the platform.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Blackbaud
    No answers on this topic
    Alternatives Considered
    Cisco
    Ultimately we ended up going with Cisco Duo because we are a Cisco shop. All of our networking infrastructure, our phones, our wireless environment is Cisco based. It made logical sense to stay with a product that we already have a line of support with. With a smaller support / tech group we depend on outside Cisco support. That support is already here for us, so we stayed with a Cisco product.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Blackbaud
    Blackbaud K-12 is very similar. I feel like I would be trading one set of issues for another so it's kind of a wash. We are very much hooked into the Blackbaud website with our Google SSO, SmartTuition, and Schooldoc integrations. It would be difficult for us to transition. That is the main reason I haven't really entertained other web firms.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    Cisco
    So far, the only limits we've encountered were tied to our imagination. Duo's strong list of supported integrations is amazing.
    Read full review
    Blackbaud
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    Cisco
    • Cisco Duo has saved us from automated attacks on VPN. We had an instance is 2024 where our VPN was being brute force attacked, and we had several users' weak passwords compromised; however the VPN security groups, and the MFA kept the attacks from gaining access. We've since replaced our firewall with capabilities for limitations on country access for VPN, and beefed up our password complexity settings,
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Blackbaud
    • Negative - The rollout is brutal. Blackbaud said it could happen in 6 months, but that is definitely not a reality. It will take well over a year, and one complete school cycle to actually integrate everything correctly.
    • Positive - The amount of time saved in data processing has allowed our office to become more involved in other areas of the school.
    • Positive - The ease of having everything in [one] place, from inquiry to application to contracts and course registration, has been a HUGE benefit to our applicants and their families.
    Incentivized
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    ScreenShots

    Blackbaud Education Management Solutions Screenshots

    Screenshot of Topics pages help organize units of learning throughout the year in the Learning Management SystemScreenshot of Blackbaud's education management solutions come with strong reporting tools to get the information you need quicklyScreenshot of Schedule view makes it easy for teachers to manage their daysScreenshot of Blackbaud Enrollment Management System Admissions Checklists help applicants track their progress in the admissions processScreenshot of Blackbaud's education management solutions come with strong reporting tools to get the information you need quicklyScreenshot of Keep track of all the key information about your students in one place