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Overview
What is Blackbaud Education Management Solutions?
Blackbaud 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,…
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- Competitors
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- FAQs
What is Blackbaud Education Management Solutions?
Blackbaud 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 with 24/7 cloud access to submissions, assignments, discussions, online communities and tools.
Blackbaud Student Information System™: A source of data and information, ranging from schedules and grades to course requests and attendance history.
Blackbaud School Website System™: It allows users to leverage all the information sources within a school community for website content purposes. It allows schools to update content, change design, add pages, and create new sites with ease.
Blackbaud Education Management Solutions Screenshots
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Blackbaud Education Management Solutions Competitors
Blackbaud Education Management Solutions Technical Details
| Deployment Types | Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based |
|---|---|
| Operating Systems | Unspecified |
| Mobile Application | No |
| Supported Countries | United States, Canada |
Blackbaud Education Management Solutions Downloadables
Frequently Asked Questions
Veracross, Senior Systems, from Community Brands, and FACTS Student Information System are common alternatives for Blackbaud Education Management Solutions.
Reviewers rate Blackbaud Learning Management System highest, with a score of 7.3.
The most common users of Blackbaud Education Management Solutions are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
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February 17, 2022
Blackbaud to Whipple Hill and back again.
Blackbaud Education Management Solutions is used campus-wide as our primary solution for managing student information, learning management, admission/enrollment, public website, and athletics/extra-curricular, advancement, conduct, and accounting. Teachers post and students access class materials, assignments, assessments, grades, and schedules; teachers record class attendance, communicate with students and parents, view student progress and permissions/clearances for extracurricular activities; parents view student info, progress/report cards, and submit online forms. Grades and attendance data fuel program to determine and support at-risk students and eligibility for extra-curricular activities. Data also drives review of gender-based performance differences and classroom space utilization. Off-campus tutors access course information to keep in sync with on-campus classes. Resources are posted such as information sheets, how-to videos, school and area resource links, calendars, etc. Athletic teams, games and practice schedules, and results are managed. A school store sells logo'd products. Event registration and online giving is utilized. Parents, students, and employees access the authenticated area of the site while all the public-at-large access the front-face website. Tight integration with G-Suite augments Blackbaud and enhances collaboration.
- Classroom management of rosters, assignments/assessment, and grading at a class grade book level and grades for report cards. The grading function is flexible in terms of how a teacher might manage their class grade book and support consistency for rolling up grades for report cards.
- "Pushpage" communications to constituents is a powerful tool for targeted messages and for tracking results of messages read, bounced, opt-out, and clicked through.
- In attendance management, there is a nice feature to alert parents and staff when a student reaches a threshold for number of times tardy. It is difficult to do the same for absences ... we have a policy that when a student reaches a threshold of number of classes absent, their grade starts getting reduced for each additional absence. This is hard to track at a class level ... 5 absences could be 1 day out missing 5 different classes or it could be across multiple days and be 5 misses of the same class.
- Online forms have good basic functions, however, additional formatting control and ability to include/merge more data from student records would greatly add value.
- easier integration with other SIS / LMS ... like CANVAS and google classroom
- All teachers use the grade book and report card grading functions. This is a big positive for teacher time as well as for administration.
- Online course materials, assignments, and assessments have help reduced paper usage.
- RUVNA
- Pick A Time
- GSuite
- CANVAS
Blackbaud offers various approaches to integration including a full API. Some integrations were simple, like RUVNA and Pick A Time. Some a bit more complex, like GSuite. While others, like CANVAS, was a full coding / development effort.
- File import/export
- Single Signon
- API (e.g. SOAP or REST)
Go searching in forums. There is a rich community of users sharing questions, ideas, challenges, and solutions.
2100
Students = 760 Teachers = 78 Staff = 50 (primarily: business office = 3, advancement = 6, enrollment = 4, counseling = 7, admin = 10) Parents = 1200
2
Beyond the obvious strong general computer skills ... A strong data skillset is valuable for integration support and for extracting / reporting beyond canned reports and lists. People skills ... have to work with the users. Big picture skills ... support often comes at an individual level, but, a view of the big picture and interdependencies of process and information is valuable.
- Support for CARS (Care for At Risk Students) helping to highlight students with low academic performance to target additional student services.
- Extra curricular eligibility ... gradebook data feeds a dashboard highlighting students at risk of becoming ineligible due to poor grades.
- Space (buildings/rooms) utilization data is being used to inform planning for a new facility design.
- Learning management, report cards, transcripts
- Sharing of specialized student support plans (IEP, 504) with teachers.
- Website public/frontend
- Expand to include alumni
- Take advantage of admission event scheduling (prospects self help to available visit schedule slots)
- Expand to use proficiency based model
Yes
Rediker - not sure direct reasons for replacement as it was before my time here
- Product Features
- Prior Experience with the Product
prior experience demonstrated the value
a better organized cross-discipline "team"
not sure of our specific support agreement
Yes
I have seen some bugs that I reported get fixed very quickly, other longer time and others still on a queue
Would have to look back at details, but, a particular case was causing difficulty for teachers to view assignment information. I felt my case was the first one to report the issue and there was a fix posted the same day. But, may times, I a strong and quick answers that help me over hurdles in my path.
- lists (student, users, courses, etc)
- some nice integrations, for example, with Pick-a-time and RUVNA
- view student progress (as student, parent, advisor, etc)
- Forms (applications and school forms): I always want more control over forms such as conditional logic, better validation controls, cleaner handling of households (with both physical and mailing address) and separate households.
- programmatic access to form submission info (via API or Advance Lists).
- producing mailing labels (in general and specifically for various addresses for a given student/family)
Yes
many users access via the mobile interface, works fine when I do, no negative feedback from users on the mobile interface.
Blackbaud Education Management Solutions is being used for all aspects of our school, from Prekindergarten 3 to Grade 12 and in all departments across the organization from teachers to administrators to business office to development office and athletics. Blackbaud Education Management Solutions helps us more effectively communicate with our constituents, manage the educational records aspects of the school, and helps educators with organizing their classes.
- Blackbaud Education Management Solutions provides a centralized place for students and parents to find all the information they need for their day-to-day lives from assignments to schedules to athletics and more.
- Blackbaud Education Management Solutions allows for prospective families to progress logically through an admissions process and gives admissions managers the ability to track all aspects of the process.
- Blackbaud Education Management Solutions allows constituents to quickly update their own contact information, putting them into control of how they are communicated with.
- Blackbaud Education Management Solutions has a very antiquated method for sending out email communications/newsletters (called Pushpages). Many other systems provide a more robust system.
- Blackbaud Education Management Solutions has been working towards an all-in-one scheduling system, but the current system does not work for all school setups, especially those with complex structures.
- Blackbaud Education Management Solutions forward facing/public website solution works well but does not have the "flashiest" of feature sets that other solutions provide.
- Blackbaud Education Management Solutions allows our school to post news, photos, events, etc. in one centralized place and have the information cross post in a varies of areas both on the private and public sides of the website.
- Blackbaud Education Management Solutions lets our administrative assistants spend less time looking through file cabinets for records and allow for access to files from any web-connected computer on- or off-campus.
- Through reports and lists in Blackbaud Education Management Solutions users of all levels are able to print, export, and analyze various data to expedite their workflow.
- Raiser's Edge
- Raiser's Edge NXT
- MagnusHealth
The integrations range for easy to setup to complex wen it requires data migration.
- FinalSite
- File import/export
- Single Signon
Read up and ask for as much feedback from others using the product. DO internet searches for additional information and for specific issues other have come crossed.
200
Teacher, Non-Teaching Staff, Advisors, Coaches, Other Employees of the School. Ultimately the parents and students and prospective parents and students also use the system, however the backend functionality it is primary the 200+ teachers and other employees. Each uses the system in a different capacity.
5
We have a webmaster that is also the Director of Marketing and Communications, the Lower, Middle, and Upper School Registrar, Admisisons Associate, Business Office Staff and a Director of Information Technology. They each play a different role with the webmaster taking on the largest areas of support.
- Communications
- Creating Groups
- Academic Support
- Academics/Grades
- Class Organization
- Mass Communications
- Directory
- External Website
- Integrations with Other Products
- Extending Group Uses
- System Role Suport
NO. It was not offered.
Yes
If you report a bug you can expect it to take at minimum 90 days to get it resolved. Some bugs are still an issue years later.
When we have been a part of Early Adopter Programs they have been very responsive to our issues. Once products are released to the general public results can be mixed.
April 30, 2021
Registrar Review - moved over from Education Edge
We are currently migrating from Education Edge to the new Blackbaud Education Management Solutions. We will use it across the entire organization. Currently we do still use Canvas but may eventually use the LMS. We are using it across the Lower, Middle and Upper School. We also use the Enrollment Management System for the Admissions Department.
- Ease of use is great. Easy to view the information by parent and student and easy to schedule. Very intuitive to use.
- Great user interface. The parents are enjoying being able to get the information in an easy format. They can easily log on and see what class their student is in and their daily attendance.
- As Registrar, I enjoy how easy it is to update a room change or enter in new comments or notes on a student's records.
- Reporting - Hard to print out a schedule matrix like we did in Education Edge. The new K-12 system needs a report similar to the Master Schedule in Education Edge. They have one named that, but it is nothing like the old option. The ability to print a room matrix would be great.
- Reporting - printing out actual student schedules. Improve the ability to print an A/B schedule for students.
- Ability to query data like in Education Edge. This is absolutely a must. The ability to get data out of the system is horrible compared to the previous Education Edge product we used from Blackbaud.
- The biggest problem we have run into is that the new system does not support a student changing sections from 1st term to 2nd term. We use final grades, so the terms must be combined into a single Final Course Grade. This is something that Education Edge easily supported. It should have been discovered and brought up before we converted to K-12. Blackbaud should have a list of functionality that will go away when you migrate to the new system. These are both Blackbaud owned systems and they should be more responsible.
- Adjusting Schedules is faster for me and saves time.
- Ability to enter in notes/comments is much faster than it was in Education Edge.
- I have no idea what we are going to do for the Transcript. The new transcript builder flat out does not work - I am surprised that a company would even release a product like this that has obviously not been thoroughly tested. I was a QA Analyst in a previous life and this would never have gotten out of the door.
- None so far.
- Canvas - pull grades automatically into grading
I think there is some integration between these two. Still need to investigate this more.
- File import/export
I feel like they could build some additional queries or reporting that would improve the data analysis that is contained with in the system. This would help more non-technical users be able to pull the information they need quickly and easily. I often find myself having to pull data for other users.
10
Admissions , Registrar, Principals office (lower middle and upper), and the Tech team. We use the enrollment management system and student information system portions the most. Eventually we may consider adding in the Learning Management system as well.
3
- Technical
- Knowledge of entire school
- Ability to solve problems
- Enrollment videos
- Creation of student advisors in the upper school
- Manage enrollment
- Manage student records and information
- Communication to students and parents
- LMS
- Gradebook integration
Not Sure
- Price
- Product Features
- Product Usability
I was not here when they were making the decision but I know that price and functionality played a huge part. We wanted a comprehensive solution that would create a one-place stop for all parents and students to get information regarding their experience at our school. We are still working towards this.
I would encourage the team to list out all the business requirements needed in the system prior to evaluating any new software. There are some things that were not discovered until after we had installed the new software. It would have been helpful to know this up front and evaluate whether there were alternatives or some business processes needed to be changed.
I am not sure if we have the premium support package. I feel that we should be able to get our issues resolved with the basic package. These are functionality issues within the system. You should not have to pay extra to get basic functionality working correctly.
Yes
Yes - we had some issues that were escalated and resolved quickly. Blackbaud seems to release new functionality right at critical times - example new scheduling functionality during prime scheduling time. If there are bugs it brings me job to a halt. Maybe should think about this prior to release.
I have one issue that has been out there for over 2 years and is still not fixed.
I have one issue that has been out there for over 2 years and is still not fixed.
Once I was having trouble setting up my new yearly transcript. The support team was able to quickly diagnosis what setting I had incorrect and provide instructions on how to correct the issue. The support staff is always very friendly and helpful when thing are within their control.
- Scheduling
- Creating Report Cards
- Transcripts with students that change sections during year
- Final Grade calculations for students that change sections during the year.
April 27, 2021
Blackbaud Education Products Review
Currently, we use Blackbaud on a daily basis for attendance, class pages, development, and website management. We are very excited to start using the schedule feature for students. This will allow us to track students and classes at any given time during the school day. This is a great feature, but not very easy to get set up.
- Development database management through RE.
- User end experience.
- Online access to student documents.
- The admin side of the education products section can be cumbersome to navigate.
- Everything is built in a very visible block-like structure.
- Hard to get customize information in and out of BB, most of the time it requires paying for consulting hours.
- We have saved a sum of money by now posting report cards online since we are no longer paying for paper or postage.
- Tracking of attendance has become much quicker and simpler since we upgraded to this software.
- PickATime
- VisitU
The integrations were pretty seamless. However with blackbaud, Most if not all of their integrations are one Direction. Meaning Blackbaud Sends information out but you’re not able to send information back in real time.
- Magnus Health
Yes
- File import/export
- Single Signon
Nope
Just know that your information will come from Blackbaud but information will not be received back from integration
45
Teachers
Admin
Support Staff
Admin
Support Staff
2
Advanced excel knowledge
data management
knowledge of web design is a plus
data management
knowledge of web design is a plus
- Digital Report Cards
- Extracurricular Activities Attendance
- Grade Management
- Assignment distribution
- Student database
- Completely remote teaching
Not Sure
- Product Features
- Positive Sales Experience with the Vendor
The user end experience is the sole reason we chose this product.
We would look more closely at the back end and how information is entered and managed.
Not Available
Yes
The issue was submitted to a developer and we never got an answer. I later had to work on my own hours to create a solution.
When the chat function was introduced the wait time for more simplified issues became very fast and effective.
- Attendance features
- Posting school information
- Slip households
- Not having a high school style schedule
Yes
It scales well, but it does add steps/layers to access things