Blackbaud Education Management Solutions

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.

The integrations range for easy to setup to complex wen it requires data migration.

Both VisitU and CrisisGo pull student data from Blackbaud to populate their solutions. This data is synced regularly to ensure it is accurate and up to date. CrisisGo also syncs faculty data and class roster data. In both cases, the integration is a one way push from Blackbaud to the 3rd party product.

For Turnitin and GSuite Couse Kit, there is two way integration. Student Roster data is pushed to both and then the grades are pushed back into the teacher's gradebook from the assignments that leverage these two solutions.

None of these integrations were terribly difficult to set up, however documentation is sometimes hard to find to get it set up initially. Once it is set up, you really do not have to mess with it again after that.

We did the integration back in 2017 and I remember it was a big process.

Superficial and sometimes no solution, but our organization utilized custom built systems that integrated with BBEMS

Pretty easy to integrate. Finalsite (our main website developer) set up the sync.

Magnus Health and Regroup pull contact information for students and parents and update automatically.
GoFormative and EdPuzzle work by linking to assignments in teacher gradebooks.

Magnus and Regroup were very easy to setup. With GoFormative and EdPuzzle, we weren't immediately successful, but got it to work quickly. GoFormative was very helpful and send us specific directions for setting it up in our Blackbaud environment.

SOFTCHALK INTEGRATION ALLOWS DIGITAL TEXTBOOK ASSIGNMENTS TO BE LISTED DIRECTLY THROUGH BLACKBAUD. IT WAS VERY EASY TO INTEGRATE. GOOGLE DRIVE ALLOWS STUDENTS TO SUBMIT FILES FROM DRIVE THROUGH THE ASSIGNMENT SUBMISSIONS IN CLASS PAGES. THIS WAS ALSO VERY EASY TO INTEGRATE.

The depth of integration varies with each product. For example, Pick-A-Time is only used for SSO capabilities for parents. Magnus Health, BrightArrow, and Finalsite are more cumbersome. I'd place the Ravenna integration in its own category. For the most part, the integrations went smoothly. It's definitely important to get the field mapping perfect.

Most integration is vetted by Blackbaud in advance and covered by great step-by-step written instructions to help with any issues

Not too difficult at all.

SchoolPass is a 1-way sync for contact card data. It was relatively easy to do, however, communication was not clear from Blackbaud as to specific steps required. Blackboard (Connect5) WAS a sync with Contact Card Emergency Contact data, however, Blackbaud went hands-off the tool, and BlackBoard/Connect5 has yet to develop a new sync tool. (Result, I ended the integration and will be selecting a different text alert product.)

Diamond Mind integrates quite easily, Smart Aid is a little more complicated but also integrates well. Raiser's Edge is also a Blackbaud product, but it was much more complicated to integrate than we had anticipated.

We have integrations with both of these Blackbaud partners and it was very easy to set up.

Integrating Finalsite and Smart Tuition was fairly easy as both companies have agreements with Blackbaud. Integrating Outlook was different because Blackbaud has an agreement with Google products and not Microsoft.

Integration is pretty seamless as far as the process, but can sometimes be glitchy and need a reset and troubleshooting support.

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.

ConnectRE and Blackbaud Tuition Management are both Blackbaud products so they were easy enough to integrate it was just a bit time consuming making sure fields and field names matched. BrightArrow is our text blasting system and it was quite simple as they do the backend integration once the API code was set up. Being integrated is so much better so data is cleaner from system to system and you dont have to do constant imports and exports to updated each system.
SchoolPass again they did the integration once we had the API and I love how when a student enrolls it automatically uploads to SchoolPass.

The integrations in all cases were simple sets ups that allow the BEMS logon to function as an SSO to the programs