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Clunky, non-user friendly system with poor customer service
March 28, 2022

Clunky, non-user friendly system with poor customer service

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Blackbaud Education Management Solutions

Our whole organization uses Blackbaud Education Management Solutions. We use it for class management, grades management, and scheduling. It also releases our report cards and transcripts to students and parents, including grade calculations. Students, parents, faculty, and staff are all users. We have a brother school on the same system and sometimes these two systems sync well, but sometimes small differences pose problems.
  • Master rollover saves time
  • Calendar adjusts well for rotating schedules
  • Email communication with built-in groups (such as advisories or classes) is easy
  • The new transcript builder is essentially unusable for us - it won't include transfer classes, which is a tremendous gap
  • I feel that they need to streamline their site. Every function takes multiple pathways to reach and as a result, many functions are hidden from the average user
  • We are K-12 and our middle school teachers can't recommend classes for 8th graders going into 9th grade - this should be a basic function
  • Hours of lost time trying to get help from customer service
From my experience, this is a major flaw of the system. When I come across a problem I know it will take at least 24 hours to hear back from anyone (regardless of the status I rate the problem) and I have never been able to get a 2-way conversation going. I wait for an answer, it usually either only partially addresses the problem or is not a fix, then I have to point out why it doesn't work, and I wait another 24 hours for a response.

Do you think Blackbaud Education Management Solutions delivers good value for the price?

No

Are you happy with Blackbaud Education Management Solutions's feature set?

No

Did Blackbaud Education Management Solutions live up to sales and marketing promises?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of Blackbaud Education Management Solutions go as expected?

I wasn't involved with the implementation phase

Would you buy Blackbaud Education Management Solutions again?

No

In my opinion, their customer service is almost useless. I usually wait at least 24 hours for a response after opening a "ticket", and often the answers are incomplete. I recently inquired about allowing our 8th grade teachers to recommend students for grade 9 classes, and I feel the responder clearly did not test any of her suggested solutions before emailing them back to me, because I immediately realized the "solutions" didn't solve the problem. This is a common customer service experience. Then, after a full week of going back and forth, she told me she agreed the solution was impractical and complicated but that I should suggest it on the website.