1. Home
  2. School Management Software
  3. Blackbaud Education Management Solutions Reviews
  4. User Review of Blackbaud Education Management Solutions
We love Blackbaud, but we especially love that it continues to improve!
Updated May 04, 2021

We love Blackbaud, but we especially love that it continues to improve!

Elaine Mouton | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Blackbaud Education Management Solutions

We use it in all departments. The main advantage for us to have data integration across departments.
  • The availability of data to all constituents anywhere that you have internet access is vital.
  • The ability to view online data easily on every device is crucial. (responsive views).
  • Ease of use for Parents and Students has been critical. Students figure it out on their own. Written "how to" documents were hardly used by students.
  • Blackbaud is committing resources to always evaluate and improve their product. It is comforting to know that if there is functionality that you wish was better, it is only a matter of time and it will likely be improved.
  • We need personal profile data updates for parents to update their record in Tuition Management automatically.
  • We need to be able to view the feeder school on the student's academic record and not have to go to Enrollment Management to see this.
  • More scheduling rules like, "do not schedule X in the same semester as Y."
  • We no longer mail anything related to academics. Much saved on postage!
  • Great for sharing information with Advancement, they can pull it themselves. Much time saved pulling and sending lists for them. (Teams, Activities, etc.)
In the past, I found that I often knew more than the support analyst that I was talking with. I have felt like support is much more informed now; especially impressed with those who are knowledgeable in EE and Education Management. I love being able to chat with support!
It is perfect for schools with students and parents who are always connected to a device. I am not sure if it exists, but it would not be great for a school with students and parents who do not have easy access to the internet.

Integrating Blackbaud Education Management Solutions

Blackbaud has come a long way in making the data more accessible to others. Most companies that we integrate with have the process down and can help us with the setup. We are working on leveraging integrations more with some of our processes that our resident programmer writes for us. We are making steady progress as we move from legacy API to SKY API, but some of our data will still be pulled using legacy lists. We have learned a lot from other users in the Blackbaud Community, but we are also really glad that Blackbaud support is more helpful than it has been in the past.
  • Magnus Health
  • Regroup
  • GoFormative
  • EdPuzzle
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.
  • Follett
  • Some homegrown programs
We have been working with Follett to try to get this integration to work. For many years, we have pulled enrollment data and used it with their Book Now feature so that students can pull personalized book lists. We are hoping to get to the point where that data can transfer directly and update as schedule changes happen.
  • File import/export
  • API (e.g. SOAP or REST)
Take things step by step and ask for help when you get stuck. Use the outside company's tech support, the Blackbaud Community and Blackbaud support to help figure out the next steps. Frequently, others have got stuck at the same place that you have and can tell you how to get past the roadblock.