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Blackbaud is a good solution
Updated April 27, 2021

Blackbaud is a good solution

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

Overall Satisfaction with Blackbaud Education Management Solutions

The platform is being used to manage all aspects of the school. Our goal is to have all staff use it - from teachers to all administrative staff. It is keeping all the pertinent data in one place for the school and is being used to help digitize past records for alumni whose info we would be using fundraising.
  • It helps the staff easily keep track of records.
  • Enrollment is up to date.
  • Communication with constituents is more frequent.
  • I am unable to find easy tutorials to provide to parents and teachers.
  • Finding workarounds to implement.
  • Sometimes the customer support does not know the answer to a question.
  • Prospective parents are impressed by the technology.
  • Teachers have direct access to parents and vice versa.
  • Getting the most out of your money tends to be hard.
In our experience, Blackbaud has always been helpful in some way or another when we call. The only frustrating thing is that you have to keep calling in order to get a second opinion. It would be nice to have the same information every time you call. There is always a need to find work around to the solutions the school is looking for
Blackbaud Education Management Solutions is great for younger parents since they are usually on their phones and check their emails throughout the workday. The older crowd has a hard time integrating and still require information to be printed out and delivered or to receive phone calls. Some school staff have a harder time catching up with the program.

Integrating Blackbaud Education Management Solutions

The Blackbaud team does help customers to integrate products. They make the process seamless and are there should you have any questions. It would be nice if the process was easier but it is my understanding that if something is plugged in the wrong way you would need Blackbaud support to help anyways. Might as well go through the process together
  • Finalsite
  • Smart Tuition
  • Outlook
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.
  • Microsoft Outlook
  • Finalsite Payment Service
At the moment I have not read about any plans to integrate but it would be more inclusive to have other providers such as Microsoft to integrate.
  • API (e.g. SOAP or REST)
I would like to have more options in integrated products. It is not as inclusive as it should be. This is probably due to the fact that companies have to have an agreement in place perhaps that is what is holding the process back. It would be easier if there was more support staff available to help customers for longer than 15 minutes

Using Blackbaud Education Management Solutions

36 - Many people use the software. they are teachers and staff with different functions. Admissions use it to track the student from inquiry to enrollment. The financial office uses the program for tuition management and teachers use it to keep in contact with parents via the topics pages. Parents use the program to access information
4 - Managers of Finance, Admissions, and communications use the program on a daily basis. The people who use the program on a daily basis need to have a basic understanding of relational data in order to keep track of the changes. They are people who need to be open to change and ready to learn new things.
  • data management
  • paperless processing
  • accessibility
  • Emergency tracking of student record
  • up-to-date information on student
  • parents updating their own profile
  • management of alumni
  • automation of processes
  • archiving classes to be used in the future
We are invested in Blackbaud, it was a process to get all parents to commit to the portal. At this point, we are committed to keeping Blackbaud for the next couple of years as teachers and the community are already on board. Blackbaud is helping the organization become better time managers.

Evaluating Blackbaud Education Management Solutions and Competitors

  • Price
  • Product Features
  • Product Usability
While I was not part of the decision-making, the buying team was looking for an all-in-one product that would be affordable and sustainable for years to come. There were looking for something that would be user-friendly and have a short learning curve. Usability was an important factor because there isn't much time to train new users.
I would need to know more about the other program before purchasing. There are many features that are useful however we were not aware of them before purchasing the program. This would have been good to know, also if we had known how to program it for a school our size before purchasing it.

Blackbaud Education Management Solutions Support

ProsCons
Quick Resolution
Knowledgeable team
Kept well informed
Immediate help available
Support cares about my success
Poor followup
Problems left unsolved
Escalation required
Need to explain problems multiple times
Slow Initial Response
No. We are a small organization and would not be able to sustain having to pay extra for a premium use of Blackbaud to have an answer. The community seems to be sufficient for answers to be answered. There seem to be a lot of extras for the system to work well
We were once in need of raw data for emergency cards, we were able to get someone on the phone after hours. This has helped us tremendously in downloading all the information we need and manipulate it in a way that will be useful for years to come. We were grateful to have this solution

Using Blackbaud Education Management Solutions

The program takes a while to get used to. Once you use it well, it is very useful but it takes time. There should be a training manual with the training videos to help new employees who are not used to the program to continue their job. It is overall usable but it takes some time to get used to.
ProsCons
Like to use
Well integrated
Unnecessarily complex
Requires technical support
  • application
  • pushpages
  • student profiles
  • reports
  • raw reports
  • forms
  • profile updates
Yes - The mobile interface is not competent with a mobile-first world. Our school applications are hard to complete on mobile. It is a constant struggle to have clients use a desktop to complete a school application. It would be great if it was more usable via mobile especially for internal staff to update items.