If you’re a Blackbaud school, you most likely have seen the announcements that BlackbaudID will soon be required for login to Core, Education Management and most other Blackbaud products. If this seems like jargon to you, or you’re not sure how to move forward, read on!
In the past, Blackbaud has had a different username and password for every system you purchase from them. This could be Education Management (CORE), Financial Edge, Raiser’s Edge, Tuition Management, and more. This meant that you had to maintain several different usernames and passwords depending on how many systems you had access to.
The response to this was to create BlackbaudID, a Blackbaud-specific Single Sign-On system for all of their products. It essentially allows you to link your username and password for each independent system to a single login (BlackbaudID), allowing you to have one set of credentials across nearly all of your Blackbaud platforms.
It’s very similar to Google where you can link your Google account to different websites to log in rather than maintaining that separate login.
Blackbaud is now in the process of mandating that BlackbaudID be used across it’s Education Management (CORE or SIS) products. The goal is to eventually require everyone using the system, even students and parents, to use their BlackbaudID to log in. This increases security by reducing usernames and passwords, allowing 2-factor authentication, and creates a seamless experience between switching systems (such as parents going between the SIS and Tuition Management).
Moving to BlackbaudID can be quite the task, so taking the time to plan it out is important. Some of the considerations include:
- What order will you go in? Will you do staff, students and then parents, all at one time, or some other combination of user groups or subgroups?
- Will you link Google or Microsoft365 to your BlackbaudID system? This will allow staff and students with school-issued email accounts to log into their BlackbaudID with their school-issued account, streamlining the login process.
- Will you enforce 2-factor authentication with BlackbaudID? Note that if you’re linking Google or Microsoft365, your 2-factor authentication will be based on your settings in those systems, rather than BlackbaudID.
- When will you go live with BlackbaudID? Some schools will want to go live during the school year while everyone’s on campus, while others will want to do it over the summer or a break.
Now is the time to start planning for this important transition if you haven’t already. Given the security benefits and smoother login process, a sooner rather than later approach is best.
If you’re finding you’re still confused or just don’t have the time to work on this, let us know! As a Blackbaud Channel Partner with K-12 Certifications, LeadershipOne Technologies has the background and experience implementing BlackbaudID and G Suite integration to get this project done smoothly for you. Contact us today!
