Welcome back to a new school year!
To make sure that your year starts up smoothly, this section provides you with a checklist to return to school. Provided is a list of things to remember, setup, and frequently asked questions. There will be a short set of instructions and any URL links to the help page.
Many districts return to school within the same few weeks. There will be a higher volume of incoming requests during this time. The support team thanks you for your patience as they work to resolve all customer requests as quickly as possible.
Send your files
As a best practice, please verify data transfers from your Student Information System (SIS) are successfully working before August 1st.
If new files of information are being sent, please make sure that the files are titled the same as the previous files, and that the setup uses the same formatting. Make sure files are going to the same location.
Districts with Aeries SIS
You will need to make an adjustment on your end for the new year in order for new data to be pulled. Adjust your settings to reflect the new database name.
Districts with Tyler Tech SIS
There is a back-end process that needs to be adjusted for the new school year. Contact your Blackboard account specialist when you are ready to send data for the new school year.
Updates to organizations
Let your Blackboard account specialist know if your district or school needs to add any new organizations, or remove old ones.
For new organizations, provide the following information:
- School Name
- School Type (such as high school or middle school)
- Address
- Phone number
- Time zone
- Organization ID
- Indicate which imports the school will be added to
- Indicate the task schedules to set up
Adding a new organization may take 3-5 days to complete.
Set automated notifications for the new school year
If you stopped notifications for the summer break, you can reset them so that attendance and cafeteria balance messages and calls are sent.
- From the Blackboard Communications HQ website menu, select Settings.
- Select the district Organization Name from the list.
- From the Settings area, and select the Automated Notification link.
- Select the Enabled option to send the messages.
To enable a specific school, select the link in the number of schools area and select the Enabled option for individual schools.
- Select the Enable user configured app alerts option to send notification alerts for the user apps.
- To enable all notifications on a certain date, such as the first day of school, choose the date in the Enable all Notifications on box and select Save Date.
- Select Save when finished.
Forgot login ID or password?
If any staff members forget login credentials, the district or school administrator will be able to confirm the login ID and reset password.
If any administrator or principal forgets the password, select the Forgot password link to email a temporary password.
The email will be sent to the address available for the login ID.
Training staff members
If you have a new group of staff members who need training, please contact your account managers to set up a training seminar.
Check out the online training videos.
Something not working as intended?
For any back-to-school issues, contact support (800-829-8107 or [email protected]).
