We're continually striving to improve the Community Engagement solution!
See the latest changes for Blackboard Mobile Communications App, Blackboard Mass Notifications, Teacher Communications, and Blackboard Social Media Manager.
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App Store Changes
On October 17th, 2017, GoogleTM introduced the following clause into their Developer Agreement:
"Wizard Spam We don’t allow apps that are created by an automated tool or wizard service and submitted to Google Play by the operator of that service on behalf of other persons. Such apps are only permissible if they are published by an individually registered developer account belonging to the user of the automated tool, not the operator of the service. "
Similarly, On December 21, 2017, Apple® introduced the following clause into their Developer Agreement:
" 4.2.6 Apps created from a commercialized template or app generation service will be rejected unless they are submitted directly by the provider of the app’s content. These services should not submit apps on behalf of their clients and should offer tools that let their clients create customized, innovative apps that provide unique customer experiences. Another acceptable option for template providers is to create a single binary to host all client content in an aggregated or “picker” model, for example as a restaurant finder app with separate customized entries or pages for each client restaurant, or as an event app with separate entries for each client event. "
These changes in policy require that you, as the organization who has the rights to the content of the app, need to have your app submitted under your own account. This means that a) you need to have your own account, and b) we need to transfer the store listing to your newly created account.
What is changing?
- You need to set up your own account with both Google Play and Apple iTunes.
- As part of this account ownership, you need to accept each store’s agreements and pay any fees that Google and Apple assess.
- We will be transferring both your Google Play and Apple iTunes listings to your accounts.
- There will be a nominal cost increase at renewal time.
What is NOT changing?
- The quality and level of service you have enjoyed so far.
- Apps continue to be maintained in the same way they have been, just under your own account.
- Your users will NOT need to download a new app and both organizational administrators of the app and app users will see no impact by this change.
What do I need to do?
You need to create an account with both Google and Apple and have Blackboard transfer the listing to you.
More on creating Google and Apple accounts and having Blackboard transfer the listing
Community Engagement 10.3.0
- All Products
- Added the ability to export more than 20k rows at a time for Blackboard reports
- Added ability to trigger messages for late/missing files and small/missing automated messages
- Removed the ability for users to change the role type of another user when that role was originally created by an import
- Added Student ID as an available merge tag when creating messages
- Removed the ability to add, edit, or remove imported Terms from the web interface
- Removed confusing interface language about Connect 5 email and SMS deliveries
- Mobile Communications App (MCA)
- Improved performance to App Building tools
- Fixed issue with Push Notifications including an image
- Teacher Communications
- Added icons to teacher saved messages that show which are system, admin created or user created
- System Created – Can't be edited, copied, or deleted
- Admin Created – Can be copied only
- User Created – Can be edited, copied, and deleted
- Removed the carbon copy (CC) option for teachers, still available for admins
- Updated URL's for help options seen by teachers
- Improved performance to the Teacher Messages report
- Added icons to teacher saved messages that show which are system, admin created or user created
- Blackboard Mass Notifications
- Added Alt-text requirement for all inserted images when creating messages
- Added the ability to see schools inside a boundary when selecting recipients from a map
- Fixed an issue where organizations weren't sorted alphabetically in the advanced group creation
- Added the ability for school administrator accounts to send On Screen Alerts directly from the messaging (COPE) interface
- Added back student specific merge tags when the Send to parents of students option is selected
- Fixed issue where SMS blocked addresses in a Personal File Cabinet were not displaying correctly
- Made user improvements to the Schedule Report tool
- Improved performance when needing to export a large Contact report
- Improved performance to the system Auto Search tool
Scheduled reports
The Scheduled Reports feature has been redesigned to be separated from the scheduled tasks, and moved from the Settings menu to the Reports menu.
Watch a video about the Scheduled Reports page
- From the Blackboard Communications HQ interface menu, select Reports.
- Select Schedule Reports from the System area.
- Select the specific School to narrow the list of report schedules available.
- From the Scheduled Reports, you can select any of the following options:
- Name: Select the report name to update the name or the email address of who receives the report.
- Delete: Select the reports to remove and then select Delete to delete the report schedule.
September 1, 2017
- All Products
- Added the ability to see cafeteria balance, library information, bus routes, and custom uploaded data on the Student Account page.
- Administrators can now use Google to login to the Blackboard Communications HQ web interface.
- Teacher Communications
- Added training video to the Teacher Communication Send Interface.
- Blackboard Mass Notifications
- Now, you can setup and use several custom caller IDs for phone messages, and several reply-to-email addresses and sender names for email messages. When your district or school wants certain message replies to be sent to a specific group of staff members, you can setup and use the response phone numbers or email addresses.
- Fixed an issue where abbreviations played differently on test call than on the live call.
- Blackboard Communications App Release
- Added a new SMS (text message) number for emergency messages so users don't opt-out of emergencies when they opt-out of an informational call.
August 8, 2017
- All Products
- Added the ability for all accounts to use SAML to login. Previously, teacher accounts were not supported but they are now.
- Staff can now login to their account on the web interface using their Google account.
- The Reports page has been redesigned.
- Login report is now in the Accounts section.
- Auto-complete recipient selection on the Send Message interface will have images or initials displayed next to accounts.
- Teacher Communications
- The Send Message page and the Teacher Messaging report have been updated in this release.
- The Send Message page has been redesigned for easier use. You can send messages to any of your students, the entire class, all your classes, or just to parents.
- The Teacher Messaging report displays how many teacher messages each student receives, the number of parents contacted, and which delivery method was used.
- With the Teacher Communications program, administrator have a new ability to hide student contact information from teachers.
- Blackboard Mass Notifications
- Fixed an issue where sometimes the wrong status would show in the Message Tracking report.
- Blackboard Communications App Release
- Fixed an issue where sometimes push notifications would not be delivered.
Mobile Communications App, April 2017
- Added the ability to show/hide different student information from the app.
March 10, 2017
- All Products
- For districts that import user information, you now have the option to update the user login names and passwords through the import. This setting is available in the Authentication page.
- Mobile Communications App
- Fixed an issue where deleted Peachjar fliers still appeared in the Blackboard Mobile Communications App.
February 10, 2017
- All Products
- The Advanced Options feature in the Send Message interface no longer includes the Use all supported automatic translations option.
- The name and logo of the district/school has been removed from the homepage. The name has been added to the top navigation bar.
- To improve the performance of the System Statistics report, the Delivered and Attempted fields have been removed. The Messages field lists all the messages sent by the system.
- Blackboard Mass Notifications
- Added the ability to create a voice recorded message with merge tags. The merge tags will help you to send personalized messages with only one recording.
- Added the ability to listen to audio via a scheduled or exported Excused Absences report. The report will now include a link to the parent's recorded message (internet access is required).
- Fixed an issue where sometimes phone numbers and email addresses were not flagged as bad data when they should have been.
January 27, 2017
- All Products
- Fixed an issue where late file triggers were not working.
- Blackboard Mass Notifications
- An unknown status for a message will now appear as Unknown instead of Not Attempted.
- Blackboard Mobile Communications App
- Fixed an issue where adding Nutrislice domains on the Data Configuration page did not work.
- Fixed an issue where bus routes would sometimes sort out of order.
January 13, 2017
- All Products
- Added the ability to schedule messages to be sent multiple times.
- Fixed an issue where sometimes the Headlines and Announcements in Web Community Manager would appear when they should not be there.
- Blackboard Mass Notifications
- Fixed an issue where on the Message Tracking and Details feature a deactivated text number was appearing as Not attempted. Now it will be listed as SMS number deactivated.
