Overview
Blackbaud contact data reaches August in two related but separate ways:
Relationships — people linked to a student on the student's Blackbaud profile (parents, grandparents, guardians, etc.)
Emergency contacts — people listed on the student's separate Emergency Contacts list in Blackbaud
A person can appear in one list, the other, or both. August treats these lists differently, so a grandparent linked as a relationship may not automatically appear as an emergency contact, and vice versa.
Contact information in August that comes from Blackbaud is read-only from the SIS sync. Updates made directly in August will be overwritten on the next sync unless your school has a specific writeback feature enabled.
What syncs for each Blackbaud user
When a person exists in Blackbaud as a user (for example, with a role like Parent, Grandparent of Student, or Grandparent of Incoming Student), August syncs their profile contact details:
First and last name
Email address
Phone numbers (mobile, home, work, and other types configured in Blackbaud)
Mailing and home addresses
Deceased status (deceased contacts are disabled in August)
Having a grandparent user role in Blackbaud does not by itself link that person to a student in August. They must also appear on that student's Relationships and/or Emergency Contacts list.
Relationships (student profile in Blackbaud)
For each student, August reads the Relationships on their Blackbaud profile and creates links between the student and the related person.
Information synced for each relationship:
Name — contact name on the student record
Relationship type — Parent, Grandparent, Grandmother, Grandfather, Great Grandparent, Guardian, etc.
Parental Access — whether the person can sign in to the family portal
Shared household — whether the person lives with the student
Tuition responsible — whether they are marked as a tuition signer
Do-not-contact flags — if marked do-not-contact in Blackbaud, the person will not receive portal access and will not be treated as an emergency contact
Relationship comments/alerts — appear as emergency alerts on the student record
If the related person has a Blackbaud user account, August also uses their synced profile for email, phone numbers, and addresses.
Emergency contacts (separate list in Blackbaud)
August also reads each student's Emergency Contacts list in Blackbaud. People on this list are marked as emergency contacts in August.
Information synced:
First and last name
Email address (if listed)
Phone number and phone type (if listed)
Relationship to the student (for example, Grandparent)
Two common cases for grandparents:
Has a Blackbaud user account — August links them to their existing profile (name, email, phones, addresses come from that account)
No Blackbaud account — August creates a contact from the emergency contact entry (name, email, and/or phone only)
💡 Important: Parent/guardian relationships and emergency contacts are not the same in Blackbaud. A grandparent can have portal access through a relationship without being on the emergency contacts list. See the emergency contacts form article for how this affects enrollment forms.
What does not sync
Contacts not on the student's Relationships or Emergency Contacts lists
Unrecognized relationship types (depends on your school's mapping)
Emergency contact inbound sync may be disabled if your school uses emergency contact writeback from August to Blackbaud — contact support if unsure
Checklist: verifying grandparent info in Blackbaud
Grandparent is on the student's Relationships and/or Emergency Contacts list
Relationship type is correct (Grandparent, Grandmother, etc.)
Parental Access is on if they should use the family portal
Contact flag is on (not do-not-contact) if they should receive communications
Email and phones are current on their Blackbaud user profile
Wait for the next nightly sync (or request a manual refresh)
After updating Blackbaud
Save changes in Blackbaud
Wait for the next sync, or contact support for a manual refresh
If still wrong after 24 hours, contact support with the student name, contact name, and affected field
Questions or concerns?
Reach out via live chat (Help icon) or [email protected].