Upgrading from Blackbaud NetCommunity 6.10/6.15: Design Expectations

With Blackbaud NetCommunity(BBNC) versions 6.10 and 6.15 ready to head into the software Hall of Fame, we are focusing on the update path that users will need to take.  Chris Martin’s post, Upgrading Blackbaud NetCommunity to Version 6.45, serves as a fantastic basis for the System and Hardware components that will be needed to ensure your seamless transition to the latest version. This series of posts will set a base for what will happen to the overall design of your site during the update process.

The latest iteration of Blackbaud NetCommunity (Versions 6.41 & 6.45) strives to adhere to the web industry standards as defined by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), this includes an industry leading WYSIWYG editor “TinyMCE” built on top of a Microsoft ASP.Net/Microsoft SQL  back-end.   With web standards’ ability to change as fast as they do we will want to be prepared to address any design and custom functionality questions such as:

• Will my custom Javascript still work after the BBNC update?
• Will we need to make any design changes after this update?
• Will my friendly urls and redirects still work after we update?

We want to make sure that we are in a position to address these and any post update changes as quickly and efficiently as possible. Over the coming week(s) we will be providing a series of blog posts focused specifically around preparing your sites design for this update.  We hope that, with these posts, we will be able to answer the above questions and make sure you are as comfortable as possible that your site will look pixel perfect after your update:

• JQuery and Javascript update expectations
• Div based layout design
• Designing with CSS IDs and Classes
• Introduction to TinyMCE & Web Standards update

As always, the Blackbaud NetCommunity support team will be available at (800) 468-8996 or via email at bbncsupport@blackbaud.com to assist with any questions you might have.

You can keep up with us on Twitter by following @bbsupport; we use the hashtag #bbnc when we discuss Blackbaud NetCommunity. Take a look at our Twitter Guide for more information.