Blackboard Assist for Administrators

Provide valuable resources that help drive student success with Blackboard Assist!

Blackboard Assist is a free Learn SaaS central hub for both online and on-campus resources meant to drive student success. You can add services easily and set featured services in the hub for easy access to students. Through Blackboard Assist, students can subscribe to and pay for the services they want to use. Alternatively, these services can be licensed by your institution for student use. Contact [email protected] to learn more.

Assist is available for SaaS deployments only

Watch a video about Blackboard Assist

The following narrated video provides a visual and auditory representation of some of the information included on this page. For a detailed description of what is portrayed in the video, open the video on YouTube, navigate to More actions, and select Open transcript.


Video: Introduction to Blackboard Assist provides the student overview to Blackboard Assist.

The Assist service itself is hosted in AWS East in the United States. A system-generated, universally unique 128-bit identifier not based on any person information (UUID) is used to coordinate information exchange between the Blackboard Learn instance and Assist - no personal information is shared with the Assist service. The following information is stored in AWS East:

• The institutional service profiles that are created by administrators, including the service description, image, and URL.
• Metadata about user preferences for a service such as favorites and subscription state are associated only with the anonymized identifier.

There is no processing of utilization data or persona information associated with any functionality of Assist. Personal information is not used to target content or service recommendations.

Get started

Any Higher Education, business, or government client on SaaS will have access (Both the Ultra Base Navigation and Original Navigation). Ready to get started? Use the guide below to compile your institutional services to populate Assist

Enable Assist

You'll need to enable the Assist service in Admin Panel > Cloud Management > Consulting Central. Set Blackboard Assist to ON.

When you activate Assist, it enables all your Partner Cloud Assist providers by default. You can toggle Partner Cloud Services On or Off in Admin Panel > Cloud Management > Partner Cloud Settings. 

More on our Partner Cloud integrations

Create Assist module

Available for Learn Original experience only

In the Learn Original experience, you can create a module that renders the Assist service. You can place this into either an existing or new tab. There's a new module type specific to Assist. Let's create a new Top Frame Tab just for Assist:

Create a Module to contain the Assist interface:

Navigate to Admin Panel > Communities > Tabs and Modules > Modules

• Select Create Module
  • Name the module. We recommend "Assist"
  • Optionally, select Hide Title on Module.
  • Module Type: select LTI Launch.
  • Select your Module Category. 
  • System Availability: select Yes.
  • Select Submit.
  • Select LTI Launch: select BbAssist LTI Link.
  • Select Submit.

Navigate to Admin Panel > Communities > Tabs and Modules > Tabs

• Select Create Module Tab
  • Name the module. We recommend "Assist"
  • Select No to Allow Users to Personalize the Tab.
  • Set columns to 1.
  • Select Submit.
• Select Create Top Frame Tab
  • Name the top frame tab. This name appears to users. We recommend "Assist"
  • System Availability: select Yes.
  • Membership: select the Module Tab created and move it to the Selected Items list.
  • Select Submit.

Reorder the Tab Group to the desired location in the list.

Add services

Doesn't seem familiar? Jump the the "Ultra" help for Blackboard Assist.

Services are easy to add in Blackboard Assist. From the navigation menu, select Assist and select Add Service.

Type or copy and paste the service URL, type a description of the service, and choose the Service Category. A preview of the service appears in the Standard preview section. Upload your institution's Logo Image if this service is a service offered by your institution. The logo you upload here can be used to help distinguish your institutional services from third-party services. Select Save.

Manage services

Doesn't seem familiar? Jump the the "Ultra" help for Blackboard Assist.

The Manage Services panel allows you to edit and delete services, show or hide services, and promote services as featured services in Blackboard Assist.

From the navigation menu, select Assist. Open the menu next to the service you want to edit and select Edit. Select Delete to delete the service.

Open the menu under the service to show or hide the service or promote it to a Featured service. You can promote two services as featured services.

A featured service requires a supporting image.

Featured services

Doesn't seem familiar? Jump the the "Ultra" help for Blackboard Assist.

Highlight two services for your students with Feature Services in Blackboard Assist. You can feature two services at a time. Featured services require a display image.

You can feature a service in two ways:

• From Manage Services, upload an Image File and type an Alt Text for the service. Provide a description for the service and select Save.
• From the list of services, select Featured from the menu.

ULTRA: Add services

Doesn't seem familiar? Jump the the "Original" help for Blackboard Assist.

Services are easy to add in Blackboard Assist. From the navigation menu, select Assist and select Add Service.

Type or copy and paste the service URL, type a description of the service, and choose the Service Category. A preview of the service appears in the Standard preview section. Upload your institution's Logo Image if this service is a service offered by your institution. The logo you upload here can be used to help distinguish your institutional services from third-party services. Select Save.

ULTRA: Manage services

Doesn't seem familiar? Jump the the "Original" help for Blackboard Assist.

The Manage Services panel allows you to edit and delete services, show or hide services, and promote services as featured services in Blackboard Assist.

From the navigation menu, select Assist. Open the menu next to the service you want to edit and select Edit. Select Delete to delete the service.

Open the menu under the service to show or hide the service or promote it to a Featured service. You can promote two services as featured services.

A featured service requires a supporting image.

ULTRA: Featured services

Doesn't seem familiar? Jump the the "Original" help for Blackboard Assist.

Highlight two services for your students with Feature Services in Blackboard Assist. You can feature two services at a time. Featured services require a display image.

You can feature a service in two ways:

• From Manage Services, upload an Image File and type an Alt Text for the service. Type a description for the service and select Save.
• From the list of services, select Featured from the menu.

Ally File Transformer in Blackboard Assist (North America availability)

Ally File Transformer helps students personalize their learning experience. It converts files into alternative formats to better fit their needs, devices, and learning preferences.

• Ally File Transformer converts digital files to alternative, more accessible formats, including HTML, ePub, electronic braille, audio, BeeLine reader, as well as to a PDF that’s undergone optical character recognition (OCR).
• Ally File Transformer allows students to convert course files, their own files, and files they've found via research or project work.
• Ally File Transformer is available through Blackboard Assist. Blackboard Assist must be enabled to access Ally File Transformer.
• Ally File Transformer does not require an Ally license.
• Ally File Transformer comes automatically with Blackboard Assist. You can manage this service by going to the Administrator Panel > Partner Cloud Settings.