How do I run a Mentoring Program on the Graduway platform?

As a user, you may be added as an owner of a Mentoring Program. This will allow you to operate the program by adding or removing users and creating or ending mentoring relationships. 

The Programs that you are an owner of will be visible to you under the Mentoring tab. Only the programs that you own will be visible here. 

Please note: Only platform admins are able to create new Programs. If you are a platform admin, you can view this article about setting up a Mentoring Program.

Please note: Users who are owners will not be able to edit the program name, owners, start and end dates, or relationship limits. Only platform admins can edit the program details.

As a platform admin, please be sure to set up your relationship limits within the program based on the number of mentors to mentees that you are adding to the program.

Adding Users to a Program

Once the Program has been created, you will be able to add users to the Program.

Users can be added by one of 3 options:

• All available users - any user that is either offering or seeking mentoring on the platform
• Specific users - any user on the platform that can see Mentoring. Please select the user from the drop-down list that appears as you begin typing. You are able to add specific users, even if they are not currently offering or seeking mentoring.
• Choose from filters - you can create filters to pull in all users that match those filters. You can filter by:
• Group
• Mentoring (offering or seeking) option
• Major education fields
• Work experience - company, industry or job function
• Other education fields
• General - affiliation or location

Once your users have been added to the Program, you will be able to view a list of all of the users under the Users tab.

You can remove all users or select certain users and remove those ones specifically. You can also add additional users via the Add Users button. If you select to add users, you will be taken back to the page with the filter options for pulling in users.

Matching Users within a Program

Once you have populated the Program with users, you can now match those users into mentoring relationships.

This can be done via the Matches tab within the Program. To begin matching users, please click on the Start Matching button.

This will take you to the matching page, where you can search for matches based on 3 criteria:

• All available users - This will present matches for all users within the group.
• Specific users - you can list any specific users that are part of the program.
• Choose from filters - you can filter by groups, seeking or offering help choices, major education, work experience, other education, affiliation or location.

Please note: You will need to select users for both the Mentor and the Mentee.

Once the system has pulled up all of the users that match your criteria, you will be able to move ahead with suggesting or creating matches.

Select your specific user from the list and expand it to see the suggested matches. The system will pull through suggestions for users who match 25% or higher according to the algorithm. To edit a program's algorithm, please click on the three dots on the right and choose "Edit Program."

Then you will be given the option to adjust the specific program's algorithm. Each program's algorithm can be different and does not get saved platform-wide.   

You can view the user’s details, as well as the details of the suggested matches. The top 3 suggested matches will show here, with the ability to match the user you prefer. To do this, click on the Match button.

You will then be able to either suggest a match or start the relationship.

• Suggest match - you will send an email to both the mentor and the mentee (or to just the mentor or just the mentee) suggesting that they start a mentoring relationship. In this case, it will be up to the users to go to the suggested user’s profile and to click on either Request Mentoring or Offer Mentoring. This request will need to be accepted by the other user for the relationship to officially begin.
• Start Relationship - you will send an email to both the mentor and the mentee letting them know that they have been matched. This action will begin the mentoring relationship.

The emails to the mentor and mentee can be edited and the edited version will save for the next mentor matches that you want to email.

Viewing the Relationships within a Program

You can see all mentoring relationships within a Program via the Matches tab.

This will tell you:

• Mentor - name
• Relationship period - number of days
• Mentee - name
• Status - current, pending or completed

If you expand the box for a specific relationship, you will see additional information about the relationship. This will include:

• Status - current, pending or completed
• Type - selected mentoring option or relationship started by an admin
• Number of messages - number of messages sent between the users
• History - includes date requested, date accepted and date ended

Ending Relationships within the Program

As a program admin, you are able to end any or all of the relationships within the program.

NOTE: If you have set an end date for the program, the relationships will all automatically end when the program ends.

You can end all relationships or select specific relationships to end. This can be done via the End All Relationships button at the top of the Matches page. For specific relationships, you can hover over the relationship and check the box to end that match or you can click on the match to expand it and then click on End Relationship.

Read about setting up Program Milestones here!

Read about Mentoring Analytics here!