Administering Mentoring Programs

A program is in a draft status when it has been set up but not "launched" yet (not the same as starting a program, more like saving a program to a read-only state).

You leave a program in draft state by choosing Save, rather than Save and launch. In this state, all elements are still editable.

A program is in a Confirmed Status when it has been launched but no invitations have been sent yet. The blue action button shows Send Email to Mentors Now.

A program is in Mentor Sign-up Status when it has been launched and mentor invitations sent out. You can see how many invited mentors have signed up so far on the program card.

A program is in Mentee Sign-Up status when it has been launched, mentors' invitations are sent out, mentors signed up, mentees' invitations are sent out, and mentees can sign up.

When we select the Mentoring Program Details icon, we will see if additional mentors declined or signed up, and we can also see the number of mentees who signed up or who declined.

• For unsupervised programs, there is a Start button that will move the program to in-progress.

• For supervised programs, there is a Match Now button to initiate the matching process once mentors and mentees signed up. Once the administrator starts the matching for a program, no more mentees can sign up. Any mentees attempting to sign up after matching has started are redirected to a landing page explaining that they have missed the deadline for sign-up. The matching algorithm goes through mentor and mentee records to find matches that are based first on preferences and then on the data from the profile. Once administrators confirm the matches, they will have the option to start the program to move it to in-progress.

To ensure optimal system performance when the system matches mentors and mentees, do not add more than 3,000 mentors or 3,000 mentees to a supervised program. A program wizard will validate the number of invitees and prevent the saving and launching of a program with too many invitees.

The original concept of supervised mentoring programs assumed they would be closely monitored by administrators and therefore small. However, some customers also want to use this type of program with larger numbers of participants than originally anticipated. Because there is a limit to the performance of the algorithm, there will be an error message if the user tries to add more than 3,000 mentors or 3,000 mentees into supervised programs.

It is, however, fine to have more than 3,000 participants in total if they are distributed between the mentors and mentees and respect the limit of 3,000 in each group.

When you run matching on a supervised mentoring program, the system uses an algorithm to compare preferences and profile data to suggest matches for mentors and mentees.

Once a program has mentors and mentees signed up, you can select Match Now and a back-end matching job will start.

1. Navigate to Manage Mentoring Programs using action search.
2. Locate the mentoring program in the Not Started section and choose Match Now.
3. There is a pop-up message to confirm that we want to proceed and that the system should start the matching job. Choose Continue.
4. A very quick message shows up on the program card saying Success. The job starts. The program is still in the Not Started section, but the button Start is not available.
5. Choose the Program Name to review the matches.

   The matching algorithm goes through mentor and mentee records to find matches that are based first on preferences and then on profile data. The system assigns the following match levels to the resulting matches.

   • Preferred (four stars): The mentee has been matched with one of the preferred mentors selected during sign-up.
   • Excellent (three stars): The mentee has been matched with a mentor with whom he or she has a 75% or higher matching score.
   • Good (two stars): The mentee has been matched with a mentor with whom he or she has a 74.99% to 50% matching score.
   • Average (one star): The mentee has been matched with a mentor with whom he or she has a 49.99% or lower matching score.
   
6. After the matching job is completed, review and edit the matches on the program overview page.

   You can adjust matches from the program overview page after the mentoring program has started.

   1. To change a match, go to the mentee card and select the Remove icon to remove a match or the Assign icon to assign a new mentor. The mentee and mentor move to the Not Matched tab where you can assign a new match.

      If the mentor is matched with more than one mentee, then the mentor is only moved to the Not Matched if you remove all mentee matches.

   2. Review the Not Matched tab for any mentees remaining unmatched. The matching algorithm may return initial results with some mentees and mentors unmatched. The circumstances for this result may include:

      • More mentors than mentees signed up for the program

      • Not enough mentors signed up for the program

7. If necessary, refresh the page and the button Start becomes available.
8. When ready, go to the Mentoring program card and choose Start. From the confirmation popup window, choose Continue. This moves the program status to In-Progress. The Mentoring Match e-mail is sent to all matched mentors and mentees informing them of the match. They can view the match details on the Mentoring page.

When assigning mentors or mentees, only 200 participants are listed on the Assign New Mentor/Mentee pop-up. If more than 200 participants are available, the administrator can refine the search criteria to find target participants.

When the administrator assigns mentors or mentees, or removes mentees from matched mentors, the system updates your changes automatically. The adjustments are saved immediately with an autosave functionality.

The Matched page shows the first 200 matches and the Not Matched page shows the first 500 participants. The administrator can then search for participants among all matched and unmatched lists by name. For supervised mentoring programs, it is also possible to select a matching level to filter the matched results.

Invitation notifications sent to mentees and mentors in supervised and unsupervised programs can be customized as part of the program configuration process. Within the program that utilizes invitations, go to the Signup Form step, and next to Email Template, select the Setup link to modify the email invitation templates.

Once you choose the Setup link, the invitations can be configured with specific text and tokens.

When using a program that matches mentors and mentees, automatic e-mails are triggered based on actions taken during the matching process.

E-mails are generated based on several events in addition to invitation events. Matching requests, matching confirmations, matching declinations/rejections, and other events trigger e-mail notifications in Mentoring. The email notifications can be customized in Admin Center→Email Notification Templates Settings. You can customize the e-mail subject and body in all supported languages or disable certain types of e-mail notifications.  A complete list of e-mail notifications and triggers is provided in the Mentoring Administration Guide found on the SAP Help Portal.

Once you’ve created your matching questions, the next step shows you a Summary page. After the Summary page, you’re ready to launch your mentoring program.