Explaining the Supervised and Unsupervised Mentoring Program

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 program with more participants than anticipated. Since there is a limit to the algorithm's performance, 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.

Once the program is launched using the wizard, the administrator triggers an email communication with the mentors and then the mentees. The administrator reviews the matching as participants join the program and the registration dates pass.

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 click on Match Now, and a back end matching job will start.

There is a pop-up message to confirm that you want to proceed and that the system should start the matching job. Click on Continue to launch the job.

To view or edit all matches within the Program, administrators must click on the name and navigate to the matching page. Changes can be made based on the quality of the matches, and specific actions can be taken. Additionally, this area supports edits of the matching on as many occasions as desired and displays the matching level or status.

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 participants by name among all matched and unmatched lists. For Supervised mentoring programs, selecting a matching level to filter the matched results is also possible.

The matching algorithm uses mentor and mentee records to find matches based 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 a 75% or higher matching score.
• Good (two stars): The mentee has been matched with a mentor with a 74.99% to 50% matching score.
• Average (one star): The mentee has been matched with a mentor with a 49.99% or lower matching score.

Mentoring administrators can review and edit the matches after the Match job completes on the Program Overview page. They can also adjust the matches from the Program Overview page after the mentoring program starts.

To change a match, go to the mentee card and choose 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 tab if you remove all mentee matches.

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

• More mentors than mentees signed up for the program
• Not enough mentors signed up for the program

The Signup Form is where administrators can define questions that will be visible when mentees and mentors sign up. Available criteria like department, job, family, or competency depend on your system configuration. Free text answers are supported but not included in matching criteria. You can also add audience-related questions that will be displayed to the mentor or mentee. The email template and translations are captured here as well.

Changing the picklist options within the Signup form is easy. Simply use Action Search to find Manage Mentoring Programs. Use Settings to modify the options in the Signup form. However, the picklist must be available in the Picklist Center before it can be added as a Custom Picklist to a Mentoring Program.

When changing the picklist details, use Action Search to locate the Picklist Center. You will need administrator permissions to see this option. Inside the Picklist Center, choose the picklist of interest to Edit the list or choose Create New to create a new picklist. Large picklist changes can be managed by exporting and importing picklists.

The Summary page summarizes the wizard's previous choices and presents the data for review.

If you would like to save the information to edit later, select Save.

However, be aware that it is difficult to withdraw it once you launch the program. The program can be completed and archived but not easily deleted.

The Unsupervised program is a semi-structured program. Supervised programs require more support from the administrator. On the other hand, Open Enrollment programs introduce less support and structure.

Unsupervised programs utilize invitations but allow the mentee to send requests to the mentor directly. They also do not utilize defined program start or end dates.