How to create a program

Mentoring programmes allow you to segment your mentoring activity, perfect if you're running multiple programmes with different cohorts, objectives, or rules.

By default, your platform starts with one mentoring programme. If you leave it as is, all participants will automatically be added to that single programme and won’t be given a choice during registration.

You can create and run as many programmes as you like, there’s no limit!

To add a new mentoring programme:

1. Log into to the Admin Panel

2. Navigate to Programs > Manage Programs

3. Use the ‘Add a New Programme’ bar at the top of the page

There are two types of programs to choose from Traditional and Group:

Note: The settings for both programs are the same other than there needs to me 3 or more participants in a group relationship.

From here you will be able to choose from the below settings: 

Approval Step for Mentors and Coaches - Enabling this option will add an approval step for mentors/coaches when they complete the registration form for a particular program. Pending requests will appear on the admin panel homepage for a Super Admin to action. They will get the option to either approve or reject access into this program. 

Matching Type - Choose if you would like participants to be able to choose their own matches or if you would like all matching between mentors and mentees to be done by an administrator only.

Unanswered Request Expiry - Requests (for example a request sent by a mentee to match with a mentor)  expire automatically after 9 days. Choose to enable or disable this expiry. 

Lock Mentoring/Coaching Type - This will prevent a mentor changing their role to a mentee for example

Approval-Step for mentees and coachees - Enabling this option will add an approval step for Mentees/Coachees when they complete the registration form for a particular program. Pending requests will appear on the admin panel homepage for a Super Admin to action. They will get the option to either approve or reject access into this program. 

Mentor or Coach Limit, Per Participant - Choose how many mentors a mentee can have

Program Relationship Expression - You can choose whether this program will be a Mentoring or Coaching program. The terminology used throughout this specific program will update based on your selection.

Hide Meeting notes to ensure confidentiality - Only mentors and mentees will be able to see their meeting notes, they will be hidden from admins.

Mentors Permitted Capacity - Choose how many mentees a mentor can have

Custom Matching Rules - If you’ve added any custom data capture fields (found under Configuration > Branding & Platform Settings ), you’ll notice a light orange box where you can set up custom matching rules.

These rules let you control how matches are made based on the data you're collecting, such as job level or seniority. This ensures that the system only suggests relevant matches to the right participants.

For example, you could set up a rule to prevent users from being matched within the same department, or, in the case of Reverse Mentoring programmes, you could adjust the matching rules to ensure senior leaders are paired with lower-level staff, following the reverse mentoring structure.

Here is a short tutorial on how to create a program!