Launching Matching

Final Steps:

Now that you have finalized your content, there are two final steps to check off back on your Matching () page:

• Check your Integrations
• Contact Together Support if you have any questions or need assistance

Check Your Integrations (if applicable):

This step will look familiar from when you were completing your Registration setup! If you have any integrations left to complete before you're ready for your users to begin matching, now is the time to finalize them. 

For a refresher on this process, circle back to step seven in this playlist: 7. Check Your Integrations.

Once you have finalized your integrations, be sure to head back to your Matching () page and mark the step as done:

Contact Your Customer Support Advisor:

While you're back on your Matching () page, you can mark the final step complete as well: Contact Your Customer Support Advisor. We would love to hear from you if you're unsure about anything throughout this process or if you have any questions. 

If your organization has a dedicated Customer Success Manager or Implementation Manager, please feel free to reach out to them directly. Otherwise, you can always reach us with any questions/concerns by submitting a request here.

Turning on Matching:

Once you're ready to start matching, you can click the Turn on Matching button at the bottom of this list:

• Note: don't worry, emails will not be sent out yet! You will have a chance to invite your users to match, we will cover this step next.

Now that matching has been turned on, your mentees/mentors/peers will be able to begin matching. If you need to turn off/pause matching, you can do so from the Matching page that you are on now by clicking the Turn off Matching button:

Invite Users to Match:

With matching enabled, the next step is to invite your users to match. To begin, click on the Unmatched Mentees tab under your Matching Funnel:

Depending on the Matching Process you chose earlier in this guide, your steps to invite or match your users will vary slightly. We will detail each of the three processes for you below:

• Admin-led
• User-led with Approval
• User-led

Admin-led Matching:

If you're running an Admin-Led program, you can begin matching your users right away! From the unpaired mentee's table, you can select the mentee you would like to match.

For example, I'm going to match Joey with a mentor. To do so, click the Match with Mentor button beside the mentees' name:

Once you click the button, a page will pop up with a list of potential mentors that you could match the mentee with. Once you find the right mentor, click on their profile. From here, you can either Assign the matching to Staged Matches or to Active Matches. 

• Staged Matches: these are matches that you have created between a mentor and mentee, but haven't sent to be live/active yet. When you assign a staged matching here, no emails are sent yet, you will still need to send this matching to Active after Staging it.
• Active Matches: these are matches that you have created and are now live. Once you do this, both the mentee and mentor will be notified via email that you have matched them together. 

To demonstrate, I will set this match to Staged first, then to Active after. First, I click the Assign to Staged Matches button. Now, under the Staged by Admin tab, you will see this new matching:

Here you can either Approve or Discard the matching. If you have staged multiple matches, you can quickly click the Discard All or Approve All button at the top of the table to apply the same action to all staged matches.

If you would like to approve or discard individually staged matches, click the or  to approve or discard the matching respectively:

Once you click Approve, you will see a pop-up to confirm this action before the matching notification is sent to the mentee and mentor:

Once I approve this matching, you will see it listed under the Active Matches tab here:

For administrators who would like our algorithm to create matches automatically, we suggest you take advantage of our Auto-Matching feature. To use Auto-Matching, click on the Run Auto-Matching > Send to admin approval under either the Unpaired Mentees or Available Mentees tab(s):

Once you click this button, you will see a prompt informing you that the system will Stage optimal matches based on the matching algorithm you created.

Important: none of these matches will be live once you run Auto-Matching, you will have to go into the Active Matches tab and approve these matches before any of the matches go live, similar to how you would if you manually staged matches yourself:

Pro Tip: Click the Export button to download the matches. You can share this with others in your organization to get approval or feedback before you activate matches.

User-led with Approval & User-led (without approval):

If you're running either of the User-led matching processes (with or without approval), the final step is to send out your Submit Your Mentor Preferences email to your mentees. To do so, click on the Unpaired Mentees tab on the right-hand side of the Matching page:

To invite all of the uninvited mentees, head over to the Not Invited by Admin tab, and click the blue Invite all Mentees button:

If you choose to Invite All Mentees, you will see a prompt displaying how many email invitations will be sent out. To finalize these invites, click the Send Emails button. You can also click on the email to preview it. If changes need to be made, go to your Email templates to do so.

Alternatively, you can individually invite users if you would out invites in a staggered fashion. To do so, from the Not Invited by Admin tab, click on the Invite to Match button beside the mentee you would like to invite. You may also select multiple users, click the Perform Bulk Action on Selected button, and invite them to match that way as well:

By sending the email, mentees will receive the Submit Your Mentor Preferences email to prompt them to request a mentor. Once they have submitted their request, the system will send an email to the mentor they have chosen asking them to review the request.

Here is what the request email template looks like from the mentor's perspective (only applicable to User-led with Participant Declining Process):

Mentors will be able to click on one of the two response options. If they choose to decline the request, they will be able to enter a response that will be sent back to the mentee along with the email notifying them that the request has been declined.

If the mentor does not decide within 3 business days, the request will expire and the mentee will be sent another email asking them to request a new mentor instead.

Once one of the mentor requests is approved, the flow ends there and the Mentorship Assignments email is sent out to the mentee and mentor who are now matched.

Note: If an admin decides to auto-match all mentees and mentors, no emails will be sent out for mentees and mentors to make decisions.

Monitoring Matching:

The last step in the process of launching a successful Cohort Program is to periodically monitor how matching is going. To do so, you can check in on the Active Matches section:

You may also end matches at any time by clicking on the 3 dots beside the matching, and clicking End Matching. If you ever need to view the data in this table in another program, try leveraging our Export feature where you can download a full list of your active matches. 

• We highly recommend you check out our Monitor Health guide once you have launched matching. Here you will be able to see a number of important things, such as the number of sessions completed, active matches, and what matches might need a check-in among others: