After matching your project with an experience, the learners from that experience will be able to form teams and participate and work on your project (see team formation for more details).
While completing your project, learners are able to complete your project tasks such as starting the project and making introductions, submitting milestones, submitting final project deliverables, and providing you with feedback at the end of the project, all while using the team as a hub for all communication and activity regarding a project.
General
Team formation
The experience you have matched your project to can be configured in different ways which determine how learners can form teams and start working on your project.
By experience admins
Experience administrators will create teams and assign them to your matched projects. Learners cannot start projects without being added to a team first.
Learners self-assign
Learners can self-assign themselves to your matched project and create their own teams with other learners who have joined the experience. Learners can start the project right away as soon as they have formed their team.
By application
Learners must create their own teams and apply to your matched project. You will then be able to review these applications and decide whether to accept or decline them. Once you accept a team's application then they can start the project.
Consult the experience you have matched with to determine what team formation option is being used.
Conversations
When a team starts a project, a conversation will be created between the team and the employer(s) on the project. This is your main method of communication with the team during the project.
To protect your company, ensure that all communication occurs through Riipen. Riipen can only investigate disputes when the evidence towards communication is present on Riipen.
Activity
Every team working on your project will have it's activity tracked and and visible to you as the project administrator. You can easily view:
When a team has started a project
Milestone progress along with submitted materials
The final submission made
Agreements signed by team members
Work log hours tracked
Payments issued
Feedback the team has received and authored
Milestones
Milestones are mid-project goals with due dates which are defined by the experience administrators, project administrators, or by the team to make sure that the project stays on track and that progress is visible to all stakeholders. Learners will submit milestone deliverables, which you can review and provide comments and feedback on. Milestones for all your teams will be visible on your Riipen calendar, enabling you to easily view and track upcoming milestones.
Final Submission
At the end of a project, teams will make a final submission which wraps up the project. This submission will include the main deliverable outlined in the project details.
States
Every team has a state assigned to it which displays their progress for your project.
Active - The team is actively completing the project and can continue to submit milestones, surveys, etc.
This is the default state for all teams.
Completed - The team has completed the project by making a final submission.
A team will automatically be transitioned to completed once a final submission is made.
Teams in the completed state cannot have their state changed
Inactive - The team has not made progress on the project with respect to the timeline. Teams in this state can still make progress by completing any item in their team's timeline.
A team will automatically be transitioned to inactive if the experience has non-binding deadlines set, the team has not completed the ‘Start project’ task, and 30 days have passed since the start date.
A team will automatically be transitioned to inactive if the experience has non-binding deadlines set, the team has not completed its final submission, and 30 days have passed since the end date.
Any team without members will be shown as inactive until members have joined.
A team will automatically be transitioned to active from inactive if it takes any action in its timeline.
Teams in the inactive state count towards usage limits set by the experience
Incomplete - The team can no longer make any progress on the project and has not completed a final submission. If the experience is configured with any sort of team, or project limitations, teams in an incomplete state will count against these limits.
A team will automatically be transitioned to incomplete if the experience has binding deadlines set and the team misses the project start date.
A team will automatically be transitioned to incomplete if the experience has binding deadlines set and the team misses the project end date.
Cancelled - The team can no longer make any progress on the project because the team, employers, or experience administrators have decided to cancel the team. Teams in this state will not count towards any experience team or project limitations.
Teams in the cancelled state cannot have their state changed
How to
View a team
To view teams working on your projects, following these steps:
Click on “My learners” in the main navigation menu.
Click any of the teams you wish to view.
View team conversations
To view a conversation you have with a team, follow these steps:
Navigate to the team.
Click on the “View conversation” button in the sidebar.
You may also access your messages by clicking the chat icon in the top navigation bar.
View a milestone submission
To view a team's milestone submission, follow these steps:
Navigate to the team.
Click "View" on the milestone
Comment on a milestone submission
To comment on a team's milestone submission, follow these steps:
Navigate to the team.
Click "View" on the milestone
Fill in the comment form and click "Submit"
Team members are notified of all new comments automatically.
Tag a user in a milestone comment
To tag a user in a milestone submission comment, follow these steps:
Navigate to the team.
Click "View" on the milestone.
In the comment form, type @ followed by the user's name and select them from the dropdown.
Click "Submit."
The tagged user will receive both an in-app activity notification and an email in addition to the standard comment notification.
Deactivate a team
If you want to deactivate a team:
Navigate to the team
Click the "Settings" tab
In the "Team" tab under the "General" settings click "Deactivate"
Activate a team
If you want to manually activate a team:
Navigate to the team
Click the "Settings" tab
In the "Team" tab under the "General" settings click "Activate"
A team can only be activated if it is currently inactive.
Incomplete a team
If you want to incomplete a team:
Navigate to the team
Click the "Settings" tab
In the "Team" tab under the "General" settings click "Incomplete"
If the project is paid with hourly payments, a final invoice will be generated when the team is incompleted given that the minimum threshold for work log entry hours is met.
Cancel a team
If you want to cancel a team:
Navigate to the team
Click the "Settings" tab
In the "Team" tab under the "General" settings click "Cancel"
A team can only be cancelled if it is currently active or inactive and, in the case of a paid project, has not met the minimum threshold for work log entry hours when invoices are hourly.
If the project is paid, no invoice will be generated for a cancelled team.
Best practices
Conduct weekly or biweekly check-in meetings with the team to ensure they are on the right track.
Remain accessible and responsive to learners' communication outside of scheduled meetings, providing timely assistance or feedback as needed to keep the project moving forward smoothly.
Utilize the chat to provide guidance, feedback, and answer any questions the learners may have.
FAQs
Should I cancel a team?
Whether you have a project as part of a course learners are taking, or they are working on your paid project in their spare time, you may need to cancel or otherwise end a team's project before it reaches its full scope of work.
Before ending the project, always make sure you are in communication with both the learners and experience administrators to talk through why it is needed, and what the appropriate best next steps are for it.
You may be able to come to a resolution where cancelling or ending the project is not needed.