While completing project on Riipen, learners work in teams of one or more individuals.
Learners are able to complete project tasks within the context of these teams including starting the project / making introductions, completing required surveys, submitting milestones, submitting final project deliverables, and providing / receiving feedback to and from employers all while ensuring your project stays on track with various deadlines, reminder notifications and more.
Main benefits when working with teams:
All stakeholders can view and track team progress at any time.
Learners are notified about outstanding tasks, keeping them on track.
Learners have access to various project management and communication features.
Aside from transactional project management tasks, teams also act as a hub for all communication regarding a project. You'll be able to easily communicate with your employer stakeholders via Riipen messaging at any time.
General
Conversations
When your 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 employers during the the project. Additionally, a separate conversation will be created exclusively for just your team members so you can communicate privately as well.
Milestones
As a member of a team, when viewing your team, you'll see a timeline of events / tasks for the project including its start date, milestones, and its end date. Milestones are mid-project goals with due dates which are defined by your educator, project employer, or by your own team to make sure that the project stays on track and that progress is visible to all stakeholders. You'll be able to submit deliverables to milestones to mark them as completed while your project's employer will be able to view and provide feedback for these submissions.
All milestones and their submissions are visible to team members, project employers, and experience educators.
All team members will be notified to submit a milestone when the due date is near, but only one team member needs to actually submit the milestones.
Employers will be notified when you submit the milestone.
Final Submission
At the end of your project, your team will be able to make a final submission which wraps up the project. This submission will contain the main deliverable described in the project details. The employer of the project will review this submission as the final work product submitted by your team and will be their trigger to provider their final feedback to your team.
States
Your team will always have a state assigned to it which displays its progress for the project.
Active - The team is actively completing the project and can continue to submit milestones, surveys, etc.
This is the default state for the team.
Completed - The team has completed the project by making a final submission.
The team will automatically be transitioned to completed once a final submission is made.
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 such as completing a milestone or submitting a survey
The team will automatically be transitioned to inactive if the experience has non-binding deadlines set and the team misses the project start date.
The team will automatically be transitioned to inactive if the experience has non-binding deadlines set and the team misses the project end date.
The team will automatically be transitioned to active from inactive if it takes any action in its timeline.
Incomplete - The team can no longer make any progress on the project due to missing a deadline for the project.
The team will automatically be transitioned to incomplete if the experience has binding deadlines set and the team misses the project start date.
The 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.
A team can only be manually changed to cancelled by the experience administrators.
How to
View a team
You can view any of your teams at any time with the following steps:
Click on “My projects” in the main navigation menu. You will see a list of the projects you are working on and with the respective team.
Click the team you wish to view.
View team conversations
As a learner, when your 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 employers during the the project. Additionally, a separate conversation will be created exclusively for your team members.
To view either of these conversations, follow these steps:
Navigate to your team
Click on the “Chat with employer” or “Chat with team” button in sidebar.
You may also access your messages by clicking the chat icon in the top navigation bar. Within messages, you can chat, create meetings, share files, and initiate video calls via Zoom or Google Meet.
Create a milestone
Aside from any educator or employer created milestones, a team may wish to add new milestones to the project timeline to help keep on track or showcase progress.
To create a milestone:
Navigate to your team
Under the existing milestones, click the "+ Add milestone" button
Fill in the milestone fields and click "Submit" to save it
Submit a milestone
To submit a milestone and complete it:
Navigate to your team
Click the "Submit" button next to the corresponding milestone
Fill in the submission details and click "Submit" to complete the submission
A maximum of 10 files can be uploaded to a milestone.
A milestone submission includes a mandatory description and optional file upload. The description should encompass all work done in order to complete the objective of the milestone while the file should be used to provide the employer with any actual objectives as needed.
View a milestone submission
To view a submitted milestone:
Navigate to your team
Click "View" on the associated milestone
Update a milestone submission
To update an existing submitted milestone:
Navigate to your team
Click "View" on the associated milestone
Click "Update submission"
Fill in the submission form and click "Submit" to save your updated submission.
Make a final submission
Any member of your team can make the final submission on behalf of the entire team by following these steps:
Navigate to your team
Click the "Submit" button for the "Final submission" item
Fill in the submission form and click "Submit"
A maximum of 10 files can be uploaded as part of the submission.
View the final submission
To view your team's final submission:
Navigate to your team
Scroll to the "Final submission" item
Update the final submission
To update your team's submission:
Navigate to your team
Click the "Update" button on the "Final submission" item
Fill in the form and click "Submit"
The employers for the project will be notified of your updated submission.
Delete the final submission
You cannot delete a final submission once it has been made.
Change the team's state
If you want to manually change and set a team's state:
Navigate to the team
Click the "Settings" tab
In the "Team" tab under the "General" settings scroll to find the state transition you want and click the associated button.
Note that certain states cannot be transitioned to and from depending on the team's current state. You will only see buttons for applicable state transitions.
Best Practices
Stay in constant communication with the project employers during a project. Make use of the messages to provide project status updates, ask questions, or seek guidance and support when you are stuck.
For projects that are several weeks or months long, make sure you set appropriate milestones for your team if you don't have any already provided by your educator or project employer. You'll receive reminders to keep you on track and you'll be able to show progress to the employer as you complete them.
Always make your final submission on Riipen, even if you are communicating with your project employers outside of Riipen. After making the submission, your employers will be prompted to provide your team with formal feedback, endorsements, and skill evaluations you can take with you and put on your resume / CV, personal portfolio or online profile such as LinkedIn. It will of course also show up on your Riipen profile.