Set limit for non-direct mentoring requests

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+ 36 voters

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M	Mat Tse

Request the ability for Mentors to be able to set a weekly limit of how many requests a CIC can assign to them, just like how there is a limit for direct request.

Chapter #0105 SCORESF-1104

July Update: Deploy date 8/29

What Changed?

We renamed the “Maximum direct client weekly requests?” field to “Maximum client weekly requests?”. This field is used by mentors to set the maximum number of requests that can be submitted by clients directly to the mentor from their profile on SCORE.org as well as those requests assigned to the mentor by Client Intake Coordinators each week. Mentors should leave this field blank if they do not want to set an assignment limit.
We renamed the “Direct Client Requests last 7 days” to “Client Requests last 7 days”. This field displays the number of direct client requests submitted to the mentor from their profile on SCORE.org as well as those requests assigned to the mentor by Client Intake Coordinators in the last 7 days.
We updated the logic of the “Direct Client Requests last 7 days” field to calculate based on the total of direct client requests and requests assigned by Client Intake Coordinators. The “Request Limit Reached” formula field is checked when the “Client Requests last 7 days” field meets or exceeds “Maximum client weekly requests?”. This field is automatically checked when the Maximum client weekly requests field limit above has been reached. The weekly count starts on Sunday.

Why is this change being implemented?

Currently, mentors can only limit the number of client requests that they receive through direct requests. The field is being renamed Client Requests last 7 days and will include both the number that come via direct requests from your profile on the website and those that are assigned to you by the Client Intake Coordinator on a weekly basis (rolling 7 day time period). This update will enable mentors to have more control around their capacity for working with clients. It will also streamline the assignment process by enabling us to more quickly pair clients with the best available mentor based on their needs and reduce the number of requests that require reassignment due to limited mentor availability and capacity.

Who will be impacted by this change?

Provisional and Active Mentors, Client Intake Coordinators. What action should be taken because of this change?
Provisional and Active mentors should log in to Engage and update their profile to reflect their weekly client assignment capacity from both direct requests (if they have selected to Accept Direct Requests) and Client Intake Coordinators. Two weeks after this change is released, a default value of 2 client assignments per week will be added for those mentors that not in one of the pilot regions (Central and Mid-Atlantic). For those mentors in the pilot regions, we have developed a plan to update this field for them based on the values they currently have in their Direct Request Limit field and the Subject Matter Expertise field.
Please note that a failure to update this field with the combined capacity limit may result in your current limit being reached very quickly (most mentors currently have a value of 1 or 2).This means that clients may be unable to directly request you through your profile on the SCORE website. And you may receive fewer client assignments from your Client Intake Coordinator as those mentors who have reached their weekly assignment limit will not show up on the list of available mentors the Client Intake Coordinator uses when assigning requests. Also, if this field has no value, there will be no limit to the number of requests that can be assigned to them.

Client Intake Coordinators:

Continue to run and review the ‘Available Mentors and SMEs’ report on the Engage home page on a daily basis when assigning client requests in your chapter queue. Filter the list to see who has the information updated

Chapter/District/Region Leaders:

Share this information and encourage all mentors to log in and update this field on their profile to help ensure a smooth experience for them and continuous service delivery to SCORE clients.

Training Document:

https://help.score.org/hc/en-us/articles/360041627993-How-to-Update-Your-Profile-Engage (This document will be updated on 8/1 to reflect all of the above)

10-16-2023 -

Activity Newest / Oldest

Hanane Mouhssine

This update is currently on hold and will not be released as previously planned. This decision is based on recent feedback from SCORE volunteers, admins and staff during training sessions and through related communications. We are conducting a thorough audit of our Engage enhancements and system release processes to identify and address existing gaps and other areas for improvement.
Future updates will encompass the following:
• A holistic and strategic view of the main process/area addressed by the enhancement
• An in-depth understanding of the indirect effects on other processes, areas and teams
• Feedback and testing from a more representative group of field users, including pilot and non-pilot regions
• Consideration of a wider array of roles and positions
• A proactive and clear communication strategy and plan for all upcoming changes
• Once the improved process is finalized, this enhancement will be revisited and subjected to the new process, and any decisions will be communicated well in advance.

Hanane Mouhssine

Status changed to: Planned

Hanane Mouhssine

Status changed to: In progress

Hanane Mouhssine

Status changed to: Planned

Hanane Mouhssine

Update:
The "Maximum direct client weekly requests?" field will be renamed to "Maximum client weekly requests?" and the "Direct Client Requests last 7 days" field will be renamed to "Client Requests last 7 days." Engage will now count both direct client requests and CIC assigned requests when calculating the total weekly requests. Consequently, the "Request Limit Reached" alert and the "Client Requests last 7 days" field will reflect this new combined total. Additionally, if the request limit is reached, mentors will be removed from the CIC assignment list. These updates aim to provide a more accurate and comprehensive view of client requests and ensure better management of mentor assignments.

- Who will be impacted by this change? Provisional and Active Mentors, Client Intake Coordinators.

- Why this change is being implemented? Currently, mentors can only limit the number of client requests that they receive through direct requests. The field is being renamed Total Number Mentoring Requests Assigned and will include both the number that come via direct requests from your profile on the website and those that are assigned to you by the Client Intake Coordinator on a weekly basis (rolling 7 day time period). This update will enable mentors to have more control around their capacity for working with clients. It will also streamline the assignment process by enabling us to more quickly pair clients with the best available mentor based on their needs and reduce the number of requests that require reassignment due to limited mentor availability and capacity.

- What action should be taken because of this change? Provisional and Active mentors should update their profile to reflect the maximum number of requests they are willing to accept on a weekly basis to include both direct requests and assignments by the Client Intake Coordinator. Leaders should encourage their members to review and update their profiles accordingly.

Doug Knapman

Please look at Days between Assignments score.upvoty.com/b/engage-enhancement-requests/mre-assignment-pacing-fields/ enhancement request and vote for it if you like it. My opinion is it would make. it easier for CICs to know who is available and for mentors to space out their assignments

Kevin Dorsey

Yes, this would be very useful.

Nancy Chouinard

Any manual task that can be automated is progress we all can use. There's always the option of zero if someone doesn't want limits.

Larry SCORE

The problem with non-direct requests impacts the full time employees and members that own businesses. Many of these members have specific expertise in areas much needed by clients: IT, Social media, tax, accounting, Real Estate, Legal, Intellectual Property....even 1 per week might be to much and they are not interested in taking "Mary's cookies". The concern is their continuing with SCORE if they get overloaded.

David Lurie

not needed, use pause to take care of those issues

Mike Messmer

YES...make a field for the CIC limit -- can be weekly or monthly.

Chris Anna Lazar

I like the idea of having both a weekly limit and a monthly limit.

Lori Wengerd

YES! There's no other way for One SCORE to work.

Kenneth Kerata

emal is my choice

Bob Ragland

Another way to manage.... Just have a place (maybe the SME field) where the mentor states the maximum concurrent mentoring load. My clients usually go several weeks. So assignments does not measure how busy I am. I set "pause" when I'm drowning.

Scott Dillenback

Yes, monthly would be sufficient to start, then monitor.

Kerry DeMuth

Yes Please!

Edita Cruz

Yes.

Ed Weiser

Yes, weekly.

Nancy Verduin

I would go with monthly.

Merris Welge Jr.

YES, that should be a given!

Kathy Ellis

Another top priority!

Jennifer Aspy

Yes, this is an important feature, however make the limit monthly.

Thomas Morgan

Absolutely agree. Working Mentors have a lower capacity than retired Mentors.

Jay Holmes

Our CIC does that. She asks for availability and how many.

Steven Lome

Are you talking about all requests or accepted requests? It makes a difference. Mentor should have flexibility to communicate with CIC about their needs and capacity.

Mollie Everett

I think this is important but support the idea of setting monthly limits rather than weekly. Leave it to the mentors to manage their calendars & scheduling with clients.

John Fisher

Great idea

Dillon Franks

Absolutely. After all, we are volunteers.

Jim Axelrad

Yes, I'm on a team and between my partner and I we get 2-4 requests a week. Along with our continuing clients receiving more from another source would exceed our capacity to provide convenient times.

Gary Robinson

In theory, it sounds great. But nationwide, we have issues getting mentors just to enter sessions sometimes. Now we're going to get everyone to set weekly/monthly limits? When we set our minds to assigning every client in Memphis, the first thing we had to do was establish a monthly ceiling for each mentor. We did that by calling them all and asking. Volunteer mentors do amazing work. But I think if we'd left it to them to fill out a form or click something in a profile, we wouldn't have gotten the information.

Shelah Schenkel

I believe whether someone remembers or takes the time to enter sessions is a different subject. I think being empowered by setting your own weekly limits for mentors in the Engage settings for direct request online and for CIC delegation could be key to keeping more active mentors. If they are good, they get too busy and burn out (locally).That's not just distance sessions. The local ones count as well. So I vote YES to being able set your weekly CIC requests. We ask any ways. Might as well let the mentor make the decision in their preferences. We have ONE SCORE, which will rotate around and connect mentors who didn't get their quota yet. The ones who are spread thin, can still stick around. ☺️

Mercedes Diaz

I do feel this would be helpful. Maybe it could be a weekly and monthly limit.

Sharon Rose

Absolutely. Will reduce the number of declines that our CICs deal with, reduce request acceptance turn around time.

Kate McKone-Sweet

I agree. This will be very helpful and save time for mentors

Donald Jennings

Monthly limit rather than weekly, as some mentors may want less than one a week and zero does not work. Some mentors (like myself) tend to have few clients and many sessions per client... that's just the way I tend to mentor these clients. I think there are quite a few like this.

Per Fernqvist

This one is trickier than adding text. For one limit how? By the day, week, month? Not a priority

Patricia Saporito

Should be added!

Robert Shaver

If this cange is vital for the pilots, why ask the rest of us, Mark?

Mark Krosse

Pilot is also coming to your chapter in late 2024

Robert Shaver

If it's vital to the pilots, why ask the rest of us?

Bob Janesak

Keep the methodology for limits constant for client assignments.

Pat Ripple

Agree

Jennifer Lang

SCORE keeps playing with the capacity concept but until that's clearly defined, this may not or may not be a solution that benefits mentors and CICs, whether consolidated as in the pilot, or chapter CICs. For now, the instructions to pilot involved Mentors have been already issued. Let's avoid adding more steps/processes until we're clear everyone involved is following the ones issued. There needs to be a communication strategy! That makes my "vote" a "no until after the 1st FYqtr".

Marshall Mehring

agree we should be able to set a limit for CIC assignments, but let's make it on a monthly versus a weekly basis

Marshall Mehring

agree, good idea

Steve Feinman

no, it will be just another cluster.

Marcia Ladd

Makes good sense

Whit Ford

And also show CICs how many Sessions the mentor has recorded over the past 4 weeks to provide a sense of how busy they are with continuing clients as well as new clients. The two are equal contributors to the Mentor's workload, whether they are willing to accept new clients or not.

randy zipfel

We really need this to make things easier for the both the mentoring and the CIC's. Having Pilot chapter mentors maintain this information in a free-form Engage Profile field seems unwieldy and unnecessary.

Bill Griggs

I don't like this idea. Smaller chapters have limited members and this would lead to overwork on those members who are committed to take care of every client.

Donald Krasnick

Good idea. Only real way for CICs to figure out what a mentor's actual "capacity" is.

Jay Gladney

Strong Yes! Am doing this manually now and would be useful to be able to do it within Engage.

Bill Morland

How would the CIC get that information? Would the mentor just not appear on the pull down screen. would we have a list to access that shows which mentors have exceeded their request? I think it puts too much pressure on the CIC and complicates the job . Not in favor.

Angela Patterson

Good idea

Helen Trollman

Agreed

Susan Lundy

Would help most with those Chapters with many CICs instead of one or two. Less urgent.

Charles Anderson

Could help but not really important

Ron Barkley

Not a high priority.

Cathy Mattax

Adding to my prior comment. I am a (former, prior to Regional Pilot) District CIC who used 7-day and 30-day capacity limits and actual assignments (exported from Engage intra day, using custom reports) to very effectively manage mentor load for 150 mentors and 600+ MREs/month. I would like to share our real life experience based on actual assignments and the various use cases we encountered, so that real life experience can be considered as input into requirements definition.
Also, Reiterating: Mentors should designate how many DRs, and how many TOTAL (DR+CIC) they want. Scenario: Mentor who has DR limit at 1, and will take 1 (Total) per week. How do they set their CIC-assigned limit? To ensure they are not overloaded, they might just say '0', but if they get no DRs, they will be underloaded. We need to optimize mentor capacity, not artificially limit but defining fields in a way that could lead to underutilization.

Charlie Morris

This could reduce active declines and passive ignores.

Gordon Magee

Agree, ASAP

Gordon Magee

Agree

David Rothfeld

Yes

George Gremse

Agree

Dennis Mitchell

Good idea.

Richard Brooks

With a regional approach to client intake, this is going to be essential. We can't rely on a manual process any longer.

Jim Helfgott

This process is being done manually now. I don’t see how we move to a CIC outside the chapter if we don’t have this feature.

Bob Ragland

Agree… but for what its worth… my CIC team makes a habit of first emailing an outside-the-chapter mentor. Plus… we often co-mentor when adding someone with special expertise. Both outside the chapter and co-mentoring require an intro note to the mentor. Into notes always improve acceptance rates as well. They should almost be mandatory.

Bob Ragland

This would reduce the number of mentors who need to pause.

And unlike the other two fix proposals this one does not have an easy workaround.

As long as we're talking… Why does "pause" only affect CIC requests? Obviously a paused mentor does NOT want direct requests either…..

Bob

Mark Krosse

score.org will ship new function shortly; the profile of a DR mentor who goes on Pause will not be visible to clients to make a DR request for them

Manuel Diaz

Support this.

Bob Ragland

Yes.

Mark Williams

Yes

Cathy Mattax

This is absolute imperative, essential for managing mentor capacity and load.
But before you implement this please think through the complete set of use cases and requirements. Examples include:
For (our mentors at least) an MRE is an MRE is an MRE - do not have a field that is "CIC only" - it will be confusing. They may value a separate field for DRs, but will want to manage their total MRE count
Do not use the same logic currently used for DR to say when they've reached limit. Last time I looked, it was reset only weekly - which is not an effective way to manage mentor capacity. You must do this real time - how many they have had in the past 7 days, rolling.
Also, please consider adding both a 7-day and a 30-day max. A mentor who takes 1 a week, may only be able to take 2 a month - NOT 4.

Mark Krosse

have previously submitted this multiple time - it is material to success of the One SCORE Pilots