Mentorloop Pro empowers you to take ownership of setting up, launching, and growing a successful mentoring program. Starting with Mentorloop’s three step Program Builder, you can get set up for success up in as little as 10 minutes!

This guide will take you through everything you need to know to make your way through Program Builder - it really is as easy as it seems! 

Program Builder is available on the Mentorloop Pro package

Step 1: Select your matching style

There are three matching styles to choose from when using Mentorloop Pro:

• Manual Match
• Self Match
• Blended 

Which one you choose will depend on your program’s unique goals. If you’re unsure as to which style would be the best fit for your program, check out this article on the different Matching styles on Mentorloop Pro which explains how they differ, examples of where and when they work best, and the pros and cons of each.

As the name suggests, Blended offers the best of both Self and Manual match - it allows you to encourage people to take charge of their mentoring journeys while still making it possible for you to step in when someone needs a hand with finding a match.

For this reason, it is our recommended approach and, to make things easier for you, will be automatically selected for Pro programs at the start of the build process. But don't worry! You can change it in Program Builder if you like.

Step 2: Configure your signup form with Program Themes

Building a unique signup form for your program is a key part to ensuring seamless registration and effective matching for your people. However, deciding what questions to ask can be challenging if you have to start from scratch.

With Mentorloop Pro, Program Themes do the heavy lifting for you by providing you with a signup form and set of matching rules designed oriented towards your desired program goals. Each theme is built on the success of hundreds of programs that have gone before you, so you can feel confident in launching with an effective signup form. 

There are three themes to choose from:

• Classic
• Diversity Equity & Inclusion
• Community

An effective signup form makes inviting and onboarding your mentors and mentees super easy. It collects basic information about your participants, their individual goals and other information to help your people get the most out of mentoring. It also informs the all important matching process. 

As you build your form, keep an eye out for the customizations available to you, including opportunities to add your own answers specific to your organization, make questions optional or obligatory, and even remove questions altogether if they’re not relevant to your program.

Selecting the right theme can seem daunting, but it doesn't have to be. We'll help you out by selecting a theme for you automatically based on the information you've provided us with and what we think could be a great fit for you.

You can always choose a different theme, however, if you think another one would be a better fit - use our deep dive into program themes to help you choose which one is best suited for your program.

Remember that you cannot make any changes to your Signup form after launch, so we encourage you to play around with the different themes in Program builder and review your form thoroughly before hitting the launch button!

Step 3: Make it yours (optional)

The third and final step is all about customizing the look and feel of your program, including:

• Program name
• Branding colours
• Organization logo
• Signup form introduction message

Customizing these settings at this stage is completely optional since, unlike your signup form, can be updated at any time pre or post-launch from your Program Settings. 

Explore your free demo

And there you have it - Program Builder complete! Now it’s time to explore Mentorloop Pro in demo mode to learn how Mentorloop sets your people and program up for success. We recommend making use of the demo data available at this stage to test out some key tools as well as the participant experience. 

Not sure where to start? Give these things a go:

• See how Mentorloop helps you create great mentoring matches i.e. "Loops"
• Learn how to measure the success of your program from your PC dashboard, then dive deeper on the Sentiment page
• Browse your program settings to see where you can customize your program even more, including adding a dashboard introduction message and updating your Recommended Reading.
• Experience what Mentorloop is like for your participants by inviting up to three test Participant accounts as you normally would if your program is live.
• From these accounts you can play around in a demo version of the Participant Dashboard, practice using Self Match and see what a 1:1 Loop looks like. 

Note that once launched, all demo data including test Participant accounts will be permanently removed from your program.

Changes to your Program Settings will remain post launch and can be updated at any time.

For more guidance on how to get the most from your demo, check out our launch checklist for Mentorloop Pro.

Launch your program 

Once you've completed program builder and have explored your demo, it's time to launch your program. Choose your subscription by clicking the Pay and launch button directly from your dashboard.

Don't forget to check out this launch checklist to make sure that you haven't missed any key steps leading up to the launch of your mentoring program!

PC Training Video: Building your signup form