Highlight features

Tasks & Activity

All users will now be shown a list of tasks that need completing by them as well as a list of activity of all actions taken that they need to be aware of including their own and other's actions.

Tasks are generated for a user based on prior actions taken and can come in the form of required tasks they need to complete, recommended tasks to make their experience better, or optional tasks that may help them in the long run. These tasks can be complete by taking the appropriate actions, but can also be marked as complete or snoozed for action later.

You can use tasks as your own personal TO-DO list, easily seeing what actions you need to take, and by when. Log in to your account to get started.

Verified skills

All experiences and projects on Riipen will now be automatically tagged with a list of applicable skills when they are being created, which can then be further customized by the administrators. These skills are then used all over the Riipen platform including:

• Helping match making, search, and recommendations
• Being added to a learner's profile upon project completion
• Being showcased in feedback to learners
• Being used as part of employer created endorsements for learners

New features & Improvements

• As an employer, I am now able to see recent applications from my project page sidebar
• As an authorized user, I am now able to see and track all activity for a payment
• Added URL links to all "Sign Agreements" notification bars reminding learners and employers of the “agreements to be signed”
• As a learner, if I am not a member of any experiences, I can now see available experiences on my dashboard.
• As an employer, I can now see all my recent matches on my dashboard.
• As an experience administrator, when creating teams I am now required to provide dates as needed
• A "Request Access to Portal" button on the "Portal Access Required" page has been added.
• As an employer, I can now see milestones for my teams in my calendar.
• As an educator, I can now see all historical company applications in my portal.
• As an educator, I can now 'Skip' creating an experience in the onboarding wizard.
• Educators can now see their experiences in a table format instead of cards
• Users can now add their X (formerly Twitter) accounts to their profiles.

Bug fixes

• Categories are now displayed in the user's language preference
• Fixed an issue where users were unable to add 'other' option to one of the match request multiple-choice questions
• Resolved the problem where users couldn't activate work logs for experiences
• Resolved an issue where some users were unable to delete experience drafts

New features & Improvements

• As an educator, I am able to limit the number of matched projects per experience per company.
• As an educator, I can duplicate an experience to copy its surveys.

• As a portal administrator, I am now able to browse all companies on Riipen via a link from the companies tab from my portal.

• As an educator, I can leave a note on a match request.
• As an educator, I can view match request notes on the portal company record.
• As an educator, I can see the source of a company note.
• As an educator, I can view company portal activity when reviewing a pending match request.
• As an educator, I can leave company notes on any company in the Portal > Companies tab, regardless of whether they have a portal pass or not.

• As a survey creator, I can choose to display multiple-choice questions randomly to respondents.
• Matrix-style questions have been added as a survey question type
• Survey editors can now choose "Per experience" as a timing option, extending this functionality to both employers and learners.

• As a experience administrator, I can now manually change team states from incomplete to active.
• As a learner, when viewing “My projects” page, if I am not a member of any experience yet, I am prompted to join an experience.
• As an employer, I can now select closed projects while submitting a match request from a dropdown list.
• Navigation of feedback across the platform has been updated
• Removed 'similar' content from marketplace preview pages
• Endorsements are now visible on feedback pages.
• Employers can now view all teams working on their project directly from the project page.
• Employers can now see all applications to their project directly from the project page.
• The project page sidebar now shows recent teams for employers.
• The project page sidebar now shows recent matches for employers.
• Experience administrators can now set maximum start dates for all teams or matches under their experience.
• As a guest visiting the portal page, I will now see a a “Get Started” button which will guide me through the onboarding process
• As any user, I now see milestone completion metrics in team progress bar.
• As the recipient of a meeting invitation that I have not accepted, I see ‘accept’ and ‘decline’ buttons on the meeting standalone page.
• As an employer, when deleting a member from my company or a project, I receive a confirmation modal that displays the member's name. This way, I can confirm the deletion with confidence, knowing exactly who I'm removing.
• As an employer, I can reply to a kickoff-created notification email, and my reply is added as a message to the ‘kickoff’ conversation.

Bug fixes

• As a user, when viewing a document agreement, a blank panel appears instead of a preview.
• Fixed an issue where Safari users were limited to giving a maximum rating of 4.5 stars instead of 5 stars for feedback.
• Resolved an issue where the title field in a survey was not saved when the survey was invalid.
• Addressed a problem where, after the approval of a Portal pass, users were redirected to an Unauthorized screen instead of their dashboard.
• Resolved an issue where users could proceed in the match request wizard despite entering an incorrect date value..
• Educator updates are now only visible to the intended audience on the experience page.
• Addressed a situation where teams were incorrectly marked as incomplete due to missing kickoffs, even when kickoffs were present.
• Team state can no longer be changed after a team is completed.
• Previously, when a user made an error answering the portal's custom questions, all other questions without errors also reset, causing users to re-enter/select their answers.
• Experience settings survey filters were not working properly. When trying to filter experience surveys by status, phase, or user type, it would attempt to filter the surveys of the portal instead, leading to redirection to the wrong place.

Highlight features

AI based match compatibility scores

When submitting match requests for projects and experiences, educators and employers will now be able to check the compatibility of their projects and experiences with our new AI drive compatibility scores.

• Know if the match is a good fit before even submitting the request
• Quickly determine compatibility and use it as guiding criteria when evaluating incoming match requests

Date change requests

Teams and employers who have set dates for their projects are now able to submit a date change request to the other party if they need to move keys dates in their timeline such as changing the end date.

Team states

Explicit team states have been added and are displayed throughout the platform. These states more easily show if a team is currently active and completing a project, inactive, incomplete from missing deadlines and more.

Observers

Experience administrators can now add observers to their experience and assign them to particular teams which will grant them read-only access to those teams and their data.

• Easily keep tabs on a large number of teams by assigning observers to each one

Improvements

• As an educator, when I view the 'My Experiences' tab, I now see the default sort order as 'Recently updated'.
• As an educator, I can filter my experiences by 'Open/Closed'.
• As an educator, the 'Open/Closed' filter on the Portal > Experiences page has been updated to an on-page filter.
• As an experience administrator, I can turn match quality evaluations on or off from my settings page
• As an experience administrator, I can use a default role of “Guest” on any experience I create, that is uneditable.
• As an experience administrator, I can view a member page for each other experience member.
• As an experience administrator, I can add properties to teams within my experiences
• As an experience administrator, I am able to limit the number of matched projects per experience per company.
• As a portal administrator, I can grant a portal pass from any portal company page.
• As an employer, when I view My Projects > Projects tab, the default sort order is now 'Recently updated'.
• As an employer, the 'State' and 'Open/Closed' filters on the 'My Projects' page have been updated to on-page filters.
• As an employer, the 'State' and 'Open/Closed' filters on the Company > Projects tab have been updated to on-page filters.
• As an employer, I can select closed projects while submitting a match request.
• As a learner, matches are sorted by default on an experience page to promote open matches first.
• As a educator or employer, I can now use persistent filters on all match request tables, meaning any filters I set will be applied the next time I view that table.
• As a educator or employer, I can now see the Status filter displayed on the match request page the same way it's shown on the project and experience requests tab.
• As an educator, employer, or learner, I now receive notifications when dates are changed on an experience, match or team both in-app and via email.
• As a user, when I view any user requests, the default sort order is now from most recent to least recent requests.
• As a user, when I view the bookmarks tab, the default sort order is now 'Created at'.
• As a user, if I have read only access to a conversation, I can now join it.
• As a user, I can now earn achievements from a parent portal.
• As a user, I can filter a portal's profile experiences to open or closed.
• As any user, I can now see a full list of the recipients of the feedback I am issuing in the feedback wizard
• As a guest, I will now see a “Get Started” button on a portal's profile
• The experience matches table has been updated for learners.
• Categories are now optional for experiences
• The Portal > Experiences default sort order has been updated
• The Company > Projects default sort has been updated
• Learners now receive an updated ‘Application Pending’ notification email when they apply to join a project based on whether the two-sided acceptance requirement is in effect or not.
• When an employer is removed from a company, they will also be removed from any projects within that company.
• When an educator is removed from a portal, they will also be removed from any experiences within that portal.
• When experience team creation is not learner-assign, learners will not be able to delete themselves from teams.
• The emails to companies for portal passes has been updated.

Bug fixes

• As a user, when viewing a document agreement, a blank panel appears instead of a preview.

Highlight features

Date change requests

Dates for project timelines can be set be an experience, project, or team depending on an experience's setting. Previously, once dates were set they were immutable, which caused issues when teams or projects wanted to alter their timelines in any way. With date change requests you can now submit a request to change a start or end date for a specific project or team and have the other party accept it to confirm the change to keep your timelines on Riipen reflecting the ongoing needs of projects.

Improvements

• As an employer, I now see any linked project templates for an experience under 'Project Examples' on an experience page
• As a portal admin, I can decide whether to display subportal experiences on my portal profile
• As an educator, I now have the ability to download survey responses per survey
• As en employer, when I receive a portal pass invitation to a company I am not a member of, I am directed to request to join that company
• As a learner, I can see on an experience page how many teams I am in relative to “Teams per student maximum” when this limit exists.
• As a learner, I can see on a match page how many teams I am in relative to “Teams per student maximum” when this limit exists
• As a learner, I can see on a match page when “Unique students per matched project” is enabled and I am already a member of a team on that match.
• As an educator, when duplicating an experience it also duplicates its surveys
• As an educator or employer, when duplicating an experience or project it duplicates the agreements
• As an educator, I can create teams from my experience learners teams tab
• As any user, I can see who sets the dates and how learners are assigned to projects on the experience page.
• As an employer, I can filter experiences by ‘Dates set by’ & ‘Learner project assignment’.
• Updated terminology from "team" to "project" for learners in certain cases
• As an employer, I can see on the experience page how many teams and learners I can accept per matched project.
• As an employer or educator, I can see on the match page how many teams and learners I can have for that match, and how many I already have.
• An educator can no longer modify dates set by experience after end date+10 days has passed
• As a user invited to a portal/company as a guest, I no longer see the "Create experience/project" button in the welcome email
• Organizer and attendee information added to meeting ICS files
• UI update to portal pass application page
• As a learner, I now see an informational notice after I submit an application

Bug fixes

• Buttons above tables sometimes had words wrapped when there was space to not wrap
• Educators and employers cannot always cancel an accepted match request which they should be able to cancel
• Learners show as having no agreements signed when they were signed in certain circumstances
• Employers should only see applications in the current portal on their dashboard
• Some matches had negative team counts in some situations
• User were promoted to sign agreements when already completed
• Users unable to duplicate experience in some situations

Highlight features

Portal pass invites with Zapier

Portals can now send portal pass invites to their company network via Zapier to help automate this process with any external tools already being used to bring companies into your ecosystem.

• Easily integrate with 1000s of external tools to bring your company network into your private Riipen network

Getting Started Reminders

All users will receive more content-rich emails when a project starts, including what to expect and what next steps should be taken.

• Employers will be told what to expect from learners reaching out to them to start their project
• Educators will be reminded of important dates and how to onboard their learners to Riipen
• Learners will be told how to reach out to their project's employers and get the ball rolling

Improvements

• As a member of a company with a portal pass, I see a portal pass success screen for the current portal when I accept my portal pass
• As a member of a company, when my portal pass application is automatically accepted, I am now redirected to the portal pass success screen
• As a member of a company, the portal pass granted email I receive now contains a link to the success screen
• As a portal administrator, I can edit the content in the informational notice on the portal pass success screen
• As a portal administrator, I can list portal pass invites via API
• As a portal administrator, I can get a portal pass invite via API
• As a portal administrator, I can create portal pass invites via Zapier.
• As an employer or an educator, I can share any feedback I receive on LinkedIn
• Conversation preview UI update used in various page sidebars
• Updated Team Final Submission Email subject line
• Updated the agreements panel on the team page to say "Agreements" instead of "Getting started"
• Modified column display on smaller screen sizes for match request table
• Removed team members list in the team page overview tab sidebar
• Content and copy refreshed on “experience starting soon” emails with what to expect/do for all users
• Small UI updates to the Teams Table

Bug fixes

• Member request with already accepted member request but no member would fail silently
• Portal pass success screen showing 0 recommended experiences when 1 or more exist
• Learners may receive a "Failed Dependency" error when trying to add their payment info.

Highlight features

Maximum end dates

Educators are now able to set a global maximum end date for their experience.

• Maintain the flexibility of allowing dates to be set by learners or employers, while enforcing program requirements via a maximum end date for all participants. Learn more

Custom instructions for new portal pass recipients

When a company is granted access to a portal via a portal pass, they now see a custom screen providing instruction on next steps.

• Provide content recommendations from the portal for the user
• Let them know what their portal pass gives them access to do, and suggested next steps
• Customize content on this screen through portal settings. Learn more

Access to team-employer conversations for educators

Educators can now set experiences to provide them with either view-only or membership access to conversations between teams and employers.

• As an educator this allows you to keep tabs on conversations as needed to provide support or ensure regular interaction is occurring
• All participants are informed of this access at the outset of the conversation

Improvements

• When a pending match revision exists, this is now the employer's default view of the match request so they have immediate access to accept/decline buttons
• As a learner, I should be able to view the milestone attachment added by the educator on the standalone milestone submission page.
• Learners now see informational text on the project page explaining how to join
• Learners can now see when viewing a project whether they already have a pending application to it.
• The chatbot reminder message in match request conversations now states whether both parties need to take action or just one. It now links to the match request page, as well.
• Feedback wizard text has been updated to more clearly state who you're currently giving feedback to.
• Rich text editor spacing display: the spacing of text entered in the input now more closely aligns with how it displays to the end user to improve user experience across all types of written content creation.
• As a learner, I should receive a second kickoff reminder email if my team or I haven’t started my project yet.
• When applications are 'Open' but not available to the current user, a notice now explains why.
• Update to final submission panel on team page to include a header and show custom description when one exists.

Bug fixes

• Message component grows in width when long unbroken string is included in preview
• Profile about panel grows in width when long unbroken string is included in bio field
• A portal that has the open marketplace disabled should only have /search/portal/projects in the nav bar
• As a learner, if an experience is set to “Unique learners per matched project” and I am already in a team on that match, “Apply” should not be visible to me.

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Highlight features

Answer match requests from your dashboard

Answer match requests more efficiently and see at a glance where action is required. By adding the ability to accept or decline requests from the dashboard, we allow educators and employers to act more quickly to respond to other users who are interested in matching with them.

Link back to context in conversations

Across all conversation types, we’ve added more events that help give discussion about the conversation taking place. These events have been updated to be more descriptive and link back to the activity referenced.

Improvements

• Learners are now required to provide date of birth at sign up in order to collect parental consent for users under 18
• After signing an agreement a user is now redirected back to the agreements tab to complete other agreements they may need to sign.
• UI update to social network links on user profile to make them more consistent with other elements, and more prominent
• UI improvement to content recommendations page following experience or project publication to make these more visually appealing
• As an educator, when viewing a project page, the “Your latest matches” & "Pending requests" sections now have “View all” CTA so that an educator can see all their past interaction with that project
• An educator who joins an experience after a match request was created is now automatically given access to existing match request conversations.
• The “Matches” table on an experience now has the Application status and Categories filters always visible to improve ease of use.
• As an educator, I should see a “Surveys” tab on the Team > Members > Member detail page so I can see what surveys each member has completed.
• When I receive an email notification about a new match request, the email now contains the full overview of the project or experience that is requesting to match with my content.
• When I receive an email notification that I’ve been awarded an achievement, the email now contains the full description of that achievement.
• When I receive an email notification that a user has requested to join my portal, company or experience, the email now contains all the details of that user’s request.
• When I receive an email notification that a learner applied to my project, I can now see the full content of the application in the email.
• As the recipient of a survey, I can now complete the survey through the unique link in my email notification without logging in.
• Learners now receive a more descriptive reminder email to start a project, which includes recommended next steps.
• When a meeting is booked via Google Meet or Zoom integration, the ICS file sent with the email notification now pre-fills that videoconference link in the location field.
• Projects that have promotional content for a company rather than a true project scope are now automatically flagged for review using AI.
• An educator can now send project proposals that include all main project details fields, including the skills and mentorship fields.
• A learner can no longer create a new application to a project they’ve already joined, unless this is explicitly enabled by the experience.
• The email notifying a user of a new invitation now includes in the subject line information about what the user is being invited to.
• As a learner, I should be able to start my project by replying to the reminder email in most circumstances.
• As a learner, I should be notified via email if another member of my team has started our project.
• The project kickoff panel of a team page should have a header to be consistent with the style of other panels on the page
• Update subject line of unread message email to indicate which conversation it refers to

Bug fixes

• Error ordering learners table on feedbacks average
• When editing a survey the title field is not filled in
• Message formatting issues - reply via email, signature not being stripped out
• As an employer, I should not be able to submit match request custom questions if a required question is left blank.
• Department name not showing cases
• In match revision page, when "Unpaid" is default selection the payment amounts are shown
• A user who clicks on an invitation link that has already been accepted should see a descriptive error message
• Password change should expire all existing sessions for that user
• Post-project surveys are able to be completed before submission if submission and survey date are the same
• Company switcher logo is being resized incorrectly when company name is long

Latest updates from Oct 26 - Nov 23 on Riipen.

Highlight features

Reply to messages via email
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Want to respond to another user on Riipen without leaving your email inbox? This is now available to all of our users.

• You can hit respond on any unread message email notification to send your reply from the comfort and convenience of your own inbox.
• Maintain the privacy and centralization of communicating through Riipen: other parties in the conversation will not see your email address, but will view your message both in-app and via email notification.

Visit the help article to learn more about this feature.

Submit project milestones and final deliverables via email 📩

For learners, the reply by email feature is extended to the ability to complete project milestones and the final submission by replying to the reminder notification emails.

• Learners can submit their project milestones and deliverables via email
• Learners can reply with a description of their submission and any related attachments and have the status of their project updated in-app with this information.

View overall company network for a portal

The “Companies” tab of a portal now includes a list of all companies the portal has matched with, in addition to showing (as it has to date) the companies who’ve been issued a portal pass to join the portal.

• Gain a better picture of your overall company network size and scope.
• Select any company to see their published projects, the ones they’ve specifically promoted to your portal, and any past matches with experiences in the portal.
• Propose a new project, request to match with an existing one, or leave notes for other administrators.

Under “Portal content” in the main menu, select the “Companies” option to see this updated data.

Improvements and bug fixes

Improvements

• When creating a custom survey you can now mark it as “required.” Required surveys will block a user from completing any later actions on a project until they’ve answered the survey.
• Surveys can’t be completed until the user is in the appropriate stage of the project. Mid-project surveys are now blocked until the user has started the project, while post-project surveys are blocked until the final submission has been made.
• Surveys now have titles to help administrators and respondents distinguish between them and easily understand the survey’s purpose.
• Employers can now see any pending requests they have with an experience they are currently viewing..
• Employers are automatically redirected to the private marketplace when their portal pass application is accepted
• A user who is inviting a new member to a team can now search learners who are members of the experience, in addition to inviting via email.
• The “Teams” table now includes a feedback score column, so that everywhere teams are listed you can easily see whether feedback was already given, and what the overall rating was.
• The automated prompt that nudges users to respond to match requests after 5 days of inactivity now sends only to users who have not yet interacted in the chat.
• As an educator, I can now create a team directly from a match page, under the “Teams” tab.
• Attachment links are now included directly in unread message email notifications so a user does not need to visit the platform to view an attachment.
• All members of a team now receive a confirmation email when a milestone is submitted.
• Employers can now review a team’s submission (milestone or final deliverable) directly from their email, as the full description text and attachments are included in the email notification.
• Educators can now create custom achievements for participants in a single experience, not only portal-wide.
• Users can now earn achievements for completing specific surveys.
• Titles in the marketplace can now show up to 2 lines
• The team page steps (start project, complete milestone, complete final submission) now have a unified style to improve the clarity of expected actions on the team page.

Bug fixes

• "Upcoming events" in dashboard were not consistently listed in ascending order
• Invite modal crashing when no emails entered and submit button pressed
• Employer unable to accept a match request when verification is required in specific circumstances
• Learners can't make a submission when a required employer survey has not been completed
• A user’s average feedback score should recalculate when feedback is edited
• Search page resets to first item in list on clicking "back"
• Projects displayed on learner profile includes all applications
• Unable to change language setting from English to French
• Error creating survey instances for a team when dates are added or edited after team creation
• Learner does not advance past verification screen in some circumstances
• Match request and match page does not reflect compensation amount set in match request wizard
• Requests and matches count not displaying consistently in marketplace

New features, improvements and bug fixes released on Riipen from Oct 5-25.
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Feature

• Basic navigation has been updated for all users to make it easier to find your profile, the option to switch portals or companies, and the marketplace. Overview here.

• As an educator, I can now limit the number of teams a learner can join under one experience. Learn more

Story

• As any user, I should see the link to sync my calendar to an external one from the calendar page. On your calendar page (accessed via calendar icon in top navigation bar) you will now see the "Sync calendar" link above the calendar which provides the option to add your Riipen calendar to iCal, Outlook calendar, Google calendar or other tools.

• As a survey creator, I can add introductory text for respondents to explain the purpose of the survey or provide instruction.

• As the recipient of a meeting invitation, I should have the meeting automatically added to my calendar. When a meeting is created on Riipen, all participants receive a confirmation email which has an ICS file attached with the meeting details. In Gmail, this lets the user add the meeting to the calendar in a single click from their email. The handling of these files vary by email client, but all have a way to make these easily turned into calendar events.

• As an educator, I should have access to a survey summary page for each survey. For every survey on a portal or experience, you can now view "Replies" (individual responses) and "Summary" as additional tabs on the survey page. Summary provides an overview of the responses received to easily see what the trends are in your survey.

• As a meeting participant (pending or accepted), I should receive a reminder email before the meeting starts

• As a user viewing content in the marketplace, I should see existing matches and requests. You may notice now when viewing experiences and projects in the marketplace, you'll see if you have pending or accepted requests with that particular content.

Improvement

• A team member cannot complete milestones or the final submission without having started the project first.

• Everywhere teams are listed, it is possible to filter them by "Status" (not started, in progress or complete).

• Reorganization of experience settings items to better group the most commonly accessed items at the top and move functionality used by a minority of users to the "Advanced" section. Updated help article

• "Enable learner member requests" is now un-checked by default on new experiences.

• Employers can see whether or not they've provided feedback to a team directly from the team table in their dashboard or match page.

• Reorganization of portal settings for more logical grouping of related settings.

• Learner worklogs (time tracking) are disabled by default on new experiences but can be turned on via experience settings.

• Events in chat conversations related to milestone and final submissions should link to the submission page.

• Conversation details pane update: Each conversation in your Riipen message inbox has a conversation details pane; this has been improved to work across different screen sizes and show relevant context based on the conversation type. On large screens, the details pane is always visible. On smaller screens, access it by clicking the 3-dot menu at the top of the conversation and clicking "Content details"

• Request table modification: Based on user feedback that the 'View' icon on request tables was too small/subtle, this has been removed and the first column of information in the match request table is now clickable instead. This brings the user to the match request page.

• As a member of a company without Portal passes permission, the UI should prevent me from attempting to apply for a portal pass

• In the team creation wizard dropdown of matches, show "{Company name} - {Match name}" rather than "Project name" to make it easier to identify the correct project.

• Add program code to experience cards and experience pages.

Fixed bugs

• As an educator, I should not see "Request match" on a project that is promoted to a marketplace outside my workspace.

• Events should not appear on a learner's Riipen calendar for teams they were not accepted for

• Reports menu item not visible to some users with reports access

• Time zone not being set on user account at sign up

New features, improvements and bug fixes released on Riipen from Sept 27-Oct 4.
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Story

• As a portal admin or experience admin, I should be able to see responses to surveys when viewing any learner member of my portal or experience.

• As any user, I should be able to add rich text to messages (hyperlinking, bulleted and numbered lists, etc)

Improvement

• Update style of rich text editor in messages

• Replace terminology project/experience with employer/educator in request table activity column for greater clarity

• Add program code to experience page

Fixed bugs

• Message input was not always fixed at the bottom of the conversation pane

• Error viewing post notification when post doesn't exist anymore

• As a learner, I should see the notice "Sign agreements to unlock the matches" only if I am a member of the experience