New features & Improvements

New Feature - Scheduled Updates!

When an educator is creating an “Update” for an experience, you can now choose to post it right away, or to schedule it to go live on a future date. This allows educators and Riipen staff to set up Updates as part of the initial experience configuration, while still having them send out to users when they’re most needed.

Key points:

• Updates can be scheduled to go live and notify users on future dates
• Upcoming scheduled updates can be accessed and edited by experience admins

New feature - Scoring!

Educators can now enable scoring on experiences to assign numeric grades to learners and teams as they complete project deliverables.

• Educator article: https://help.riipen.com/en/articles/11535514-scoring

• Learner article: https://help.riipen.com/en/articles/11535619-scoring

If scoring is enabled, learners will receive a single score made up of one or more scored items, with configurable weights.

• Milestone completion is a binary score (0 or 100%) based on completion only
• Final submission completion is a binary score (0 or 100%) based on completion only
• Feedback is a variable score that takes the value of the average overall feedback provided by the employer

In future, we’ll be exploring more scoring options, such as subjective scoring (grading) by educators

Scoring functionality works best in tandem with LTI integration so the educator can pass the learner’s overall score back to the LMS automatically.

Improvements

• Breadcrumb updates. Breadcrumbs are being updated across the platform to improve clarity of navigation to nested pages.
• Project wizard content and label updates. We’ve improved labels, tooltips, headers, hints, and placeholder text in the project wizard for better clarity and consistency, reducing the overall length of each page.

• Improved import page context. Import pages now include a short description below each import option to help users better understand what each one does.
• Streamlined “Invite learners” options. The Invite menu in Experience > Learners has been simplified and all invite options now appear together (including the import option).
• Better guidance when creating milestones. Learners will now see a title and subtitle when opening the “Create Milestone” modal, explaining what milestones are and why to use them.
• Clearer task status on team pages. If a user completes a task (like a mandatory survey or agreement) but their team members haven’t, they’ll now see a “pending” icon in the Completed section, making the status clearer.
• Improved message notification emails. Email notifications for new messages now have a clearer subject line, cleaner formatting, and include the sender’s name tag, date, and time of message.
• New sidebar style for contact info. Content pages now show the primary admin and company or portal in the sidebar on the standalone page in order to save vertical space and put more key content above the fold. Sidebars on standalone content and match request pages now use a new visual style to highlight contact information more clearly.
• Improved project wizard flow for match requests. If you create a project directly from a match request, you’ll now see a customized “Get Started” page with updated step labels and context and project prompt and examples pulled from the associated experience. This is the first of several changes coming for the Create project to Match request direct path.

• Improved redirects after verification completion. Learners who complete verification after being invited to an experience will now be redirected to back the experience page, rather than the dashboard.
• Emails now sent only to relevant users. Only users with the appropriate permissions (or billing contacts) will receive payment-related emails. Match request notifications are now only sent to users who have permission to view or act on the request. If no such users exist, the notifications will be sent to all users.
• Decline reasons and messages now appear in chat. When a user declines a match request, their message from the decline modal will now appear directly in the match request chat instead of just the decline email.
• Worklog reminders. If worklogs are enabled on the experience, learners will now see a reminder in the Milestone and Submission created emails reminding them to log their work. The reminder will include a direct link to their Team page > Worklog tab for easy access.
• Warnings about sharing contact information. Users will now see a clear warning in messages if they attempt to share an email address or phone number. Despite the warning, users may choose to send the message if they wish.
• Navigation updates to user profile. “My profile” is now a dedicated menu item in the user menu, rather than being part of the clickable user nametag. This improves discoverability across all user types.
• Navigation updates to portal and company profiles. On portal subdomains, the top-left logo now links to the user dashboard instead of the portal profile, creating a more intuitive navigation experience.Portal and company profile links have been removed from the portal and company workspace switchers and added to the main navigation menu under “Portal content” for Educators and Riipen admins and under “Company content” for Employers and Riipen admins.
• Clearer attribution in resources. Resource listings now display the creator’s entity name (e.g., “Created by University of X” or “Created by Riipen”) instead of generic labels like “Portal” or “Default.”
• Improved table layout on mobile. Tables now display in a stacked panel format on mobile, making them easier to read and interact with.
• All tables now include a 'Results per page' label in the pagination footer, making it clearer how many results are shown per page and how many filtered results are currently being displayed.
• The Applications column in the matches table (Experiences > Matches) is now sortable. Click the column header to sort by the number of applications-descending by default.
• Setting application expiry limits. Educators can now define a maximum number of pending/expired team applications per match in the Experience settings > Participants > Team creation section. Educators and employers can override experience-level limits by setting a custom max number of pending/expired applications in the Match > Applications settings.

New features & Improvements

Invoice payments are live! Riipen now offers two modes of invoice-based payments: fixed rate and hourly pay.

• Payments can be from the portal, company, or a split between the two
• Invoices are generated automatically based on hours logged or based on deliverables
• Employers and/or educators can approve invoices
• Disputes can be initiated, mediated and resolved in platform
• Payments are issued automatically via Stripe to the learner's bank account.

We’ve made improvements to how inactive teams are automatically managed to reduce clutter and highlight active work. These changes improve visibility into which teams are active versus dormant, without restricting access or actions when deadlines are not enforced.

• Teams with no remaining members are now automatically marked as inactive.
• Teams that have not completed their final submission within 30 days of the due date are marked as inactive. (Note: This does not block future submissions if no binding deadline is set.)
• Teams that have not completed their kickoff within 30 days of the start date are also marked as inactive. (This does not block future kickoff actions.)

Match page sidebar

• The match page sidebar panel now displays the full team nametag, including the team avatar, instead of just the team name.

Employer reminder emails

• We’re re-enabling an email reminder for employers when a match request is close to expiring. This email is sent to project admins to encourage timely responses and help reduce unanswered requests.
• The email will go out 6 days before a match request expires.
• We’ll only send this reminder if the project has not yet responded to the request.

Custom content for "Application declined" emails

• Educators now have the ability to add custom content to the "Application Declined" email sent to learners when an employer declines their team application.
• A new field, “Team application declined email received by team,” has been added to the Experience settings > Advanced notifications > Team notification settings. This field will be visible only when the assignment type is set to “Application.”
• Learners will see the custom message in the declined application team email body text.

Feedback column in teams tables

• We’ve added a ‘Feedback’ column to the Teams table for both learners and employers. The column will display the following feedback statuses: Pending – One party has not provided feedback yet, and the project is complete. Provided – Feedback has been submitted.
• The feedback rating will be visible depending on the viewer (team feedback for employers and employer feedback for learners).
• Not available yet – Feedback cannot be given or received because the project is not yet complete.

Agreements & signatures UX enhancements

• Redirects after signing agreements
• Learners invited to a team are now automatically redirected to the team page after signing agreements.
• Users are redirected to their next unsigned agreement automatically when signing multiple agreements.
• Employers are automatically redirected to request acceptance following last agreement signature
• New ‘Next Steps’ sidebar on the agreement signing page

Track team agreement progress

• Learners can now see which teammates have completed agreements via a modal on the team page, similar to survey completion tracking.
• Agreement owners can now view all recipients’ statuses directly. A new Signatures tab is available on the agreement page, listing signers and statuses.

Match confirmation requires payment

• Employers must confirm payment details before a match is finalized for experiences where employers are paying in platform.
• On the Accept Request page, employers now see: a payment summary and are prompted for credit card details and billing address.

Experience & match request enhancements

• Clearer breakdown of hours, max teams/learners, and compensation info on the request page.
• “Paid” label now displays across experience cards, pages, and marketplace listings for paid experiences.
• Paid experiences must now have a rate of $7.25/hr (the US federal minimum wage) or more.

Feedback pending indicator

• A star icon now appears in the Teams table for learners who haven’t provided post-project feedback.

Team state added to CSV export

• Activity tracker exports now include team state to help filter and take action on team progress more easily.

Google sign-in revocation support

• We now support Google’s Cross-Account Protection. If users revoke access from their Google settings, we’ll automatically: end all active sessions, and remove the associated Google integration (if access is revoked)

Verification flow / Draft match requests

• Employers can now begin a match request before completing company verification when it's required by the experience.
• The Request match CTA is now visible even if the employer is unverified.
• Employers are redirected to the Verification page after completing the match request wizard. If the employer completes the wizard without completing verification, a draft match request is created instead of pending.
• Once all required verifications are completed (either right away or later): The match request automatically moves to Pending, A conversation is created

Other improvements

• When viewing the Feedback wizard > Endorsements step, if there is only one team member, their name will now be prefilled, and the "+Add" button will no longer appear.
• Employers can no longer access learner emails from the ‘Members’ tab on the team page. If employers need to view learner details, the email section will be hidden.

New features & Improvements

• Educators and employers now set the required number of hours for the project during the match request process.

• The payment commitment summary information within the match request emails has been improved to make payment requirements more clear.
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• When a user completes verification, any pending invitations associated with that verification are automatically accepted. The user does not need to go back and click the invitation link again, as they did previously.
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• The match request activity email has been improved with a stronger call to action in the subject line, and shorter text to emphasize the most important actions.
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• Learners and employers can now view the feedback they've received and provided under the Team > Feedback tab, as opposed to just the feedback they’ve received.

• Experience ‘Updates’ email notifications now use the portal’s logo and color branding instead of Riipen defaults.
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• A new "Representation" filter has been added to the project and company marketplaces which allows a user to filter by the company's self-identified representation tags.

• Educators with portal administrator level permissions now see a new Matches tab on their Portal content > Experiences tab showing all project matches for the portal.
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• The learner dashboard now shows only active and completed teams.

• Employers now are prompted to provide a decline reason when declining a learner application.
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• Learners are now prompted to provide a cancellation reason when cancelling an application.
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• Standalone pages for milestone and final submissions have been improved to make information more clear and readable in different states.

New features & Improvements

• The Experience > Learners table has been updated to show key metrics about each learner including number of completed agreements and surveys, and the number of teams they have joined.

• The Experience > Teams table has been updated to the team activity tracker which shows detailed progress information about each step for each learner and can be exported to CSV.
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• As an employer, I should see an informational banner on the team applications page explaining what’s next

• As any user I can now select any item from the worklog and can leave a comment on it. Users will be notified by email when a comment is left.

• Employers will now receive a daily email notification summarizing new and edited work log entries from that day. The frequency can be updated to ‘Weekly’ in the user settings.

• Updates to the employer feedback wizard language to improve clarity and conciseness.

• The "Propose changes" form in the match request wizard has been updated to reduce length of the page and improve clarity.
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• New fields for a match such as payment information, proposed dates and maximum teams are now separated into a new step of the match request wizard in order to ensure they are highlighted.
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• Educators can now select which conversation types are enabled for their experience, enabling any (or none) of the following options: Team-only; Project admin(s) + team; Project admin(s) + all teams.
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• The Project admin(s) + All teams conversation type is new and allows employers working with multiple teams on a single match to communicate with them all simultaneously.
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• Payment setup step for learners: Learners in experiences requiring a payment account will now see this as a step on the team page before "Start Project."
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• Tasks in the team page are better distinguished through icons identifying overdue and locked steps.

New features & Improvements

• As an educator, when duplicating an experience I should be able to pick my portal and set dates

• As a user, I should see a warning notice in every auto-created conversation, reminding me to keep all communication on Riipen.
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• As a learner, clicking the LTI link in my LMS should redirect me to my team page if I am already a member of a team for that experience.
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• Update language and link of calendar sync task for clarity
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• Educators can now create a default match request intro message for an experience. This is editable under the automated messages section of the experience settings > match requests section.
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• Learners on experiences that use Stripe integration for payment now receive a task in their dashboard prompting them to set up their payment account.
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• The display of answered questions for survey admins has been improved.
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• The header banner disappears in the marketplace when you are viewing content on mobile, to provide a better browsing experience.
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• Bulk actions are now available on invitation tables, allowing users to select multiple invitations and re-send or delete them in bulk.
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• Popular survey templates are now identified with a tag in the survey template search page.
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• As a learner, I should be able to see which members of my team have completed a mandatory survey
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• As a learner, I should see an informational banner on my team's application page informing me of next steps
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• Finish & submit button on feedback wizards allows a user to submit feedback on first step of wizard
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• Text updates in feedback wizards to provide more guidance

New features & Improvements

• As a learner, I should be prompted to add my LinkedIn profile upon sign-up as an optional field
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• The experience wizard now includes a field for educators to provide submission instructions for learners for the final deliverable. This field previously was available only in settings.
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• Companies can now verify themselves directly, not only in the process of matching with an experience. Global verification can be accessed through the company settings tab and reduce time in matching with experiences that require verification.
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• Learners no longer need to select the time that work was completed when filling in the work log, only the date and duration.
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• Educators of a single experience can now view replies to portal-level surveys for that specific experience, through experience settings.
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• The match request page was modified to improve clarity of navigation and consistency of view between employers and educators.
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• As part of the above, educators and employers can propose changes to project content in-line within the match request page.
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• Payments can now be made directly via Stripe from portals to learners on paid experiences.
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• Achievement descriptions have been updated for all achievements.
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• Portal administrators can now view all achievements earnable by members of their portal, including those issued by Riipen.
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• Educators and employers are now notified in batched emails about changes to match requests on their experience, on a daily basis, when activity exists.
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• All application tables can now have applications sorted by recency.
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• Employers can now access resumes of learners they worked with in the company talent pool.
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• Company admins now receive a task prompting them to complete the company profile.
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• Users can now leave comments on milestone submissions and final deliverable submissions. Team members and employer contacts are notified of new comments.
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• Educators can add milestones for specific teams via the Add milestone button on the team page.
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• As a learner, I should see default text in the ‘Context for learners’ panel if my educator hasn't customized this.
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• Increase maximum file upload size and update hints for final submissions and milestone submissions.
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• Add a tooltip to the "Causes" section on both the project page and the project wizard to explain its purpose.
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• As a user viewing a team page, I should see the ‘Completed’ tasks automatically expanded once the final submission has been completed.

New features & Improvements

• The portal switcher was moved to a more prominent place in the main navigation menu. Users with access to multiple portals now see a "Switch portal" menu item, while users with access to only one will see Access portal or Exit portal depending on their current workspace.
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• Automated message responses which can be configured in experience or project settings now support rich text, allowing users to (for example) add a link to a meeting-booking page in an auto-response.

• The user menu on mobile has been updated for clarity to better distinguish between links of different types.

• The calendar now adapts to mobile views to show a user a list view on mobile.
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• Imports now display a more useful error message for incorrect or missing start/end dates

• As an employer, when I click the “Accept” option on a team application, I now see a confirmation modal where I can choose to close my match to new applications or keep it open.
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• As an employer, I see an "Edit" link next to the open/closed state on the match page so I can more easily change application settings.
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• In the Settings tab of a Match, employers now get an explanatory message when their match is closed to applications and cannot be re-enabled.

• The "Optional details" section of wizards is now a collapsible area. It is expanded by default on draft projects/experiences, or when content exists within the section. Collapsing empty optional sections by default helps pages feel shorter and more manageable when editing.

• New filters added on user and company profile pages

• All tasks now have criteria for automatic deletion if no action is taken by the user.
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• All icon buttons that were missing tooltips now have tooltips.

• A user whose account is created via import now can accept the Terms of Service on the same page where they set their password. This removes an extra step for them after signup.

• The custom question creation component has been updated so that "question type" is visible even in the collapsed version.
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• When duplicating an experience, invalid surveys attached to it are not duplicated.

• Team page task panels now have icons to indicate when a description or attachment is present.
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• As a learner, I should not see the Worklog and Feedback tabs on the team page until I have started the project

• "Sender" is now an in-line filter above the match request table
  
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New features & Improvements

• The team page has an updated look, separating tasks into completed, upcoming and overdue sections for clarity.
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• As an educator, I can now set a maximum size for a team under Experience Settings > Participants.

• Setting teams to be “Individual” now changes the UI for creating teams, starting projects, applying to projects and the team page itself in some minor ways to reflect that no other team members exist.
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• Maximum pending applications per learner: As an educator, I can limit the number of pending applications a learner can be part of at a time. This is primarily a PPD use case, allowing programs to prevent learners from "over-applying" to projects and inundating employers with applications that can't all be accepted.
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• A company profile now has a representation field to capture tags mostly related to diversity and inclusion, including Women-Owned, Black-Owned, Public Benefit Corporation, and many others. We can add tags as needed. This is also an optional field in the project wizard's company step.
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• Scale improvement for multiple choice questions: a user creating a survey can now copy-paste a list from another source into the option field of a multiple choice question and it will automatically create up to 200 options from that list.
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• First step of sign up wizard shortened and visually improved for all users. (No changes to required fields.)
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• Emails about project closure in the marketplace have been updated to further clarify there is no impact on applications or teams.

• In the match request wizard, when selecting a project or experience from the dropdown you can now see a date related to the content (close date, for experiences; updated date, for projects) to help you distinguish between similarly-named items,
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• When an existing user has a membership created via an import, they now receive a distinct notification email alerting them of this.
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• As an educator, when I allow teams or projects to set the dates in my experience, I can now set date ranges that teams or projects must conform to. This extends on the existing “maximum start date” and “maximum end date” feature to allow educators to provide minimum dates as well.
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• As an educator with admin access, I need to be able to differentiate between my pending match requests and the portals pending match requests. A user by default sees only their experiences' match requests and can filter to view all portal match requests if they choose.

• As a learner, I shouldn't have the worklog sidebar component until kickoff is complete for the current team

• Add matches count column to Portal > Companies table.
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• Tasks on the team page that are for employers are now labelled to make it clear.

• Work log entries should be sorted by Date of work by default
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• "User" filter on work log should be inline on the page, not in the advanced filters modal.
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• As a learner, if the experience assignment type is self-assign, the button on the match page should say 'Join project' rather than 'Start'.

New features & Improvements

• As an educator, I can now choose to generate my experience content with AI.
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• As a learner, you can now see and log work from the team page's details tab. If your team's experience has work logs enabled, you will see a list of your recent work logs in the sidebar.
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• As an educator, you can now identify your experience as a repeat. This helps our internal team track metrics more accurately and better understand educator engagement on the platform.
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• Milestone and submission emails to learners now clearly explain the importance of making submissions before deadlines. The emails include the message: “Failure to submit on Riipen by the due date may prevent you from continuing with the project.”

• As an employer I can flag a team or learner; as a learner I can flag an employer or all project admins. Flags are automatically reported to the experience administrator(s).
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• As the creator of an agreement, I can now choose to require either a digital signature or a manual one.
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• A survey creator can add restrictions on answers in surveys. A text answer can be required to contain or not contain certain text, have a minimum or maximum length, and follow a specific format. Number answers can be required to have a minimum or maximum value.
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• Employers can set a maximum number of requests or matches for their project, causing it to automatically close when that max is reached.
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• Copy changes in feedback wizard to clarify for employers that feedback is visible to learners only after they provide return feedback or 10 days elapse
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• As an educator, I should only be able to request to join an experience if I am a member of the experience's portal
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• As an employer, I should only be able to request to join a project if I am a member of the project's company
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• When creating a new import, a template link is now available from the import page.

• An educator can now choose to import invitations to an experience, instead of importing members directly.
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• Add match compatibility percentage pill to match created emails
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• Tasks and events view in user dashboard are condensed to two columns to save vertical space
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• Visual improvement to team page “benefits” component

New features & Improvements

• As an educator or employer, I can now cancel a match directly from the match page if no teams are assigned.
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• Experience page meta data sections have been updated for clarity to surface the most important properties of the experience to any viewer.

• As an experience administrator, I can no longer change the start date of my experience if it has already passed and teams have started projects. However, I can still update the start date if no teams have initiated projects.
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• As a portal admin, the Project Template form now includes additional fields to better align with the information employers need to provide.
  
• As a learner, I can now see the main project admin during the introduction step of the kickoff/application wizard.

• The project name now updates automatically on the Matches and Requests tabs if a project name has changed after match request updates.
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• As an experience admin, I can now see suggested sample questions in the matchmaking wizard. These sample questions help guide educators and encourage the use of optional questions in the experience wizard.
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• When I create a new project template as an experience admin, it now automatically links to the corresponding experience.
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• Survey reminder notifications are no longer sent for cancelled teams.
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• As an educator, you can now attach files to experience updates.

• The following details have been added to the survey export CSV file: project name, project ID, company name, company ID, experience name, and experience ID.

• As a learner, you now have easier access to the Agreement signing button on all devices, so you can complete the process without confusion or unnecessary scrolling.

• Employers can now see the status of their teams with their start and end dates on every project page. The information is displayed on the sidebar under "Your recent match" and "Teams."
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• As a portal administrator, you can now invite educators to a department and add them to multiple departments. Portal members can filter educators by department.
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• Portal administrators can now invite companies to a department. Portal members can filter companies by department.
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• As an employer, unresponsive matches are now automatically closed to applications.

• Learners and employers are now redirected to a new tab when clicking the "Share on LinkedIn" button.
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• Users now receive both an email and a platform task notification when they receive feedback from a user they haven’t yet provided feedback to.

• Experience administrators can now set instructions for payments.
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• The survey creation button text and confirmation messages have been updated for a clearer user experience: "Save & exit" now saves a draft of your survey; "Publish survey" confirms that your survey is published.

• Experience administrators can now set instructions for learner work logs in the following location: Experience > Settings > Features > Enabled work logs > Instructions for learner work logs text field.

• Experience administrators can now customize the text shown after final submission in the following location: Experience > Settings > Project Management: Participants > The final input.
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• As an educator, I now have the option to add learners via magic link