There are dozens of ways to use Steppingblocks data and products on your campus. How do you know what to focus on first? During the onboarding phase we will help you identify your primary goals and suggest ways to best accomplish them quickly.
Step 1: Identify your Goals. What do you want to accomplish with the Steppingblocks platform and data?
Most partners know at least a few things they want to accomplish with our products, but most are also interested in additional ways they can use our data. Review the many use cases for Graduate Insights or Digital Career Counselor.
During onboarding we will walk through your goals and suggest additional ones if needed. We will refer back to these goals as we work with you to train and onboard new units.
Step 2: Identify the units and people that will accomplish these goals.
Which units on campus will use the platform to accomplish these goals? Those are the people that we will want to train first, just as soon as the platform is ready.
We suggest identifying one person per unit that can act as a 'super-user' or admin so each unit has someone that can add new users, be a hub for questions, and help others use the platform.
If there is a regularly scheduled meeting during the onboarding phase that includes some of the stakeholders or key people in accomplishing your goals, then we have found it very helpful to do a brief overview of Steppingblocks even before the platform is ready. This allows these key people to learn more about the platform and start planning for their teams to get access. Let us know if you have something like this and we can attend!
Below outlines which units often find the most value in Steppingblocks platforms:
Unit | Graduate Insights (Staff/Admin Platform) | Digital Career Counselor (Student Platform) |
Institutional Research | Yes | Sometimes |
Career Services | Yes | Yes |
Academics | Yes | Yes |
Advancement/Alumni Relations | Yes | Sometimes |
Marketing/Enrollment Management | Yes | Yes |
Senior Leadership | Yes | Sometimes |
Students | No | Yes |
Step 3: Set up Trainings
We find it best to do full trainings once the platform and data has been finalized. During our Kickoff call we will go over when that date should be and we will update it as we go through the onboarding process, so we know when to schedule trainings.
Training options. We are flexible in our training approach so if there is something you've found that works well for your campus, let us know.
The most common trainings we do are hour-long sessions for an individual unit where we can dig into your use cases, questions, and share other partner examples.
Shorter trainings are also common, especially if there is an existing meeting (ex: Dean's Meeting), where we can preview the platform for many people at once. This type of training is commonly followed by a more intensive session with those that request it.
Our platforms hold billions of datapoints which is not something everyone has experience navigating. We suggest that all Steppingblocks users participate in a training to help them understand the nuances of graduate outcomes data at this level. Steppingblocks is happy to conduct/record one for your campus. IR, IT, or others at your institution might also have training available on using big data.