Since 2013, iMentor's Research and Evaluation team has explored the connection between the strength of pairs' relationships and how often they engage with one another over the last several years.  You can read more about how S.T.E.V.E. was created with this learning in mind HERE, but the high-level take away is that more frequent interaction is correlated with stronger relationships.  Moreover, the correlation between pair engagement and relationship strength is more evident with in-person meetings.  Because in-person meetings are a cornerstone of iMentor programming and so strongly connected to in-person meetings, PMs should be diligently managing pairs' attendance at curricular events - and when they cannot attend curricular events, managing them toward make-up meetings. 

This article outlines a couple of ways to use two different components of the S.T.E.V.E. interface on the iMentor Platform to support these efforts.

Using the PM Summary Dashboard

The Program Manager Summary dashboard of S.T.E.V.E. can be used to create a quick focus list of pairs based on in-person meetings in 5 steps:

1. Using the "Select Program Manager" filter on the right hand side of the interface, select the desired PM name;
2. In the "In-Person Meeting Distribution" chart, click on the top bar ("Not Met").  This will highlight the bar, grey out the remainder of the chart and generate a pop-up menu of options;

3. In the pop-up menu, click on the "View Data" option.  This will cause another browser window to open.

4. In the browser window that opened, click the "Full Data" option and then click the "Download all rows as text" option.  This will generate a Microsoft Excel list of the pairs that have not met.

5. Open the downloaded Microsoft Excel file from your downloads folder.

The resulting excel file can be used to share with managers/colleagues/etc. and brainstorm strategies to get the pairs to meet.  The file includes mentor's email addresses so PM can quickly copy and paste the addresses into an outlook message (the entire list of emails can be copied and pasted into the bcc field of emails to maintain mentors' privacy).

Using the Focus Finder

The Focus Finder dashboard of S.T.E.V.E. can be used to create a quick focus list of pairs based on in-person meetings in 5 steps:

1. Using the "Select Program Manager" filter on the right hand side of the interface, select the desired PM name;

2. Using the "Pair In-Person Meetings" filter, slide the right hand marker all the way to the left of the bar;

3. Click on any individual cell in the dataset, then click the "Download" option on the bottom right-hand side of the screen and select "Cross Tab."  This will generate a pop-up window.

4. In the resulting pop-up window, select "Download"

5. Open downloaded Microsoft Excel file from your downloads folder.

The resulting excel file can be used to share with managers/colleagues/etc. and brainstorm strategies to get the pairs to meet.  The file includes mentor's email addresses so PM can quickly copy and paste the addresses into an outlook message (the entire list of emails can be copied and pasted into the bcc field of emails to maintain mentors' privacy).  This file will also include information about other pair engagement (i.e., online communication) and support (i.e., Touch Points) which can be used to drive the prioritization of support to get pairs to meet.  For example, perhaps a PM might prioritize a pair that hasn't met when the mentor isn't writing as well over a pair where the mentor is writing consistently.

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Still have questions or need assistance with this pro-tip?  Click HERE to contact a member of the National team for help!