The Coaching.com platform continues to evolve to provide an expansion of use cases, as well as support for a wider audience of coaches and clients. This release puts a spotlight on some very key areas that aid in different coaching models, the ability to support different languages and regions, and also new tools around communications and reporting.
This release brings the following features:
Language Support for Japanese, French, and Spanish
On-Demand Coaching - A new model on the platform for situation-based coaching sessions
Session Topics - A new way of communicating context (topics) for sessions with visibility for coachees, coaches, and admins
There is also a resolution to redundant calendar RSVP emails to clients. More information on all of these topics can be found below.
Language Support for Japanese, French, and Spanish
New languages have arrived on the platform. Previously language translations were provided in French, and now those have been reviewed and updated to more consistent with much better quality. Japanese and Spanish language translations are new, and are now available. This is great for organizations or coaches & clients who will benefit from localized content & tools.
Language preferences can be set at the company, within 'Company Settings', and at the individual level, within 'My Settings'. By changing the default language at the company level, this allows invitations and communications to go out in that language. Individuals can then set their own preferences once they create their account. And now there are 4 languages to choose from on the platform
Preview of Language Translations:
On-Demand Coaching
On-Demand Coaching is an entirely new way of providing coaching services to clients. On-Demand Coaching is also called Situational Coaching and is based on an agile style of coaching where the client, or coachee, can choose the right coach for the problem or situation at hand. For example, a coachee could select an experienced coach in team alignment for one session, and choose a different coach to help with diversity and inclusion for another session.
On-Demand Coaching provides a great deal of flexibility for clients as they are tackling different issues. It also allows for coaches to use their experience and skillsets in highly relevant conversations, potentially making a broader impact across an organization.
On-Demand Coaching is a new tool on the plaltform, and is available to Pro, Premium, and Enterprise plans.
Engagement Setup Wizard Changes
On-Demand Coaching begins with the Engagement Setup Wizard. Now when creating the engagement, there are 3 different types including 1:1 Coaching, Coach Matching, and a new option, On-Demand Coaching. (Seen below)
*Note: There is also a new option in the Engagement Setup Wizard that is available to any engagement type. This new option is the ability to create an engagement on the fly, without the need for an Roadmap Template. This will create the engagement based on the number of sessions with specified durations.
Specific coaches can be selected to be a part of the On-Demand Engagement, or a Coach Pool can be selected. And once the engagement is activated, the Coachee will able to draw on these coach resources for achieving success.
Engagement Overview
The Engagement Overview is where the coachee will be able to access the on-demand coaching experience. Below is a screenshot of the Engagement Overview page. In this case, John is the coachee and has 10 sessions available for him to use. He can navigate to the new Coaches tab, or select Find a Coach from the Upcoming Sessions widget.
Selecting a Coach
A new Coaches tab is available that will allow the coachee to select from one of the coaches in the pool. The coaches profiles are available so that the client can learn more before making the right selection. Scheduling with the coach happens right from the Coaches tab.
Engagement Details and Session Information
Administrators and coachees will be able to see the breadth of the engagement details, in terms of the number of sessions, and the various coaches. The coach experience, however, is much different in On-Demand engagements. Coaches willl no longer be able to see all of the sessions within the engagement. Instead, they will only be able to see the sessions that they are a part of.
The screenshots below show the different in visibility between the coachee and the coach when viewing the engagement details:
Program items outside of sessions, including the automation, will continue to work as they do within a 1:1 engagement. For example, if there are program items that are assigned to the coach in the Engagement Template, then the coach will receive those assignments as soon as they are scheduled for their first session within the engagement.
Goals will work as they do within a 1:1 engagement as well, and are designed to be visible to all coaches within the On-Demand engagement.
Session Topics
A new and powerful tool within the Coaching.com platform are Session Topics. Session Topics allow for the coachee or coach to label sessions with various topics (or Themes). This is helpful when scheduling a session to help set the context. It is also helpful as a tool to record elements of the coaching conversations. Administrators and coaches will then be empowered to track themes that are happening with individuals and across organizations to be able to draw insights and help clients achieve ROI.
Session Topics are much like Themes for Goals, but instead these Themes (or Competencies) are tagged and recorded against sessions. In fact, Session Topics use these same Theme Libraries that are in use for Goals today. When a Theme Library is applied to an engagement, it can now be used to Session Topics.
Session Scheduling
While scheduling the next session, there are new options available to set the session topics. Please see how Session Topics can be set in the session scheduling workflow below.
Session Topic Recording & Note Taking
At any point before, during, or after the session, additional topics can be added by the coachee, coach, or administrator. The Session Topic will be capture and shown directly within the Session Program Item (shown below). This serves as an excellent way to preserve more historical context, and open up future conversations in terms of the topics, or competencies, that are being discussed.
Session Topic Reporting
All of the communications and record-keeping with Session Topics really comes alive in the new Session Topics Report. The new Session Topics Report shows the activity that is happening across clients and coaches, and also helps to highlight the most active topics that are happening. The most commonly used reporting filters are available to segment and drill down into the data. Additionally Session Topics are available as a data source for custom reports (Premium and Enterprise plans only).
Additional Fixes and Enhancements
Elimination of Redundant Email/RSVP for Clients When Meetings Are Scheduled
Previously clients may have received multiple invites to the same session, due to RSVP rules from the coaches calendar service. A new option within scheduling, allows for a single invite to be sent to the client, and informs the coaches calendars to stop sending duplicates.