👤 This article is for Hub Admins or Development Program Managers/Admins.
This article provides a guide to configuring your 10KC Networking Program. A Networking Program enables members to meet a new match each cycle, fostering continuous connection and growth.
Networking programs differ from Mentorship Development Programs primarily in how matches are managed.
To learn more:
About Networking Programs, click here.
About Mentorship Programs, click here.
We'll walk you through all the necessary steps to set up your program for success, leveraging the navigation bar on the left-hand side of your program's page (as shown in the image below).
You can use the index on the right side of this page to quickly jump to specific sections as needed.
Please note: The Cycles tab will only appear if you're managing a multi-cycle or always-on networking program. It's not visible for single-cycle programs.
✅ Selecting a Networking Template
Follow these steps to set up your recurring networking program:
Login to your 10KC Hub
In the left navigation menu of your Hub, go to Development Programs > Manage Programs
Don't see this option? You may not have the proper permissions
Click the Create a program button.
Select Template:
Choose the General Talent Networking template (Or any of the 10KC templates that have Networking in the name)
Configure Program Type:
Always-On Programs: Continuously connect employees over time with ongoing cycles.
Single-Cycle Programs: Focus on a specific, short-term networking goal.
Set Period Programs: Run for a defined duration (e.g., a quarter or a year) with multiple recurring cycles.
❗️ Note: If you do not see the "Multiple cycles" option, please contact your Customer Success Manager (CSM) to enable this feature before proceeding.
Choose the program start date. This date marks the first networking cycle's smart-matching date (when participants are introduced). You can adjust this later in the Program Schedule.
Create Program: Click Create program.
You will be directed to a draft Development Program to begin the setup process.
✅ Settings Tab
This section details how to adjust the core settings of your Networking Program, including its name, description, session type, and role management.
To begin, within your Development Program, click the Settings tab at the bottom of the left-hand navigation list. Once you have completed all your desired edits in this section, remember to Save changes.
Edit Your Development Program Name
To update the name of your program:
Update the Program Name field.
If your Development Program is multilingual, complete additional steps as required for translations.
Edit Your Development Program Description
To update the description of your program:
Update the Program description field. This description will be visible to members when invited to the program and on the Development Program landing page and information page within 10KC.
If your Development Program is multilingual, complete additional steps as required for translations.
✅ Schedule Tab
The Schedule tab allows you to manage the timeline and sequence of all key events and communications within your Networking Program. It's crucial to understand that each element listed here represents a notification or activity sent to your members.
To access and configure your schedule, navigate to your Development Program and then in the left menu, click Schedule.
Understanding Your Schedule Elements:
Each element in your program's schedule serves a specific purpose, guiding members through their networking journey.
Send Invitation Emails: This is the first step to invite members to join your program. It sends the initial program invitation.
Smart-matching Notification: This notification is sent to members to inform them of their program match once the matching process is complete.
Important: The match email is the only notification that allows you to pull in member variables/segment information directly into the email body.
Reminder to meet your match: These notifications remind members to connect with their match and prompt them to provide feedback. This reminder message is also when the cycle feedback survey first becomes available for members to complete, linked at the bottom of this email.
Feedback: The networking templates include an end-of-cycle survey. This serves as a final prompt for feedback on the current match before members receive their next match (for multi-cycle or always-on programs).
This leverages the progress summary template used in a mentorship development program.
To learn more about the member experience click here.
Customizing Your Schedule
Updating Program Cycle Details
Click Cycle Settings to define your program's overall structure, including the number and duration of your networking cycles:
Number of cycles: Set a specific number of matching cycles.
Until Specific Date: The program will run until a predetermined end date.
Indefinitely: The program will continue to run without a set end date.
Each cycle duration: Define how long each individual matching cycle lasts (e.g., 4 weeks).
Adding or Removing Steps
You have full control over the elements in your schedule:
If you've chosen a blank program template, you'll need to add all events yourself by clicking Add Step at the bottom of the schedule.
Even when using a template, you can always add additional steps or remove templated steps to fully customize your program.
Viewing & Editing Event Details
To quickly view the details of any event, simply hover over it and click the eye icon that appears.
To edit a specific event (like a meeting, survey, or notification), hover over it and click the pencil icon. This will open a pop-up window where you can make your edits. Remember to click Save within that pop-up window for individual edits to take effect.
Updating All Dates and Times
To adjust the dates and times for all elements in your schedule at once, click the Edit schedule button in the upper right corner of the Schedule tab. This allows you to efficiently review and update the timing for every step. The "Edit schedule" function also lets you update the Program Start Date, which is visible to members and informs them when the program officially begins.
On the Notification Tab, you can set specific days or dates when program notifications are allowed to be automatically scheduled, and specify holidays or other dates to skip. This feature is especially important if you've configured your networking program to automatically generate and send matches for cycles.
✅ Partipants Tab
The Participants tab is where you manage member enrollment for your Development Program. Here, you can add participants either before the program is published or after it has gone live. For detailed instructions on adding members and assigning roles, please refer to the following guide:
✅ Smart Matching Tab
The Smart-matches tab is used for configuring and managing the matching process for your Development Program. Here, you will need to set up the matching rules for your program.
For comprehensive guidance on this process, please refer to the articles below:
The matching guides above cover the basics for setting up matches. However, for multi-cycle Networking Programs, we recommend the following:
Smart Matching Settings for Multi-Cycle Programs
In the Settings section of the Smart-matches tab, you can enable key features for ongoing programs:
Create, make matches live, and send matches automatically on scheduled date: Most users running always-on Networking Programs enable this setting. It ensures the program automatically creates matches, makes them live, and sends out match information based on your schedule, eliminating the need for manual intervention each cycle.
Disable "Allow repeat matches from previous experiences": For Networking Programs, we generally recommend disabling this option. This prevents participants from being matched with the same person they've been paired with in past Development Programs or Introduction cycles, ensuring they always meet new connections.
✅ Survey Tab
The Surveys tab is your central hub for creating, managing, and launching surveys within your Development Program. This is where you'll gather valuable feedback from participants.
To access and manage your surveys, navigate to your Development Program and click Surveys in the left navigation menu.
Networking programs primarily use the "Meeting Survey" type, as these surveys are automatically attached to each cycle's match. We recommend keeping these surveys short to avoid survey fatigue, as participants will receive one after every cycle.
Managing Existing Surveys:
To view details or options for templated surveys, click the three dots (...) next to the survey name.
Select Edit to make updates to an existing survey.
Adding and Editing Questions:
When editing an existing survey or creating a new one:
You can always add new questions to the templated survey questions.
You can drag and drop questions to reorder their appearance in the survey.
For each question, you can toggle it on to be required, ensuring participants must answer it before submitting the survey.
When adding or editing a question, you will need to select its Question Type from a dropdown menu (as shown in the provided screenshot). Options include:
Freeform: Allows participants to type a free-text response.
Multiple choice: Participants can select multiple answers from a list you provide.
Single choice: Participants can select only one answer from a list you provide.
Scale: Disagree - Agree: Uses a scale from "Disagree" to "Agree" for responses.
Scale: Not at all - Extremely: Uses a scale from "Not at all" to "Extremely" for responses.
Scale: Not likely - Extremely likely: Uses a scale from "Not likely" to "Extremely likely" for responses.
Scale: Loved it - Skipped: Uses a scale from "Loved it" to "Skipped" for responses.
Dynamic skills: This type of question should not be used in a Networking program. It is only for mentorship porgam.
Enabling Compliments:
When editing a meeting survey, you have the option to enable compliments. If enabled, participants can send compliments to their matches after filling out the survey. These compliments will be shared with the matches afterwards.
✅ Publishing Your Program
Development Programs are created as Drafts by default. To make your program Live and visible to participants, administrators must publish it.
In the left navigation menu of your Development Program, click Setup.
Click Publish program.
Once your Development Program is Live:
Visibility & Invitations: The program becomes visible to participants who have been invited. They will be able to see it and accept their invitation directly within their 10KC account & during the account creation flow.
Important: Publishing the program does not automatically send invitations. You will still need to manually send invitations to members (if you haven't already).
Participant Access: Invited participants will gain access to view the program's curriculum and schedule.
Scheduled Communications: If your program schedule includes automated communications, these will not go out if the schedule start date occurs while your program is still in Draft mode. Communications only begin once the program is Live.
✅ Cycle Tab
For Networking Programs that run in multiple cycles or are "always on," you'll see the Cycles tab once the program is published.
This tab allows you to manage and view individual cycles within your program. You'll see the In-progress cycle listed, along with completed cycles. Once the current cycle is live, the upcoming cycle will also appear. This organized view lets you click into each separate cycle to review participants and feedback specific to that cycle.
When the upcoming cycle appears, you'll have the flexibility to make edits to discussion guides or adjust element dates as needed before that cycle goes live.
Learn how your employees participate in a networking program here.
❓Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, there is an option to disallow participants from being matching with the same people cycle over cycle. Head over to Smart-matches tab Edit matching rules Settings and disable the option as shown below.
Currently all program participants get match reminder notifications (emails) even if they have submitted feedback. Session notifications in development programs are used to send reminders. In the future we are looking to improve this experience by giving admins the ability to create specialized reminder notifications and not sending them to members who have indicated they have met already.
Yes, end of program surveys can be added in networking programs. However, they would need to be added in the last cycle of the program. E.g. you have a program with 6 monthly cycles. Now each cycle will have it's survey in the form of a progress summary. If an end of program survey needs to be added, it would be done after the progress summary in the 6th cycle so participants get this survey at the end of the program (and not after each cycle, which is unintended).