👤 This article is for Hub Administrators, Development Program Managers, or Development Program Administrators.
This article serves as a day-to-day management guide for Hub Administrators, Development Program Managers, or Development Program Administrators who need to oversee and manage Development Program matches directly. Learn to navigate the Smart-matches tab to view and confirm matches and utilize the three primary methods for creating matches: the 10KC smart-matching algorithm, manual pairing, and automatic creation of matches.
Navigate to your Development 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Click on the Draft tab (if your program is unpublished) or the Live tab (if your program is published) to locate your program
Select the program
Once in your Development Program, navigate to the Smart-matches tab in the left menu.
✅ Understanding Smart-matches Metrics & Statuses
The Smart-matches page provides a real-time overview of your program's matching status. You can use the metrics at the top to quickly understand the status of your matches and participants.
Please note: The numbers at the top of the page are not just a count—they are also clickable links that take you directly to the corresponding tab where you can view or manage participants and matches.
Matching Rules: This metric shows the total number of matching rules you have configured for your program. The matching algorithm will use these rules when creating matches. This section includes four subsequent tabs for defining your rules: Segments, Private segments, Combo rules, and Settings.
Unmatched Participants: This number shows you the members who are not currently matched in the program.
Draft matches: As you create matches, either with the smart-matching algorithm or manually, they will be moved to the "Draft matches" tab. On this tab, you can review, edit, or delete pairings before publishing them.
Locked Matches: Once you are satisfied with a pairing, you can lock it to prevent it from being changed by future matching runs. Manually created matches are locked by default. A blue toggle next to a pair indicates that the match is locked. If a match lock is unable to be toggled, it may be because one or more participants are unconfirmed or have inactive accounts.
Published Matches: Once you are happy with your draft matches, you have the option to publish them and make them live. Once published, the matches will be visible to members in the 10KC platform.
Please note: Publishing matches makes them live in the platform, but you must also send the match notification to alert participants that their match is ready.
✅ Options to Create Matches
You can create matches from two primary locations within the Smart-matches tab:
From the "Unmatched participants" view: This view shows you all members who do not currently have a match. From here, you can select individuals to start the matching process.
From the "Draft matches" view: This is where you can see all pairings that have been created but not yet published. While here, you can also create new matches by manually pairing members from the unmatched pool. If you run the algorithm again, any matches that are not locked will be updated.
1. Creating Matches with the Algorithm:
After you have defined the matching criteria (see more details here), click on Create matches.
Click Create with algorithm and choose whether you'd like to create matches for all participants, confirmed participants only or specific participants.
Once the option is selected, 10KC's smart-matching algorithm will take a few seconds or minutes (depending on the number of participants) to automatically create the matches
2. Manually Creating a Match for a Pair:
In the Smart-matches tab, select Create matches.
Click on create manually.
A side drawer will open where you can manually select Participant #1 and Participant #2 for the match.
Note: if you have enabled Program-based mentor/mentee matching, Participant #1 will be the mentor and Participant # 2 will be the mentee
Click Save changes to create the match.
3. Automatically create matches and send
You can set up 10KC to automatically generate and send matches on the program's scheduled date.
To enable this feature, go to the "Matching rules" tab.
Navigate to the "Settings" sub-tab.
Enable the option labeled "Create, make matches live, and send matches automatically on scheduled date."
Once this option is enabled, matches for the program will be automatically created and sent on the date you have set in the program's Schedule.
✅ Unmatched Participants
After the matching process, whether by algorithm or manual creation, you may have participants who remain unmatched. You can always view these individuals on the Unmatched participants tab.
From the Unmatched participants tab, you have several options for managing these individuals:
You can navigate to their profiles, filter the list by role, or use the options to download these participants or copy their email addresses.
You can also click the "manually match" next to their name to match them.
If you have unmatched participants, it might be due to various reasons, such as an imbalance in required roles (e.g., not enough mentors for mentees) or your matching rules being too restrictive. If this occurs, you could consider the following:
Update your matching rules to be less stringent and re-run the algorithm to attempt to match the remaining participants.
Lock in your confirmed matches first on the draft tab. This is a crucial step to ensure that any matches you want to keep are not affected by a subsequent matching run.
Make manual matches for these participants, potentially even directly from this tab.
✅ Reviewing and Confirming Algorithm-Suggested Matches
After 10KC's smart-matching algorithm has created matches, or after you have created matches manually, you can review and confirm them on the Draft matches tab. The process of confirming matches for launch involves two primary steps: confriming matches and then publishing the program.
Locking Matches: As shown in the image below, locking matches preserves their pairings from being changed by future matching runs. You can lock matches in two ways:
Manually, one-by-one: Click the lock toggle next to each pair to lock it.
Bulk lock: Use the "Lock all" button to lock every pairing in the draft list.
Change matches: You can make changes to your draft pairings before publishing them. Clicking the "Change matches" dropdown provides you with several options:
Rerun the algorithm: You can rerun the algorithm for those who are not locked and for all unmatched participants.
Create a manual match: This option allows you to manually create a new match within the draft list.
Delete all matches: You can choose to unlock all matches and run the algorithm again
Publishing Matches Live: When your development program is ready for launch and you want to make the participant matches official, it's time to publish matches. This crucial step publishes the matches, allowing participants to view their assigned connections within 10KC.
When you click the "Publish all matches" button, you'll then see a pop-up giving you the option to send match emails right away or schedule them for later.
After matches are made published, "View matching breakdown" become available on the published matches tab, offering insights such as a breakdown of pairings by roles and profile segments.
✅ Unpairing Participants (Deleting a Match Preview)
You can unpair an existing match and revert the participants back to an unmatched status from either the Draft matches or Published matches tab.
Navigate to the Smart-matches tab in your Development Program.
Locate the existing pairing you wish to unmatch.
Click the ⋮ (three dots) icon next to the pairing.
Select 'Delete match.'
This action will remove the specific pairing from the program and revert the participants' statuses back to unmatched.
Please note: If your program allows members to have multiple matches (e.g., in a 'Both' role program or a multi-mentee program), when a match is deleted, the participants will not go back to the unmatched tab if they already have another match.
✅ Rematching Participants
Now that you have unpaired the participants, you can rematch them to anyone who is available on the Unmatched participants tab and still needs a match.
You have two main options for rematching: you can either run the smart-matching algorithm again for all unmatched participants, or you can manually match specific pairs.
After a new match is created, you will need to publish it. Once published, you can send the new match notification for the pair.
If you program is running and sessions have been sent - It is recommended that you click the three dots (...) next to the new match and select "Send communication." From there, you can manually send emails for any sessions or important communications they might have missed while the program was running.