UDS Mentorship Platform
User Guide

Mentees

Emerging professionals applying for a mentor. Free to join.

Mentors

Experienced practitioners who volunteer their time and expertise.

Admins

UDS team members who manage cohorts, matching, and the programme.

Go to the homepage

Visit jbannualmemoriallecture.org. You will see two buttons in the hero section: "Apply as a mentee" and "Join as a mentor". Click the button that matches your role.

Fill in your registration form

Both mentees and mentors complete a multi-step registration form. Fields include:

Check your email and sign in

After submitting, your account is created. Go to /login and sign in with your email and the password you set during registration.

Your dashboard after login

After signing in you land on the Mentee Dashboard. It shows:

• Your approval status (pending or approved)
• Your matched mentor (once the admin creates a match)
• Upcoming sessions and session count
• Goal progress across your 3 goals
• Quick links to Resources and Community

Your profile page

Go to Dashboard → Profile. Here you can review your registered details: career stage, goals, preferred format, and areas. You cannot change your goals after registration — speak to an admin if changes are needed.

Your mentor match

Once the admin matches you, your dashboard will show your mentor's card with their name, photo, and expertise. You can click through to see their full profile and LinkedIn. You can also message your mentor directly from the match detail page.

Sessions — what to expect

Your programme consists of 6 structured sessions over 6 months (one per month, 60–90 minutes each). After each session your mentor logs:

• Topics discussed
• Agreed actions for next session
• Resources shared
• Your wellbeing rating (Great / Good / Okay / Struggling)
• Progress on each of your 3 goals (On track / Needs support / Achieved)

Resource Library

Go to Dashboard → Resources. The library contains articles, videos, PDFs, guides, and links curated by the UDS team. You can filter by type (Article, Video, PDF, etc.) and by category (Technology, Marketing, Career Development, etc.). Click any card to open the resource.

Community page

Go to Dashboard → Community. You can see all active mentors in the programme. This is a good way to learn about the expertise available across the cohort.

Completing the programme

After all 6 sessions are logged and marked complete, you graduate from the cohort. The UDS team will issue your verified certificate of completion. You will be notified via email when it is ready.

Complete your profile — sign the pledge and add a photo

After registration, sign in and go to Dashboard → Profile. Two things are required before the admin can publish your profile:

Waiting for admin approval

Your profile will show a "Pending Admin Review" badge until the UDS admin approves and publishes it. Once approved, your profile appears on the public mentor directory at /mentors.

Your mentor dashboard

Once approved, your dashboard shows:

• Active mentees count and slots remaining
• Sessions logged vs total target
• Upcoming sessions
• Notifications (new match, session reminders)
• Quick links to Resources and Community

Logging a session

After each session with your mentee, go to Dashboard → Sessions and click "Log session". Fill in:

• Date held and duration
• Topics discussed
• Agreed actions for next session
• Resources shared (links or notes)
• Mentee wellbeing check-in
• Progress on each of the 3 goals

Viewing your mentee's goals

From your match detail page you can see all three of your mentee's goals and their current status across sessions. Use this to keep sessions focused and track meaningful progress.

Resources and Community

Access the same Resource Library and Community page as mentees. If you find a useful resource you want to share, ask the UDS admin to add it to the library for all participants.

Admin dashboard overview

The admin dashboard shows the health of the entire programme at a glance:

Managing cohorts

Go to Admin → Cohorts. Here you can:

• Create a new cohort (name, number, start/end dates, session target)
• Set the onboarding and matching deadlines
• Activate a cohort to open applications
• Edit cohort details (name, dates, session target)
• View cohort summary stats

Approving mentor profiles

Go to Admin → Participants → Mentors. New mentors appear with a "Pending" badge. Review their profile (bio, LinkedIn, expertise) and click "Publish" to approve them. Approved mentors appear on the public directory.

Approving mentee profiles

Go to Admin → Participants → Mentees. New mentee registrations appear with a "Pending" approval badge. Click "Approve" to activate their profile and include them in the matching pool. You can also revoke approval if needed.

Matching mentors and mentees

Go to Admin → Matching. The platform suggests mentor–mentee pairs scored out of 100 based on expertise, goals, availability, and format. For each unmatched mentee:

• Review the top 3 mentor suggestions with score breakdown
• Check specialisation, availability, and soft-fit scores
• Click 'Approve match' on your chosen pair
• The platform notifies both mentor and mentee automatically

Monitoring session health

Go to Admin → Pairs. Every active pair shows a health indicator:

Resource Library management

Go to Admin → Resources. You can:

• Add a new resource (title, description, type, category, URL, tags)
• Edit any resource details after publishing
• Toggle publish/unpublish — draft resources are invisible to participants
• Delete resources that are no longer relevant
• Track view counts to see which resources are most used

Notifications

The platform automatically sends in-app notifications to users for key events: profile submission, match approval, session reminders, and programme updates. Admins receive notifications when a new mentor or mentee registers.