Cohort onboarding
When to use it
Section titled “When to use it”- You run a bootcamp, academy or online course that starts in cohorts, and learners drop out in the first week because nobody reached them.
- Learners are enrolled by your team (a form) or by your app (an event).
- You want everyone to know where the community is, when orientation is, and when classes start.
Where the data comes from
Section titled “Where the data comes from”| How | What |
|---|---|
| A form your staff fill in | The Enrolled form this playbook creates: your team fills it in when a learner pays or is admitted, with the learner's phone number. Use this if your app doesn't send an enrolment event. |
| Events from your app or website (needs a developer) | Or your app sends an enrolment event for each learner, and a lesson-completed event so the first-week check-in knows who has started. Without lesson events every learner in the cohort gets a check-in task. |
| A booking form | The Orientation booking form this playbook creates: each booking saves its time on the learner and drives the reminders. |
What it sets up
Section titled “What it sets up”| Kind | Name | What it does | Lands |
|---|---|---|---|
| Team | Learner success | Checks in on learners who haven't started. | Empty |
| Team | Programme managers | Gets the weekly report. | Empty |
| Form | Enrolled | Staff-only form your team fills in when a learner enrols. Matched by phone; hidden fields mark the learner as enrolled in this cohort. | Draft, not published |
| Form | Book your orientation | The orientation booking form. Each booking sends booking.created with the slot time. | Draft, not published |
| Segment | Enrolled in the cohort | Learners enrolled in this cohort. | Ready |
| Segment | Enrolled, no lesson in 5 days | Enrolled in the cohort with no lesson in the last 5 days. | Ready |
| Segment | Orientation within a day | Orientation within the next day. | Ready |
| Segment | Orientation within hours | Orientation within the next two hours. | Ready |
| Template | Welcome to the cohort (SMS) | Welcome SMS with the community and orientation links. | Ready |
| Template | Welcome to the cohort (email) | Welcome email with the same links and what to expect. | Ready |
| Template | Orientation booked (SMS) | Orientation confirmation. | Ready |
| Template | Orientation tomorrow (SMS) | Reminder about a day before orientation. | Ready |
| Template | Orientation soon (SMS) | Short reminder a couple of hours before. | Ready |
| Template | Classes start tomorrow (SMS) | The day-before reminder that classes start. | Ready |
| Question | Report: enrolments | Learners enrolled in the report's period. | Ready |
| Question | Report: orientations booked | Orientation sessions booked in the report's period. | Ready |
| Report | Weekly: cohort onboarding | The week's enrolments and orientation bookings, how many learners are quiet, and the state of the check-in tasks. | Off |
| Follow-up | Cohort 1: welcome (form) | When your team records an enrolment on the form, the welcome goes by SMS and email. | Off |
| Follow-up | Cohort 1: welcome (app) | When your app sends the enrolment event, the learner is marked as enrolled in this cohort and gets the welcome. | Off |
| Follow-up | Cohort 2: orientation booked | When an orientation is booked, save its time on the learner and confirm it. | Off |
| Follow-up | Cohort 3: orientation cancelled | A cancelled booking clears the saved time, so no reminder goes out. | Off |
| Follow-up | Cohort 4: orientation reminder (day before) | Hourly run over "orientation within a day"; one reminder per orientation. | Off |
| Follow-up | Cohort 5: orientation reminder (hours before) | Hourly run over "orientation within hours"; one short reminder per orientation. | Off |
| Follow-up | Cohort 6: classes start tomorrow | One run on the day before the cohort starts, over everyone enrolled in it. | Off |
| Follow-up | Cohort 7: first-week check-in | One run in the first week; a check-in task for each learner with no lesson yet, and the outcome is saved. | Off |
The questions it asks
Section titled “The questions it asks”| # | Question | Default | Fills in |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | What should messages call your school or academy? | none, must answer | org_name |
| 2 | How do learners get enrolled? Choose form if your team fills in a form, or app_events if your app sends an event. | form | enrol_via |
| 3 | Where do learners join your community? (a WhatsApp, Telegram or Slack invite link) | none, must answer | community_url |
| 4 | Which team checks in on learners who haven't started? (one person is fine) | Learner success | success_team |
| 5 | What is the cohort's first day of class? (year-month-day) | none, must answer | cohort_start_date |
| 6 | When should the reminder go out? (the day before the first class, as year-month-dayThh:mm) For a cohort that starts on 2027-01-11, that is 2027-01-10T09:00. | none, must answer | start_reminder_at |
| 7 | When should the first-week check-in run? (about five days after the first class, as year-month-dayThh:mm) For a cohort that starts on 2027-01-11, that is 2027-01-16T09:00. | none, must answer | checkin_at |
Other settings
Section titled “Other settings”These have defaults. Change any that don’t fit.
| Setting | Default | Key |
|---|---|---|
| Name of this cohort (saved on each learner) | Current cohort | cohort_name |
| Enrolment event your app sends | Enrolled | enrolled_event |
| Lesson completed event your app sends | Lesson Completed | lesson_event |
| Number learners call to change their orientation | ‹workspace phone› | office_phone |
| Team that gets the weekly report | Programme managers | programme_team |
| Hours the success team has to make a check-in | 48 | checkin_due_hours |
| Sender address | ‹workspace default_sender› | email_from |
| Default phone country on the forms | ‹workspace country› | default_country |
| Time zone for the schedules and report | ‹workspace timezone› | timezone |
| Weekly programme report | 0 8 * * 1 | report_cron |
| Greeting when a first name is missing | there | greeting_fallback |
Timings
Section titled “Timings”- Enrolment sends the welcome SMS and email straight away.
- A booked orientation is confirmed by SMS at once, reminded about a day before and again about two hours before (the run is hourly).
- A reminder goes out at ‹Start reminder time›, the day before classes start.
- At ‹Check-in time›, learners with no Lesson Completed in the last 5 days become a check-in task for Learner success, due in 48 hours.
- Weekly report: 0 8 * * 1 in ‹workspace timezone›.
Channels
Section titled “Channels”| Channel | Needed for | Before it can send |
|---|---|---|
| sms | The welcome, orientation confirmation and reminders, and the start-date reminder | An SMS provider, or Origamy managed SMS after business verification (KYC). |
| The welcome with the community and orientation links | A verified sending domain for ‹workspace default_sender›. |
What you need to do
Section titled “What you need to do”- Switch the two one-off follow-ups on before their times (‹Start reminder time› and ‹Check-in time›). A one-off schedule whose time has passed can't be switched on.
- Install this once per cohort: the cohort name and the three dates are specific to one intake. For the next intake, run it again with new dates.
- If learners are enrolled from your app, send Enrolled when someone enrols and Lesson Completed for each lesson, with the learner's phone and email as traits. If you use the Enrolled form, fill it in for each learner with the phone number they gave you.
- Publish the Orientation booking form and set your session days and hours in the form builder (the date and time slot question).
- Add people to Learner success and Programme managers. A task assigned to an empty team reaches nobody.
- Connect an SMS provider or finish business verification, verify the sending domain, switch the follow-ups and report on, and test with your own phone.
- If your app enrols learners, send
EnrolledandLesson Completedwith the learner’s phone and email as traits. WithoutLesson Completed, everyone in the cohort gets a check-in task: fine for a cohort of thirty, noisy for three hundred. - Install the playbook once per intake. The cohort name, start date, and the two one-off times belong to one cohort, and a one-off follow-up whose time has passed can’t be switched on.
- The two one-off times are set by hand in the question answers: the start reminder is the day before the first class, and the check-in is about five days after it. Use your own time zone.
- In Nigeria and across Africa, a WhatsApp group is where cohorts actually live, so put its invite link in every message. Keep personal details (names, grades, payment status) out of the group and out of SMS.
This playbook is synthesized: no customer has run it with us yet. If you build it, tell us what you changed, and we’ll replace it with the real version.
Copilot eval
Section titled “Copilot eval”The request used to test the copilot on this playbook (a live eval):
We run a coding bootcamp with cohorts. When a learner is enrolled, text and email them a welcome with our community link and a link to book an orientation session. Confirm orientation bookings and remind them a day and a couple of hours before. Send everyone in the cohort a reminder the day before classes start on 2027-01-11, and five days in, give our success team a task to check on anyone who hasn't completed a lesson. Email our programme manager a weekly report.
It passes when every piece is a valid draft and everything lands off, with at least: form, segment, workflow, message_template, report.