Getting Started Launch Guide | Considerations before, during, & after launch

Getting started with SOC

1. Identify SOC primary point of contact and team

• Before project launch, set up a meeting with your SOC project lead to discuss team composition and meeting structure. 
• Identify a team lead with decision making capacity for both structural/technical, and pedagogical decisions.  
• Identify team members from IT, and from college/department/program who will be primary SOC users.  

2. Become comfortable with basics of SOC platform

To begin to get comfortable with SOC, we recommended that you complete the following tasks in the SOC platform within your first week as an SOC admin:

• Ensure Director of IT/CIO knows about SOC project so it is added to IT’s workflow
• Perform search from student view 
• Add new user
• Manually
• File Upload
• Add a new opportunity 
• Manually 
• File/Bulk upload
• Ensure your file follows the instructions for formatting/headers outlined on the bulk upload page.  About ½ way down the page is a sample file and instructions (Opportunities/Upload file/Opportunity Bulk Import Instructions).
• Limit upload to 1000 per upload to prevent timing out
• SOC Glossary (as needed)

NOTE: Each page in SOC has a “?” icon on the top right corner that provides a mini-tutorial.  More information is also available on the SOC help desk.

3. Complete necessary pre-launch items (suggested completion: within first month)

• Select target “golive” date
• Ask IT to Whitelist SOC (all domains that end with studentopportunitycenter.com, usually it is written using wildcard like this *.studentopportunitycenter.com)
• Identify integrations (if applicable) & connect SOC with contact person(s) (allow 10 business days for completion) 

• Complete SSO integration (allow 10 business days for completion) 
• Complete SIS integration (if applicable; necessary to track student demographic data)
• Approve list of categories/types of opportunities (page 2).  Add any not listed (under categories menu), and send list of any you will not be using to your SOC contact. 
• Review and update tags
• Review list of existing default tags
• Create/edit/delete custom tags (for your campus only)
• Rules for tags:
• Tag name entered must only contain lower-case alphabets[a-z], numbers [0-9] and/or hyphen(s)[-].
• Cannot begin or end with a hyphen(-)   
• Maximum length - 50 characters 
• Identify team member who will approve new users and set SOC permissions
• Determine if pathways will be used
• Create an internal calendar based on “go live” date to complete items from Step III

4. Become familiar with more advanced features of SOC platform (suggested completions: within first 3 months)

Once you are comfortable with the basics of SOC, we recommend you start exploring the more advanced features of the platform (Note: Based on your school's SOC license, you may or may not have some of the following features and capabilities, e.g., creating rubrics, pathways, &/or projects/communities. Check your subscription level if you cannot view or perform any of the following):  

More advanced:

• Share an opportunity with a student
• Create a community and add members
• Create an application.  (NOTE: applications need to be attached to projects or opportunities.)
• Create a rubric
• Review pathways and create a demo pathway including attaching a course, opportunity and survey to your pathway
• Review projects and create a demo project including creating,, submitting and reviewing assignments
• Create a survey (surveys can be attached to opportunities, pathways, projects or marketing emails)
• Want to learn more about Advanced options & how you can get access to them? Contact [e-mail]

5. Develop marketing plan for SOC (suggested completion: 1 month before “go live” date)

• Review SOC marketing guide, toolkit and webinar
• Review a sample marketing plan shared by VCU for inspiration
• Create your SOC marketing plan for students, and faculty and staff

Current opportunity types:

To add a custom opportunity type go to configurations/categories/add category 

Project-Based Learning

Capstone

Study Abroad

Co-Op

Shadowing

Work Study

Job

Internship

Research

Faculty Research

Department Research

Undergraduate Research

Events

Event

Conference

Seminar

Publications

Student Journal

Publication

Essay Contest

Funding

Funding

Scholarship

Grant

Fellowship

Volunteering

Civic Engagement

Volunteering

Service Learning