This guide provides a step-by-step onboarding experience for the Sounding Board platform, which aims to develop impactful leaders. It covers key functionality and features, such as adding basic information, linking calendars, setting working hours, and completing a work style assessment. By following this guide, users can familiarize themselves with the software and learn how to leverage its features to enhance coaching and mentoring experiences.
Interactive Walkthrough
For full access to this article's content, open it in a new tab.
Written Walkthrough
1. Welcome to the Sounding Board software. Our mission is to develop the world's most impactful leaders. We see our software and how it can bolster coaching and mentoring as a critical aspect of not only facilitating and managing these types of leader development programs, but more importantly, essential to helping leaders capture their development through this work in a way that bolsters and uplevels their impact as leaders.
To that end, this onboarding experience is designed to help you learn the key functionality and features of our software so you can make the most of using this to complement your coaching or mentoring experiences.
This is a self-guided experience, taking you through a step-by-step orientation to the software functionality specific to your user role. We hope it gives you familiarity not only to the features available to you, but best practices for how to leverage those features and functionality in the leader development experiences you are a part of.
2. To get started, you will have received a welcome email from Sounding Board; the process will begin with creating a password, and then you will be directed to log in with your new password; the first time you log in, you will be taken through an onboarding flow as outlined below.
You will be logged in on https://coaching.soundingboardinc.com
If you have any challenges setting up your password or logging in, please reach out to support@soundingboardinc.com for assistance.
3. Click "LET'S BEGIN" to begin your onboarding flow.
4. You'll begin by adding your Basic Info; you will be asked to provide basic information about yourself, such as your contact information, language preferences, location, etc.
đź”’ Confidentiality Notice: This data is strictly used for leadership development purposes. We don't share this data with anyone outside Sounding Board.
While optional, you can upload your picture for your profile by clicking "UPLOAD," and selecting your desired image.
5. Basic Info
Complete the mandatory fields as outlined below. Additionally, we suggest including any additional details that may prove helpful in the future. Remember, you can always revisit and update this information later.
- Last Name*
- First Name*
- Phone*
- Primary Language*
- Country of Residence*
- Age Range (required by some Admins)
- Time Zone*
- Functional Experience*
When you are ready to move on, click "NEXT: LINK YOUR CALENDAR"
Note: Any field with an asterisk is required.
đź’ˇ Tip: Video Conference Link Tip!
While not required, we encourage all leaders, mentors, and coaches to add their video conference link.
Your video conference link is essential for virtual engagement. To ensure seamless connectivity, it must be in the correct format and up-to-date within the Sounding Board application and calendar invites.
To ensure a video conference link automatically appears when scheduling and shows up in the session details, please add a Video Conference Link to your account. Adding a video conference link ensures that at least one user has a saved link in their account, which is essential for it to automatically populate.
If users do not have a saved video conference in their account, they can manually add a custom URL when scheduling a session.
If you aren't sure how to find your video conference link, please see the below resources.
Note: If you are using Microsoft Teams, please see Using Microsoft Teams for Video Conferencing.
6. Link Your Calendar
By syncing your calendar and setting availability, you’ll be able to use our integrated scheduling system to easily schedule sessions in the platform. Linking your calendar allows Sounding Board to see when you have open availability each day so that a session can be scheduled during those times, and a calendar event synced to your calendar.
Linking your calendar is highly encouraged, though not required. If you do not wish to link your calendar, select "SKIP" and then confirm to move forward.
Select the provider of your calendar account. For this example, we will run through linking a Google Calendar; click "Google." From there, you will be taken to a new tab on your browser.
đź’ˇ Tip: Note: Sounding Board uses Cronofy, a 3rd party service, to access your calendar as part of our integrated scheduling. Sounding Board will not make edits to any events that are scheduled outside of the Sounding Board application, unrelated to Sounding Board.
If you would like to understand our calendar integration better, please see Cronofy Calendar Integration.
7. For this Google example, go through the following steps
- Click the "I agree to the Cronofy Terms of Service and Privacy Policy" field.
- Click "Link Google Account"
- Select the Google Account you want to link
- Review the information and click "Continue"
- Click "Allow" under Make sure you trust Cronofy.
You will then be redirected back to the Sounding Board Platform. You can link more than one calendar if you would like.
8. Select a Primary Calendar
If you have linked multiple calendars, choose a Primary Calendar. This is the calendar where any scheduled sessions will be added automatically. While all linked calendars will still indicate when you're unavailable on the Platform, only your one Primary Calendar will have the sessions added.
We recommend using your work calendar or the calendar that is used most frequently for your Primary Calendar.
- Click the dropdown and select your Primary Calendar.
🚨 Alert: Additional Options
Certain users may encounter additional fields as detailed below. If you don't come across these, please continue with the provided walkthrough.
Set Prep Time
If you want to make sure there is a break in between sessions or between sessions and other appointments on your calendar, then set pre and post prep time. 0 minutes is the default setting, so if you want this buffer time, you’ll need to set it.
Set Away Mode
If you are going to be away for an extended period of time, then we recommend you activate Away Mode. This keeps the Admins from matching you with others in an Engagement.
9. Set Your Working Hours
Setting your working hours ensures that sessions can only be scheduled when you're available. When scheduling a session, the system will only allow users to schedule during the open times within your hours of availability that have been set for each day, which are indicated in blue.
By default, availability will be set to standard working days and hours (M-F, 9 AM - 5 PM) in your time zone. To reduce or extend your hours of availability, click and drag your mouse over the day and times you would like to change.
- Once done, click “Save new rules” at the bottom of the calendar view.
10. When you are ready to move on, click "NEXT: COMMUNICATION STYLE"
🚨 Alert: Additional Options
Certain users may encounter additional screens as detailed below. If you don't come across these, please continue with the provided walkthrough.
Professional Info
If you see this, you'll be asked to provide professional information about yourself, including details about your professional experience.
When you are done, tap on the “Next” button at the bottom of the page to progress.
Coach Profile
The coach profile is a place for coaches to showcase their skills. It is available to your Program Administrators, who manage matching when admin-driven at the Program level. For more details, see Completing or Editing Your Coach Profile.
When you are done, tap on the “Next” button at the bottom of the page to progress.
đź’ˇ Tip: You are about to go through Sounding Board's Work Style Assessment. The Work Style Assessment (WSA) is designed to prioritize your experience. During your account creation, you have the opportunity to self-identify preferences in four key areas:
- Communication Style
- Thinking Style
- Personality Style
- Learning Style
We encourage you to provide thoughtful responses during this process, minimizing the need for constant updates; this guide walks you through how to update if needed. Your input serves as the foundation for our automated matching system.
For more information, see An Introduction to the Work Style Assessment (WSA).
11. Your Communication Style
Review and adjust the sliders based on how you would describe yourself.
- Then, click "NEXT: THINKING STYLE"
🚨 Alert: Required Information
To continue, you must adjust all sliders from the default neutral setting. Progression requires active adjustment of all sliders in the Work Style Assessment, in all areas.
12. Your Thinking Style
Review and adjust the sliders based on how you would describe yourself.
- Then, click "NEXT: PERSONALITY STYLE"
13. Your Personality Style
Review and adjust the sliders based on how you would describe yourself.
- Then, click "NEXT: LEARNING STYLE"
14. Your Learning Style
Review and adjust the sliders based on how you would describe yourself.
- When you have completed, click "FINISH," and you will be directed to your Sounding Board Dashboard.
🚨 Alert: Additional Options
Certain users may encounter additional screens as detailed below. If you don't come across these, please continue with the provided walkthrough.
Coaching Agreement
You will be asked to review the Coaching Agreement, which outlines your commitments, the cancellation policy, etc. Please read these thoroughly, and once complete, tap on “Yes, I agree.” For further details, see Sounding Board Guide Coaching Agreement.
When you are done, tap on the “Next” button at the bottom of the page to progress or “Finish,” and you’ll be directed to the Sounding Board Dashboard.
Company Profile
Your Company Profile is your opportunity to share information about your organization, such as -
- General company information
- Contact information for Employee Assistance Program
- Organizational context including company mission, values, leadership values, goals, recent company news, etc.
The information collected here can be shared with coaches as they are matched with leaders to start their coaching journey.
When you are done, tap on the “Next” button at the bottom of the page to progress or “Finish,” and you’ll be directed to the Sounding Board Dashboard.