Here is a round-up of everything we released across TAP in July. We also strengthened security and improved performance across the platform, so TAP runs faster and more reliably for everyone using it.
Comments
• Future students can now leave comments on content in both the web and mobile communities.
• Every comment passes through our safeguarding and moderation systems before it appears.
• Comments are available in the dashboard under Content > Comments.
TAP Feed
• Future students can now see the filters and tags attached to content, making it clearer how content is categorised and easier to find what is relevant to them.
• Ability to search for a tag or select one directly to narrow the feed to content carrying that tag.
Conversation topics
• We moved topic detection from AWS Comprehend to Azure. The new model identifies 30 topics rather than 10, with a marked improvement in accuracy.
• All messages across every chat type are now analysed, where previously only one-to-one conversations were included. This gives a far more complete picture of student engagement and conversation trends.
• Two new dashboard widgets: Top 10 Topics, showing what students discuss most, and Topic Cloud, showing the wider set of topics identified across conversations and how prominent each one is.
• Click any topic to open the conversations where it was detected.
• Apply filters to compare topics across different groups, for example the questions raised by postgraduate students against those raised by undergraduates.
Accessibility
• We replaced UserWay, our previous third-party accessibility tool, with an accessibility widget we built ourselves. This gives us direct control over the user experience, visual presentation and accessibility functionality, so we can keep improving accessibility across the platform.
Data collection
Registration questions are now configured per space. Choose which questions appear in each individual space and whether each one is mandatory or optional, rather than applying a single set of questions everywhere.
Previously every space asked the same questions and most were mandatory, so a student joining a public community faced the same form as one joining a private, high-intent space. That meant asking for information with no bearing on why they were there, and a longer sign-up than the situation warranted.
An admin can now match the questions to the space. Keep a public space short to reduce drop-off at first contact and ask more of students entering a private space where they have already committed. Go to Dashboard > Data collection, select a space, and configure its questions.
Filters
• Conditional filtering now extends to group accounts. Available options update based on what has already been selected, so choosing students from a particular region narrows every subsequent filter to options that apply to that group.
• Filter configuration now sits in one place. The home page and Find Friends previously had separate set-ups; all filter criteria, including interests, are now managed together and admins choose which filters appear on each page. Go to dashboard > Public space and scroll to the drop-downs configuration.
Group accounts
• Find Friends now displays the logo and name of the institution each student comes from, so prospective students can tell at a glance who they are talking to.
Ambassadors
• Improved the web dashboard to match the mobile app. Functionality that was previously only available on mobile now works on the web as well, so ambassadors have the same core experience whichever they use.
• Automated reminders for overdue content. Reminding an ambassador to submit content for a request used to be a manual task; you can now set reminders to send automatically, either as a general rule or for an individual request. Go to dashboard > Settings > Automation.
Mobile apps
• Spelling autocorrect now works across text inputs in both the future student and ambassador apps. Typing errors made while composing a message went uncorrected before, and the updated input experience improves the quality and readability of conversations.
Group reporting
• Reports are now scoped to the period you select. Text messages counted are those sent within the reporting period rather than everything a prospect has ever sent, and conversations counted are those containing at least one message from the prospect rather than every conversation they belonged to.
• Prospect registrations continue to reflect the selected period. Together these changes give you a far more accurate picture of what actually happened during the period you are reporting on.
IDP community
• Ambassador visibility now follows the status of their university. Switching a university off from peer-to-peer switches off all of its ambassadors, and switching the university back on restores those ambassadors to their previous state. Ambassadors previously stayed active after their university was removed without appearing anywhere, which distorted the numbers you saw.
We are pleased to bring these changes to the product and look forward to seeing how they improve your recruitment outcomes and make working with TAP more efficient.