Two-Way Messaging

Overview

Two-Way Messaging is a feature in Companion that enables direct, in-app communication between students and their assigned mentors. Messages sent from the student are delivered to the mentor through the institutional channel (Microsoft Teams/mentor interface), and mentor responses are displayed back to the student inside Companion. This creates a single, official space for student–mentor conversations, reduces dependency on external apps, and keeps communication aligned with organizational policies.

Main Objective & Expected Outomes

Objective
To provide a centralized, in-app channel for student–mentor communication so that conversations are automatically captured in the system, reducing manual work for mentors and improving the student experience.

Expected Outcomes

Reduced mentor administrative load: conversations are logged automatically, eliminating the need to re-document chats that happen in external applications.
Consistent and auditable records: all interactions remain in the institutional environment, supporting follow-up, quality review, and continuity of care.
Unified student experience: students can discover their mentor, contact them, and continue the conversation without leaving Companion.
Closer alignment with Companion’s vision: communication becomes part of the guided journey, instead of remaining fragmented across multiple channels.

How it Works

In-app conversation: the student opens Companion, navigates to the mentor area, and starts or continues a chat with their assigned mentor. The experience is presented as a standard chat thread.
Connected to the mentor’s tools: the chat is backed by the organization’s messaging infrastructure. When the mentor replies from their side (e.g., Microsoft Teams or the mentor experience), the reply is shown to the student inside Companion.
Automatic conversation capture: unlike informal channels (WhatsApp, personal messaging, etc.), messages exchanged through Companion are stored in the system, allowing future verification and reporting.
Optimized message window: the app displays the most recent portion of the conversation (for performance and usability), while older messages remain stored in the backend.
Notification handling: the feature includes a mechanism to ensure that student devices remain subscribed to receive mentor messages, even when there are inactivity periods.

What you’ll see: This short demo shows a student opening Companion, navigating to Network and Mentor Information, and then opening the chat with their assigned mentor. From there, you’ll see how the student can send and receive messages in real time, demonstrating how the two-way messaging feature works from the student’s perspective.

What you'll see: This short demo shows the two-way messaging experience from a mentor’s perspective in Companion. You’ll see the mentor open My Students, select a student, launch the chat, and exchange messages directly with the student within the app.

How It Benefits Students

Single place to communicate: students do not have to switch between multiple apps or channels to contact their mentor.
Faster human help: when the chatbot cannot resolve a question, students can immediately reach a real person within the same app.
Reliable and official channel: conversations stay within the institutional environment, which is safer and more consistent than personal messaging apps.
Continuity even if mentors change: because conversations are stored by the system, communication does not depend on a personal device or account.
More student-facing mentor time: Because conversations are captured automatically in Companion, mentors no longer have to spend several hours each week re-writing or logging chats that happened in external apps. In some areas this manual documentation could take up to 7 hours per week. Redirecting those hours to actual student support makes the mentoring system more effective, more student-centered, and a better use of institutional funds.

Operational Impact

One of the main advantages of bringing mentor–student conversations inside Companion is the reduction of manual, post-conversation documentation. In some teams, mentors reported spending up to 7 hours per week copying or registering chats that originally happened in external apps. With Two-Way Messaging, this information is captured at the time of the conversation, which:

frees mentor hours to work directly with students,
increases mentor availability and responsiveness,
makes the mentoring program more student-centered, and
improves return on investment for the university, since paid mentor time is used for mentoring rather than administrative transcription.

Current Communication vs. Two-Way Messaging

In many areas, students and mentors currently communicate through external or informal channels (WhatsApp, personal messages, email, or direct Teams chats). While these tools work, they create extra documentation work for mentors and make it harder for the organization to keep a single, auditable record of student interactions. Two-Way Messaging brings that same conversation inside Companion, connects it to the official messaging backend, and keeps both sides in sync.

Planned Enhancements

This first version focuses on secure, 1:1 communication and on reducing mentor documentation work. Future iterations may include:

Group or cohort messaging: allowing mentors to send one message to all students under their responsibility.
Messaging directly inside the mentor web/portal experience: so mentors can reply without switching tools, while keeping the same underlying conversation.
Richer communication options (voice/video): to support situations where live guidance is necessary, subject to technical and bandwidth considerations.
Improved notification workflows: to further reduce cases where students do not receive a mentor reply because of inactivity.

Current Status & Rollout

Two-Way Messaging is currently in a pilot phase with a small group of students and mentors. The goal of this pilot is to confirm that the in-app experience, message delivery, and notification behavior work as expected, and that the feature effectively reduces mentor documentation effort.

If the pilot confirms stability, the feature is planned to be released to all Companion users in mid-November 2025. Final activation may still depend on messaging-backend availability and on the mentor-facing interface used in each area.

FAQ

1. What problem does Two-Way Messaging solve?
It removes the need for mentors to hold conversations in external apps and then re-document them in an institutional system. Communication happens in Companion and is stored automatically.

2. Where do messages go on the mentor side?
Messages sent by the student in Companion are delivered to the mentor through the organization’s messaging channel (for example, Microsoft Teams or the mentor-facing Companion experience). The mentor can reply there, and the student receives the response in the app.

3. Can students still contact their mentor if they rarely open the app?
Yes. The feature includes support for keeping the device subscribed to receive new messages. However, very long periods of inactivity may require the conversation to be refreshed so notifications are delivered correctly.

4. What happens if the assigned mentor changes?
The organization retains the previous conversations in the system. A student can begin communicating with the new mentor without losing the institutional record of earlier interactions.

5. Is this intended to replace all other channels?
It is intended to be the primary and official channel inside Companion. Other channels may still be used when required (for example, local communication practices), but Two-Way Messaging ensures that at least one conversation stream is captured and auditable.

6. Can this feature support group or broadcast messages?
Not in the current release. Group and broadcast capabilities are identified as future enhancements.

7. For how long is the conversation history kept between the mentor and the student?
The system stores the full conversation in the backend as part of the institutional record. However, for usability reasons, the mobile app only displays the most recent 50 messages in the chat. Older messages are not shown to the student or mentor in the app, but they remain stored for review, auditing, or compliance according to organizational retention policies

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