v2 Review — Apr 22 Working Session Transcript

Meeting Title: QF Backend Review (Kamran/Lejla) Date: Apr 22 Meeting participants: Kamran Ashrafi

Transcript: Me: Okay, let's get started with this. So I showed you, I showed you kind of like the, do you want to take a look at the.
Them: Yes.
Me: Structure thing roughly? Even though it's kind of rough? I don't have it launched actually. It's only on my computer.
Them: Okay well then you can share it with me and we'll comment based on that.
Me: Yeah. So.
Them: When you get it up. Can you share?
Me: One second. Just trying to find. It.
Them: 15 million versions? Like yeah like 15 million versions of like the same thing?
Me: Now I'm just trying to set it up side by side and then I'm going to share the screen with you.
Them: So I laughed so hard at this lack presentation this is not a journal. That was so brutal.
Me: I'm glad you read that. You're probably like the only person to read it.
Them: Like I shared it probably the yes mean we'll read it more certainly I don't know about other people.
Me: Yeah, I give her clawed access. So just coach her on some basic stuff like getting it to ask interviewing yourself and stuff like that.
Them: So she has been yeah yeah so she's been using chat GPT I've kind of given her like. A mini training on how to use chat GPT and she's been very happy with it. So it will take like a little bit of adjusting for claude because she's been using it in a bit like a limited way. But I'll get it like on a call she's currently traveling back home. So when she gets home and settles in I'll get on call with her probably this weekend inshallah but we can do it because she'll if she'll be using it to generate our nodes and kind of improve the notes for the upcoming semester.
Me: Yeah. Okay. So this is the new.
Them: Okay.
Me: Kind of way. I just have the old one there just to compare. So you still have your students. I think these ones need to be added, but this is just what it looked like before your promoted students, your field signups. Over here, semester management. So that one, I think, is quite different now before you had semesters welcome package email. Now you have semesters. Welcome package, tags, operations.
Them: It had like those like manual.
Me: Semester management. I can show you. So each one of these links to a spec.
Them: You can sure in the old one because I don't think I've touched like operations was like manual placement of students yeah bulkier one year two promotion like the old the things we don't actually use anymore.
Me: Ific.
Them: Okay. Okay that's good. Tags operations okay.
Me: But if you think there should be something changed. Then.
Them: Yeah we are not using like a lot of these. But I have to figure out because we will be migrating like. Our well.
Me: This is like the spec that happens for this. Right? Oh, this is the new one. So this is going to change. So semester, semester is help. And then the v2 changes are highlighted.
Them: Mind me making faces I just squinted everything I see well. It's a habit.
Me: A semester, delete a semester. Behavior. States, half semesters, no semesters. Semester hub pages. So the date section. See, this is the right way of doing it. So your setup checklist. These are your things. Level zero level one video.
Them: Yeah that's the okay.
Me: Group assessments live session tutorials. So I mean, when it's built, when it's built out, you can, we can check. Right? Yeah, but actually, you know what? Well, I mean, we've already spent 24 minutes. Let's just jump into the questions. Because I think we'll need to just, we could just review the end product. Man, One of, one of my issues is that I. Can't get people to. Actually spec things out properly. I can't get loss of to spec things out. Neither does mon or anybody really believe in specking things out properly. Kurosama.
Them: What do you mean for like specking things properly?
Me: Like what you just saw right now. Like that was one spec for one section. Right? If you see the kind of specs that. You know wash it for his team has done. An entire, an entire module or back end app. Will be less than one third of that. Right?
Them: I mean is there a way to like generate it. Based on like a template.
Me: Everything is unique, but like all you got to do is just push clot to do it, right? But it's just like that mentality isn't there. Like the. Guys, like it's like, I don't know. It's just like a thing. It's not even like, I'm not even a programmer. I'm not even a coder. Like, I've got like maximum three years experience. Right. It's just about thinking about things and systems. Right. So, but anyway, let's jump into this. So we'll look at the remaining questions that are left. This is like it basically made me a draft email.
Them: Yeah I think it's interesting.
Me: 2026, April 21st. And then it has a bunch of questions in here. So we'll start with section a, which is reporting. And how about I read it out and then you just tell me the answer that comes to the top of your mind.
Them: The reporting section essentially needs to provide me with. All the reports that we would need in order to. Assess how the student body is doing how our enrollment is doing how what are we reaching like our target revenue like anything that we would need in order to assess like the health of the student body I guess. And kind of get all the stats that we need so my kind of idea of reporting would be essentially that. Because for. Logs. We already have that within like each individual section now the only thing is I need to have like a proper sit down and based on the new workflows that we have and on the new. We have like a lot of changes in how students are enrolling how you know students are being handled from that perspective like I need to sit down and just figure out what type of reports will be useful to us.
Me: Okay, how about we do it this way?
Them: Essentially. Okay.
Me: I want you to think of a report and then what is the decision that it drives? So give me three examples like off the top of your mind.
Them: One can you open the can you sorry can you open the new the new.
Me: Of a report.
Them: Backend markup. In the student section? Student management there is. Please go to semester management? So because I'm not seeing. Sorry can you go to reporting? Student report? So in the in my tramplings I said one thing that I would need is. An overview of like the active semester enrollment. So it's essentially giving me a list of all the students who are enrolled as new students who are who enrolled as a repeat students who enrolled in year two and it's giving me all the students who are enrolled as level graduates with their status with their payment status. So that way we can figure out if. Like how what are retention rate is what are.
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Me: Okay, so what I would say is that did you read over these issues, these reports?
Them: Those are the old ones right.
Me: Yeah.
Them: The new ones. Second I don't think I saw those. Because they're not thinking about at all. Just give me a second like. So essentially like I'm thinking for reports. Like what decisions yeah exactly like what decision will it drive? For me having so when we like before the semester starts when we start enrolling like one of the requests was always like oh can you update us on the number of new students who are signing up but like essentially I would like for that for all of that information to be available in one place like which like new students are signing up how many students have graduated a level and are like have canceled their enrollment how many have signed up for repeat so I feel like that type of report should be. There should be like a live version of it that's available that can be exported and that also kind of gives us the student body breakdown of like how many you know new students how many like level one level four level two year two students for each individual elective like gender, you know based analysis also just giving like the diagrams on when we had like the highest enrollment so we can correlate that with like you know marketing efforts so just having like that all in one place. That's like easily accessible and easily readable by you know whatever. Like whatever tool we'll be using to kind of display that data I think that would be like super useful. That's just like one. Use case for the report section secondly we would like ideally we would also like to have like the revenue breakdown so how many students have like what percentage of students and at what amount has signed up for repeat for like family pricing so that we know like how much again just having like a clear picture of what the like revenue stream is looking like. What it will be like if you know all students remain up up until the end of the semester and all four payments go through for the installment payment ones so like those are the types of scenarios that would provide valuable input at a glance for us so we can like, you know, make decisions on what's to what to look for. And also like when information that will be useful is that for students who have like signed up maybe for installment payment for their first semester if they were offered. The one time payment for the next semester like to. You know, provide a discount like how many students would opt for that. So I feel like all of these. Reports would provide us with valuable information that will kind of influence how we think about. Liquid efforts we need to be putting in at certain points, especially like in the launch season and end of semester season. And also. Maybe like even reports regarding notifications like letting us know if certain notifications or like emails contributed to more attendance for live classes or contributed to people catching up on their submissions. So like those would provide information if these tools are actually helping with retention and with, you know, students engaging with the program. So I feel like those would be good to have. But this is it just like again, this is just like a sample of what I feel would be valuable information what we've been kind of discussing for the past three years, I guess. Like beyond. So just figuring out what like how we want to structure that information like pull it and like how what presentation would actually be useful. I feel like that needs. We kind of need to discuss that a little bit. Further, but this is just a couple of examples that kind of come to mind as we discuss it.
Me: Yeah, I think normally what you do is you start off with your basic reports and then you build out from there. And some of the analysis that you're looking for, you do have to do independently. Like a report is something that's typically your base and it's there for reporting, right? Like it's not necessarily your analysis is built on top of the report, right? So for example report would be like the number of emails that you sent out or something like that. But how do emails affect retention? Well that's analysis. You've got to do separately.
Them: Yeah.
Me: Taking from the reports, right?
Them: Understood. But I kind of also have to think like which information should be included in the report in order for me to do the analysis.
Me: Yeah. So okay, I think that covers it. And then I think the export format CSV and PDF works.
Them: So that.
Me: Right?
Them: CSV is fine.
Me: Yeah. And then live dashboard for some and then scheduled emails. Maybe I think it's just like downloadable versus or live. So that covers reporting. Then B is like the issue queue state machine, which is basically.
Them: Yeah. So that's tricky because we have to figure out. How to not overlap with the CS team. So that that came like that's the only kind of tricky part of it. If we are making reporting issues very easy to students and teachers in the app. And we are seeing all of these inquiries that are coming from, you know that stream the question is okay let's say a student submits an issue saying I can't see my. Live like I can see any sessions in my live schedule. That message will go to our dashboard. So the issue queue and then it will also go to our fresh desk inbox. Right? So it will be like a duplicated message that goes both way that goes to both. Our CS staff.
Me: What you're saying. We're going to have to think about and look into fresh desk integration. That's a separate. Thing. So right now assume that there is no fresh desk integration. It's just going into the admin. Dashboard, the issue queue that you see here.
Them: Okay, let's see. Okay, so let's say it's going so this is where it gets tricky because what happens is that students will sometimes. Use the like the help button or the report issue button to report like attack issue. Like I'm not seeing the classes, whatever. But sometimes they will have like. Paragraph texts of like, oh, I'm falling behind and my mother is sick and my dog just died. So there is like a, you know, there is. Something that's not tech related that's being reported through that format. So we only have to figure out how to. Resolve these issues. And how maybe even how to like do a triage. So that there is a portion that's handled by the CS team. There is a portion. So that's the only thing that I'm concerned. I want visibility as to what the issues are that people are reporting. Like I really want that visibility. Because it gives us a much faster way to fix issues. But at the same time. There is that. Component of, okay, how do we make this work from the CS side? Now what we could do is of course have like everything that's coming in through the. What's it called report issue. Dialog. Is recorded in the backend. And then we could have like a delegate to CS button that just sends it as a as an email to our CS team on fresh desk and they respond to it. Like that could be. That could be a way to go or we could just, you know, train our CS staff to use the, you know, backend to respond to those tickets. So my main major concern that I have is how do we give feedback to students on these issues? And that kind of mixing of like random student issues that they have with like the curriculum or whatever like the teaching side of things with them reporting actual tech issues that what we were kind of trying to go for.
Me: The easiest way to just triage. So I guess the question here is saying what states does an issue go through? So it's saying open in progress resolve deleted. But there should also be one delegated too. And it could be delegated to.
Them: So.
Me: It could be delegated to CS or maybe even delegated to teaching staff or delegated to it.
Them: Yeah.
Me: Right.
Them: That would be excellent because if we could have it just like delegated to IT.
Me: Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
Them: Because that would also speed up like the.
Me: I mean delegated kind of just means that you're informing them. But at the end of the day, whoever is managing the issue queue is still managing it. They're still going to have to follow up and make sure that they're getting answers. Right. So you're going to be tracking how long things stay unresolved. And then once it's resolved and you've gotten back, then you click resolve. So that's the next question resolve versus delete. Resolve equals handled keep in history. I agree with that. And then delete is like this wasn't a real issue. Just remove it. I mean, that makes sense. Right?
Them: Yeah, we can maybe just change the language from delete to like reject.
Me: Okay. So yeah, we'll change that to reject.
Them: Resolve and reject. Yeah.
Me: Yeah. Can a resolved issue be reopened? Yes, it can.
Them: That would make.
Me: If yes, does it go back to open or in progress?
Them: I would say go back to open and then adjust accordingly.
Me: Okay. And then can issues move backwards? So if can something go from resolve to in progress? Or from in progress to open? Is delete soft or hard?
Them: I will keep everything.
Me: Any.
Them: In. Just keep everything like an archive or something.
Me: Answer is the next one is like, is there an archive state you'd want? Yeah.
Them: I think it would be good for us to kind of run like run report and see what. How students are using it because that would also maybe help us figure out like what language needs to change in order to make it more clear for students what we are using this dialogue box for. So I think that would also like provide information just having like a report on all the issues.
Me: Yeah. Okay. So I think that covers B. Now here is key, which is repeat semester workflow. Says feeling level one to four students get a failed email with an opt-in to repeat link. The student side flow is clear. They self enroll with a link. What I need to know is about the admin side. So does the admin need to see the list of students who opted in.
Them: Yes.
Me: A list.
Them: So it doesn't need to be, yeah, so it like I would keep it in the, I'm not seeing like in the new what's it called in the new mockup. I'm not seeing that section that we discussed like active enrollments. Remember like we had that.
Me: Where, where was that a part of?
Them: Was supposed to be a part of student management. I think.
Me: Our semester management? Active enrollment sounds like semester management.
Them: Active enrollment, something like that because it would show like all the students that we currently have, but we can make it a part of reporting. Just. It could. Be, yeah, it could. Yeah, but you have to like filter by the new semester, I guess.
Me: Just select active. Right?
Them: Students in the current semester, but you would need to see like the active students and the new semester. So the upcoming semester.
Me: Yeah, for active students. All semesters select the upcoming semester. That's it. S like two clicks.
Them: It could be done. Like that. But then what I would need to also have like a separate column would be like what their enrollment situation is. Because they could be year two students, meaning they could be continuing students. Meaning either they graduated from levels one to four or they are year two students. So those are continuing students, meaning they were with us. In the previous semester and they are enrolling in something new in the next semester. They could be repeat students. And they could be new students. So I would need to kind of see what like their status, like not status, but like what their enrollment. Status, I guess. So it would be either. Continuing. New or repeat.
Me: Okay.
Them: And that kind of answers the question like do I need a separate repeat section? I don't, but I need an indicator somewhere. Where I can.
Me: You know that what would you do?
Them: Actually. So what do you mean?
Me: So once you have that, then what are you going to do with it?
Them: Well that's our like I feel like ideally that would be in the reporting. Because that would capture like what our current student body is. With that information. It's giving me like valuable stats because out of, let's say if we have a hundred students who have been prompted to repeat this semester, how many of them. Like made any submissions and what like what are it will just give us like a better analysis of what our repeat student behavior is.
Me: I mean that's not an operation like an analysis is not an operation.
Them: How many of. Them.
Me: Right? Like what we're discussing here is that in terms of actual operation for an individual student. So I guess you kind of answered this. Do you need to see the student list of students? Yes, you need to see that and a lot more. And then the question is that do you need to approve an opt-in or is the opt-in fully substit.
Them: Fully self-service. Yeah, I don't need to approve anything. They can sign up if they got the link.
Me: Ute?
Them: They are qualified to sign up.
Me: So then is there any other special handling for repeat students?
Them: Yes. Students get a special, what's it called? They are directed to a separate checkout, which is providing them with like a 50% discount. At least that's the current workflow. And the checkout, at least the new checkout should check if the student qualifies for repeat. Now there is, there are exceptions. So sometimes we will allow a student to skip a semester. So let's say they were with us in, let's say September and they wanted to repeat the semester in January. But January just wasn't a good time for them. And they asked, oh, can we please like repeat that the same like at the half the price, but in May. So those, if the checkout is. Cross referencing our repeat qualify list for the current semester, they will not, it will not find that name in that list because the students has been with us like two semesters ago. So those would be like the only exceptions where, you know, there could be like a need for like a manual override of.
Me: Yeah, exactly. I was thinking exactly the same. Like that sounds like something that should be like a manual override.
Them: That.
Me: Right?
Them: Or there could be like, like add a repeat student manually. Maybe that can be within like the operations. Just like a way to add a student manually to the current, not current semester, but to the repeat list. So when they actually get, what's it called? When they get a link to repeat, they can. Like finish the checkout process without any issues.
Me: Okay. And then so does being a repeat affect their final status? Or any other level tags. Like should there be a separate category for repeat students or they're just active students.
Them: No, no, they are, they are new.
Me: With just a tag that's repeat. Right?
Them: Yeah. Just so we know. Because usually what we will do is for repeat students, we will assign them to a different teacher, if at all possible. So that's like our policy and that kind of goes into like assignment criteria as well. That a student, if possible, is assigned to a different teacher for the upcoming semester.
Me: That's awesome.
Them: Okay. So it does like they are active students enrolling with the, you know, new semester. So there's no like except for that like to help us keep track of them and, you know, provide them with discounted price. Other than that, like there is no difference between them and like our regular students.
Me: Okay, so I am going to save this transcript right now.