Note: This was originally published on the Oasis Blog
In the previous blog post, we learned about the Oasis origin story and its early evolution. In this blog post we'll focus on the Oasis Cohort Management System. I will explain why we built it and how it works. Originally, it was created to address specific challenges but it has evolved over time to bring additional value and become the secret sauce behind Oasis. It helps us automate operations from initial signups to showcasing projects at the end of the semester.
Data is an essential part of running an organization, but managing data can be time consuming. This was something we came to realize early on. We knew that using forms to collect data was a necessity, but this data would end up in different spreadsheets making it hard to reconcile. For example, identifying participants who had signed up but were not yet part of a team required the tedious task of cross referencing names and emails from different spreadsheets.
We also observed that many groups struggled with ideating and planning out their projects. Some groups used Google Docs and Trello to share ideas and manage their project, but others did not. It was important for us to provide teams with some frameworks or structures to be successful.
The recognition of these challenges was what originally motivated us to build the Oasis Cohort Management system.
At its core, the system does these four things:
To explain how the Cohort Management System works, I will break it down into two parts. The first part will describe how we automate the process of getting the data into Notion and the second part will explain how Notion does the "heavy lifting."
For those unfamiliar with Notion, it is an "all-in-one workspace" where you can write, plan, and collaborate.
Part 1 - Getting Data into Notion