How do I create a coaching program?

Last updated: December 4, 2025

Coaching Program 

Walkthrough

 

Create a Program

Users with the "Coaching: Create Program" or "Coaching: All Access" permission will be able to create coaching programs.

"Can Create Coaching Programs for Any Manager" or "Coaching: All Access" allows for creation of coaching programs for any manager.

Combined with manager permissions, "Can Create Programs for Self" allows for creation of coaching programs for users the manager manages.

Special Note if you manage another manager - If you are listed as a manager's manager within their user settings, any employees that roll up to them will also be considered as users you manage.

Have questions about updating permissions? Learn more here.

1. Open the left navigation and click Coaching > Manage.

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2. From the manage coaching page, select the Programs tab.

The steps below will cover single program creation. Click here for a walk through of managed program creation.

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3. Click the + Program button.

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4. Complete the create program form.

Details

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Field Name

Field Description

Start with Template

Optional.

If coaching templates have been created and made available to you, selecting a template will pre-fill the description, objective, agenda, and rating categories.

Program Name

We recommend names that incorporate the target contributors, topic of focus and frequency of check-in.

Examples:

  • SDR Daily Update

  • AE Weekly Update

  • AE Monthly Pipeline Review

  • Employee Quarterly Performance Review

Description

Optional.

Describe the program, ex. Bi-weekly check-in with Account Executives.

Objective

Optional.

If your program has a specific purpose (and typically, an explicit start and end date) we recommend defining on objective.

 

Recurrence

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Field Name

Field Description

When does the program start?

Select when the program's agenda should be made available to users by selecting a Start Date, Start Time and Time Zone.

The start date, start time and time zone are used to control when participants of the program can access the agenda.

How often does it repeat?

Use the drop downs to select how often sessions of the program should occur.

Common recurrence schedules are:

  • Daily (Every 1 Day)

  • Weekly (Every 1 Week)

  • Bi-Weekly (Every 2 Weeks)

  • Quarterly (Every 3 Months)

Pro Tip: Want to schedule your program to run on relative dates, for example the first Monday or the last Friday of the month? Set repeat to "Month" and then select one of the options available. 

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Form Field

Field Description

When is each check-in due?

How many days should each employee be given to complete each check-in?

Selecting "Before the Next Scheduled Check-In" will leave the check-in open until the next recurrence of the program.

Ex. If the program is a month long, it will, by default, be due on the final day of the month. This setting can be changed to # of days, allowing a check-in to be due on the 5th day of the month for example.

After x Days will close the check-in after the respective number of days.

When does the program end?

Will this coaching program ever end? If so, select a date or number of occurrences to end after.

If a date is selected, no new coaching sessions will be created after the respective date.

If a number of occurrences is selected, the coaching program will occur for that many iterations before stopping.

Program check-in dates

Based on the recurrence options selected, the dates that the program's check-ins will be generated will display. Verify the expected schedule matches the schedule presented.

 

Participants

If you have permission to create coaching programs for any manager, first select the respective manager's name from the dropdown who the program is being created for then continue by selecting participants.

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If you only have permission to create coaching programs for your self, you will begin by selecting participants.

Select Participants

Select All

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Enrolls all users who are managed by the respective manager through a user's individual profile settings or groups.

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Example of the manager field in User Settings.

Special Note if you manage another manager - If you are listed as a manager's manager within their user settings, any employees that roll up to them will also be considered your subordinate users.

 

Select Specific Participants

Selectors for Adding Groups and Adding Employees will appear.

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Add Group

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Click the Add Group button.

Select the appropriate Group(s) that need to be enrolled in the coaching program. All users within the selected Group(s) will be enrolled in the Coaching Program. The specific Group Members can be seen by clicking on the number in line with the Group's name. 

When a Group is added to a Coaching Program, the participant list, those enrolled in the program, will update accordingly as users are added and removed from the Group.

Click Save Selected Groups.

 

Add Employee

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Click the Add Employee button.

Select the appropriate user(s) that need to be enrolled in the coaching program.

Filter options include any Group Types that have one of more Groups that are managed by the respective manager.

Selecting multiple Groups from the same Group Type will offer "Or" filter logic, ex. I want to enroll all users I manage that are members of the "Account Executives" OR "Sr. Account Executives" Role Group Type.

Selecting multiple Groups from different Group Types will offer "And" filter logic. In the example above, Amy is in the New Hire role AND the Atlanta location. While Amber is a New Hire, she in the New York location so she’s filtered out with the AND Atlanta location filtering.

Click Save Selected Employees.

  

Agenda

Create the programs's agenda by compiling agenda items.

Agenda items can be optional or required, but at least 1 agenda item must be required (not optional) in order to save.

Learn more about all the available agenda item options here.

Item Type

Item Description

Employee View of Agenda Item

Question

A question for the employee to answer.

Check out our list of recommended questions.

Want to see how others Coach? Check out our plug-and-play Coaching Templates.

Pro Tip: Want to rotate weekly questions? Build multiple coaching programs on alternating cadences to keep things fresh. 

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Metric Snapshot

Available if the "Coaching: Metric Snapshot Item" feature has been enabled.

A question for the employee to answer that is built upon preselected metrics and time frames.

A snapshot can capture up to 8 metrics across a single timeframe or one metric across two timeframes. 

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Pipeline Snapshot

Available if the "Pipeline Intelligence: Pipeline Views" feature has been enabled.

A question for the employee to answer that is built upon a preconfigured pipeline view or template.

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Content Block

Rich text editor that can provide additional information or context to a coaching agenda.

No action for the employee to take.

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Poll

A question that is answered by the employee on a 1-5 point scale.

Example: On a scale from 1-5 (1=low & 5= high) what's your level of confidence in your product knowledge?

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External URL

A link to a third-party item for the employee to review, complete, etc. Example a LMS module.

Note - The employee and manager will both be responsible for marking this item as complete.

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Embed Media

Iframe a YouTube or Vimeo video or 3rd party website directly into the coaching agenda.

No action for the user to take.

Be aware that not all platforms allow 3rd party embedding.

For embedding a video from YouTube or Vimeo, you can input the share URL or iframe embed code.

If you are embedding a Google Sheets URL, we recommend embedding a URL generated through the  "Publish to web" share option rather than "Share with others". Learn more here.

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File Upload

An action for the employee to take and an accompanying file.

Employee will be prompted to acknowledge the uploaded file.

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Checkboxes

A list of options for the employee to select, choosing all that apply. An "Other" option is available as well.

Example: Which products would you like additional training on? Choose all that apply.

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Multiple Choice

A list of options for the employees to select, choosing only one. An "Other" option is available as well. Great fit for True/False or Yes/No type questions.

Example: Have you completed your monthly review? Yes or No.

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Gong Calls

Available if the Gong integration is enabled and authorized.

Employees attach one or more of their Gong calls when check-ins that are a part of the program opens.

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In this example the employee attached calls and the manager left comments.

Zoom Calls

Available if the Zoom integration is enabled and authorized.

Employees attach one of more of their Zoom calls when check-ins that are a part of the program opens.

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Seismic Learning

Available if the Seismic Learning API within the Seismic integration is authorized.

Select from any public, published Seismic Learning lessons and add them to coaching agendas.

When selecting a lesson, there is no filtering for lessons assigned to a particular employee(s), but rather you will be presented with a list of all public, published lessons that can be added into the coaching agenda.

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Custom Tabs

Does your team reference a learning management system, dialer service, or another platform for coaching? If so, you can add a custom tab to view that information, alongside your Ambition data, directly within a coaching check-in.

To set up a custom tab within your coaching check-ins, reach out to the Ambition support team, gethelp@ambition.com.

The support team will need the following information:

  1. Does the website support 3rd party embedding (iFraming)?

  2. What is the url that should be shown?

  3. What would you like to name the tab?

Important Notes:

  • Not all platforms allow 3rd party embedding.

  • The custom tab will be visible across all check-ins within the organization.

 

Attribution Metrics (optional)

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Select up to ten metrics that you would like tracked/correlated for the duration of the program.

Similar to defining an objective, if your program has a specific purpose and explicit start and end dates, we recommend establishing attribution metrics.

For example, if you're running an eight week program around setting great appointments you can define "Appointments Held" and "Appointments Set" as your attribution metrics to determine the program's effectiveness over time, per-person.

If you're running a standard, never-ending, weekly 1:1 check-in, we would not advise select Attribution Metrics as the attribution calculation will be less helpful with gauging the effectiveness of the program over time.

Note: Attribution Metrics cannot be changed once the program is saved.

How is Attribution Calculated?

First, a baseline value is derived by taking the four-week metric average leading up to the program's start date. Then for every recurring session, a current value is derived by taking the last FULL week's metric average. The % difference is then calculated between the current and baseline value.

We do not recommend using metrics typically measured on a monthly/quarterly basis for attribution given the attribution's usage of weekly averages.

  

Rating Categories (optional)

Don't see the Rating Categories option? The feature can be enabled by any user with system admin permissions. Enable Feature: Open the left navigation and click Administration > Features. Locate the Coaching: Check-In Ratings feature, and toggle "On". Click the Update Features button to save.

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Select rating categories you wish to track and correlate with the program.

Rating categories can be added or removed after the program's creation.

Note: If more than one rating is present, Ambition will take an average of the submitted ratings. This average can be helpful when searching for specific check-ins, as it's a filter in the manage check-in page and exportable in the coaching reports.

If you'd like to add additional rating categories, learn more about creating categories here.

 

Co-Coaches (optional)

Don't see the Co-Coaches option? The feature can be enabled by any user with system admin permissions. Enable Feature: Open the left navigation and click Administration > Features. Locate the Coaching: Co-Coaches feature, and toggle "On". Click the Update Features button to save.

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Select user(s) to assist the program's creator with managing the check-ins created by the program. You can add as many co-coaches as required. A user cannot be both a participant and co-coach of the same program.

Learn more about co-coaches here.

 

Finish and Save

5. Click the Create Program button to save and create your coaching program.

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Employees will be notified via an email upon creation with coaching program details. Additionally, employees will receive emails per recurrence at the day and time you've chosen.