Trainer’s handbook for VIVA

Welcome & first 24 hours

Welcome aboard. You’ve been invited by an admin and should have received a one-time onboarding link via email or WhatsApp. The link takes you to a single page where you’ll set your password and fill out your trainer profile.

What to do today

1. Click your onboarding link. (If it’s expired, ask the admin who invited you for a fresh one — links expire after 7 days.)
2. Set a strong password. You won’t see this again — write it down somewhere safe.
3. Fill out your profile (bio, expertise, photo). See the next section for what makes a strong profile.
4. Hit save. The admin team will review and publish your profile within one working day.
5. Once approved, you’ll appear on the public trainers page and the cohort you’re assigned to.

What you don’t need to do

You don’t need to set up Zoom yourself — meetings are provisioned by the platform when a session is scheduled. You don’t need to send your own attendance sheet — the system tracks it. You don’t need to maintain your own calendar — sessions land on your trainer dashboard with one-click join.

Completing your trainer profile

Your trainer profile is shown to every student in your cohort and on the public /trainers page. A strong profile builds trust before you’ve said a word in your first session.

The fields

• Full name — exactly as you want it printed on certificates you sign.
• Title / honorific — Dr, Prof, etc. Optional but helpful.
• Bio — 80-120 words. Lead with the line that would convince a sceptical student. Then the credentials.
• Areas of expertise — 3-5 short tags (e.g. destination geography, GDS systems, MICE).
• Years in the industry — a number.
• Photo — a recent professional photo, square crop, head-and-shoulders. Avoid sunglasses, busy backgrounds, distant shots. 800×800 minimum.
• LinkedIn URL — optional, shown as a link on the trainers page.

What makes a strong bio

Open with what you’ve done, not what you’ve been called. “Founder of CAAIR Travels, established 1985, TAAI board member” lands harder than “veteran of the industry.” Mention the kind of student you’ve mentored before, briefly. End with what you’ll specifically bring to VIVA students.

Your trainer dashboard

Once logged in, your home is /trainer. What you’ll see:

• Active cohorts — every cohort you’re assigned to, with a quick view of student count and start date.
• Upcoming sessions — your sessions across all cohorts, ordered by date. The next-up session has a one-click Join button when it’s within 10 minutes of start.
• Submissions to review — every pending student submission from your cohorts. Newest at the top.
• Recent recordings — links to your past sessions if you need to revisit something a student asked about.
• Profile — link to /trainer/profile where you can edit anything later.

Hosting live sessions on Zoom

Each cohort runs one or two 90-minute live sessions per week. The platform provisions a Zoom meeting for each scheduled session and puts a Join button on your dashboard 10 minutes before start.

Before the session

1. Confirm the session is on your dashboard. If it’s not, ping ops; the schedule may have shifted.
2. Skim the module’s chapter content the cohort just covered — students will reference it.
3. 5 minutes before: open the session row, click Join.
4. You’ll enter as the host. Enable recording — required for the recording to land in the student LMS afterward.

During the session

• Students appear in the participant list as they join. Attendance is auto-tracked.
• Use the in-Zoom chat for links / references; encourage students to use chat for questions to keep the audio focused.
• If a student raises a hand, prioritise them — but keep the cohort flow moving.
• End the session by clicking End meeting for all. This stops the recording and triggers the upload.

After the session

The recording uploads to YouTube as an Unlisted video automatically (or to your manual upload pipeline if Zoom-to-YouTube isn’t set up). It appears as a chapter in the student LMS within 24 hours. You don’t need to do anything; the system handles it.

Recording & uploading

For most sessions, the Zoom-to-YouTube automation handles upload. In two cases you’ll need to do it yourself:

1. The automation failed and the recording-deadline cron reminded you.
2. You recorded an off-Zoom session (e.g. a special guest module not on a scheduled Zoom).

Manual upload steps

1. Upload the video to VIVA’s YouTube channel as Unlisted — never Private (Private videos can’t embed) and never Public (publication policy).
2. Copy the YouTube URL.
3. Open your trainer dashboard › This week’s sessions › click into the affected session.
4. Paste the YouTube URL into the Recording URL field.
5. Save. The recording is now available to students within seconds.

If you don’t have YouTube access

Send the recording file (or a Google Drive / Dropbox link) to the admin team and they’ll upload on your behalf. Don’t paste a Drive link into the recording URL field — students need an embedded YouTube to watch in-app without an external account.

Marking attendance

Attendance is auto-detected from Zoom participant events — students who join the meeting for at least 30 minutes are marked present. You typically don’t need to touch attendance.

When you do need to override

• Student had Zoom issues, joined by audio-only on phone — won’t auto-detect. Mark present manually.
• Student joined briefly, dropped, rejoined — Zoom might log this as one short presence. If they were effectively there for the session, override to present.
• Student had a documented emergency (illness, family) — mark excused with a short reason note.

How to override

1. Open the session row on your trainer dashboard.
2. You see the roster with each student’s auto-detected status.
3. Click the status column on a student’s row.
4. Pick present, absent, or excused.
5. For excused, enter a one-line reason.
6. Save.

Reviewing student submissions

For chapters that ask students to submit a written response or assignment, you’ll see those submissions on your dashboard. Your review unlocks the next chapter for that student in some programmes, so timely review matters.

The review flow

1. Dashboard › Submissions to review.
2. Click a row — you see the student’s name, the chapter prompt, and their submission.
3. Read. Type your feedback in the textarea.
4. Pick a grade: pass, pass with comments, or resubmit.
5. Save. Student is notified by email + sees your feedback inline in the chapter view.

Service-level expectation

72 hours from submission to your review is the cohort expectation. Faster builds trust; slower frustrates. If you’re overloaded for a week, ping ops — they can stagger the chapter unlock schedule.

Giving useful feedback

The quality of your written feedback is what students remember from your cohort. A pattern that works:

• One sentence on what they got right. Specific, not generic. “Your destination logic in part 2 picked up exactly the trade-off most students miss” beats “Good work.”
• One sentence on what was missing or weak. The single most important thing — not a laundry list.
• One sentence pointing to where in the material they can fill the gap. “Module 4 chapter 3 has the framework for this.”
• Sign off briefly. A real human note. “Solid submission — looking forward to seeing this evolve.”

Three sentences plus a sign-off is enough. Students remember specificity more than length.

Student communication

You’ll have three communication channels with students:

• In-platform feedback (submissions) — for substantive academic feedback. Stays in the record.
• Cohort WhatsApp group — for logistics, day-to-day questions, links to resources. You’ll be added when the cohort starts.
• 1-on-1 direct messages — students may DM you on WhatsApp. Keep things professional and route academic questions back to the in-platform feedback channel so other students can benefit.

What you don’t need to handle

Payment issues, login problems, certificate questions, refund requests, and cohort transfers — all of these are ops’s job. Don’t feel pressured to answer them; route the student to hello@vivacareeracademy.com and the team will pick it up.

Cadence & expectations

When to ask for help

Some moments need someone in ops or admin. Don’t hesitate.

• You can’t make a session — give as much notice as possible. Ops can re-schedule or arrange a substitute.
• A student is consistently struggling — share with ops so they can offer a check-in or peer-support.
• A student is being disruptive — document and pass to ops; the cohort code-of-conduct is enforced platform-side.
• You spot a technical issue — chapter video doesn’t play, dashboard shows wrong roster, submissions don’t save. Screenshot, time, write to admin.
• You spot a copy / branding error — typo in a module, wrong cohort label. Tell admin; they’ll fix.
• You want to suggest a curriculum improvement — most welcome. Write it up and send to admin; we revise yearly.

Reach: WhatsApp the admin who onboarded you, or email hello@vivacareeracademy.com. For Zoom-failed-mid-session level urgency, WhatsApp.