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Intro Types

Learn about the different ways you can intro people up with Donut

Carrie Biggar avatar
Written by Carrie Biggar
Updated over a week ago

There are four different types of intros: Standard, Cross-group, Within-group, and Lottery. Please read below to learn about how each type works.

Standard

Every teammate in the Donut channel will receive an introduction to the person they are matched with in Slack. The group size defaults to 2, but you can choose groups of up to 8 people. If the group size is set to 2 and there are an odd number of teammates in the channel, we will make one trio to ensure everyone is included.

Donut uses a special algorithm to create matches that you can learn more about here.

Cross-group

You may define 2 or more groups. Examples of groups some teams set are Sales and Engineering, NYC Office and Dublin Office, or Mentor and Mentee. You can completely customize the Category and Group names to whatever fits your team's needs.

Want help defining your groups? Connect your HRIS to automatically create and assign groups! Note: Utilizing HRIS requires Donut's Premium Plan

If using our Manual creation, when participants join the Donut Slack channel, they will be asked to choose which group they belong to and will be introduced to people who have selected a different group. If you choose to utilize our HRIS integration, users will be assigned to a group based on your HRIS data.

If someone misses the message to select their group, they can also select a group from the Donut's Home tab in Slack.

Read more about Intro across groups here.

Within-group

This option is very similar to Cross-group, except people are matched with others who select only the same group as themselves. For example, you can define 2 or more groups such as region, department, or interests. When participants join the Donut Slack channel, they will be asked to choose which group they belong to and will be introduced to people who have selected the same group.

Want help defining your groups? Connect your HRIS to automatically create and assign groups! Note: Utilizing HRIS requires Donut's Premium Plan

This is a great way to have everyone in one channel, but only those who should be matched are getting introductions. A common use for this type is to ensure that people in the same time zones are matched.

Read more about Within-group Intros here.

Lottery

This option allows you to only create a single pair or group for each Intro round. This type is excellent for lunch lottery programs or CEO roulette, where a single group is selected each time. We also see teams use this for 1:1s, skip-levels and round tables! You can choose the size of the group and specify up to 2 people to always be included (e.g., co-founders or an executive and their assistant). 

Questions? Feedback? You can click the purple Intercom button in the bottom right of your screen to chat with us now, or reach out to us at support@donut.ai.

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