The Retention Workspace is an upgraded version of the Retention Dashboard with a richer, more compelling experience within the suite of Cortex offerings. Cortex's Workspace-level features offer deeper analysis and actionability for the overall student lifecycle.

Accessing Retention Workspace

The Retention workspace - like any other workspace - is accessible by permissioned Admin users through the Workspaces button on the global navigation bar. Users will land on the Overview page by default. Contact your Customer Success Manager or submit a support request if access is missing or you would like to learn more.

Users with the following permissions will see a “Workspace” button added to the existing global navigation bar:

1. 1. School is Cortex enabled
   2. User has view/edit Workspace permissions

Note: In the CourseKey UI, Retention Dashboard now permanently lives within Cortex as a limited-access version of Retention Workspace.

Retention Overview

Retention Workspace adopts the Retention Dashboard as its Overview page. The Overview page contains all the same functionality as the Retention Dashboard.

1. All RDB functionality will be ported into Retention Workspace as-is, with the exception of enhanced filtering options: 
   1. Nexus-integrated Cortex customers will have the opportunity to display this information from Nexus (vs CourseKey / manual uploads).
   2. If there are no programs listed, a Retention will default to a single risk score calculation for a school with no distinction by the program.
1. Instructors - updated to list all instructors that are related to courses at the school
2. Program - The list of programs available in Retention Workspace is populated by either the list of manually created programs uploaded in CourseKey and associated to students, or directly through an integration. 
3. Student Status - filter by CourseKey’s enrollment system statuses (Lead, Application Received, Pending Applicant, Future Start, Never Attended, Canceled, Re-entry, Active, Dropped, LOA, Probation, Graduated)

Accessing Insights

Admins are able to review a number of insights that help them drill down further than the Overview to better understand how retention rates are tracking over time, and by cohort:

1. Retention Insights available include:
   1. Last Activity Recorded visualization
   2. Absent Now visualization
   3. Attendance Percentage in Course to Date report
   4. Academic Percentage in Course to Date visualization (requires Canvas Grades integration)

Setting Up Automations

Admins can set up automations to help track who showed up  for (or missed) Day 1 and quickly prioritize relevant outreach activities. Automations include:

1. Attendance Threshold Warning
2. Academic Threshold Warning (assumes grades data source)
3. LAR > 7 Days Warning
4. New Severe-Risk Students Daily Alert
   1. Note: This is not in the Automations List – accessible via Retention Overview Settings

Settings

Admins can configure the Retention Workspace such that it more closely caters to the parameters and thresholds they rely on to track their retention rates

1. Risk Factors, Weights & Thresholds, Risk Levels, and Daily Alerts will now move to the Settings tab in Retention Workspace (just above where it was before as an icon in the main body area).
   1. Note: the Settings gear icon in the original RDB UI will be deprecated, as will the Data Sources page
   2. See also: Retention Dashboard help center article