Understanding Milestones

Overview

Milestones are structured checkpoints that help students stay on track throughout their journey at your institution. Staff assign milestones within cohorts to guide students through required tasks, appointments, forms, and attendance — and the platform tracks progress automatically where possible. This article explains what milestones are, how they work, and what students and staff experience at each stage.

At a Glance

Milestone Type	How It Completes
Standard	Staff member marks it complete upon review of uploaded documents or forms sent via completion requests; option for students to self-complete when appropriate
Meeting	Automatically completes when a student attends the specific meeting tied to the milestone
Whiteboard	Student submits a signed document via whiteboard; completes upon any needed staff approvals
Event	Milestone is completed by registration; attendance is confirmed and milestone can be reassigned based on non-attendance.

How It Works

Milestones and Cohorts

Milestones always belong to a cohort. When a student is added to a cohort, they automatically receive all milestones assigned to that cohort — no additional setup is needed on a per-student basis. If a student is removed from a cohort, they lose access to that cohort's milestones.

A milestone can also be shared across multiple cohorts. Shared milestones appear in each cohort they're linked to, making it easy to maintain consistent checkpoints across related programs without duplicating content.

Milestone Types

When creating a milestone, staff choose one of four types. The type determines how completion is tracked.

Standard milestones are flexible task-based checkpoints. A student can be asked to self-complete, submit a completion request for staff review, or both. Standard milestones are the most configurable type and are appropriate for tasks that don't involve a specific appointment or form submission.

Meeting milestones are linked to a specific group. When a student attends a meeting in that group aligned with the reason code for the milestone, and their attendance is recorded with meeting start and end times, the milestone automatically marks complete when configured with auto-complete. No staff action is required.

Whiteboard milestones require a student to submit a whiteboard document. If the milestone is configured to auto-complete on signature collection, it completes automatically once all required signatures are present. Otherwise, it follows the same completion-request flow as Standard milestones.

Event milestones are linked Events scheduled in ConexED. Completion is triggered automatically when a student completes event registration. Attendance is confirmed at the virtual or in-person event and the milestone can be reassigned based on no-shows.

Due Dates

Milestones support two types of due dates:

Fixed Date — a specific calendar date that applies to all students in the cohort equally.
Duration — a number of days after the student starts the milestone. The due date is individual to each student and won't appear until they click to start the milestone. Until then, the milestone shows Not Yet Started as the due date. This is expected behavior — it's not a bug or a missing date. Duration Due date configuration is a very rarely used configuration and is not recommended best practice for most milestone due dates.

Completion Handling

When configuring a milestone, staff choose how completion is handled. Multiple methods can be active at once.

Method	What Happens
Allow student to mark complete	Student can self-complete without submitting a request or waiting for staff review.
Notify all staff assigned to cohort	Student submits a Milestone Completion Request (MCR). All staff assigned to the cohort are notified via a daily digest email summarizing all MCRs submitted that day.
Select specific staff to notify	Student submits an MCR. Only a specific list of staff members or groups selected during milestone setup are notified (same daily digest format).
Whiteboard self-complete	Applies to Whiteboard-type milestones only. Completion is triggered automatically once all required signatures are present on the submitted whiteboard.

Note: Daily digest: When a completion request goes to staff for review, notifications are sent once per day — not immediately when the student submits. Staff receive one digest email listing all Milestone Completion Requests submitted that day. Plan review workflows accordingly.

What Happens When a Milestone Completes

Milestone completion can trigger a chain of automated actions, depending on how the milestone is configured:

The student's milestone record is marked complete with a completion timestamp.
If the milestone is configured to move a student to a different cohort, the student is automatically moved — and removed from the cohort they're currently in. This is a full transfer, not a copy.
If the milestone is configured to remove a student from a cohort (without moving them), that removal happens at completion time.
If a recruitment pipeline status is set on the milestone, the student's pipeline status updates automatically.
If a drip campaign is linked to start after completion, that campaign launches for the student.
If any drip campaigns were waiting on this milestone to stop, they stop.
A custom completion email can be sent to the student using a template selected during milestone setup.
If the milestone has child milestones configured, those child milestones automatically start for the student. Students are not notified when a child milestone starts — it will simply appear in their milestone list.

Prerequisite Milestones

Prerequisite milestones can be organized in a parent/child relationship.. When a parent milestone is completed, its child milestones start automatically for the student. This is designed for multi-step journeys where one task must be finished before the next begins. Students are not notified when child milestones become active — they'll appear in the student's milestone list without a notification.

Reminders

Staff can add reminders to any milestone. Reminders send an email to students who have not yet completed the milestone. Three timing options are available:

Reminder Type	When It Sends
Before due date	A set number of days or weeks before the fixed due date
After milestone start	A set number of days or weeks after the student clicks to start the milestone
After assignment	A set number of days or weeks after the milestone is assigned, whether or not the student has started it

A custom email template can be attached to the reminder. If none is selected, students receive a generic message with a link to their milestone list. Even if multiple reminder triggers fall on the same day, a student will receive only one reminder email per day.

Progress Alerts (Staff)

Separate from student-facing reminders, the platform runs nightly progress alerts for staff. Any student who has not completed a milestone by the day before its due date will generate an internal alert visible to staff in the CRM. For duration-based milestones, the platform calculates each student's expected due date individually based on when they started.

Use Cases

New student onboarding: Create a sequence of Standard milestones — complete orientation form, schedule an advising appointment, review financial aid checklist — with parent/child relationships so each step unlocks only after the previous one is done.
Attendance tracking: Use Meeting milestones to automatically log when students complete required group appointments, removing the need for manual staff tracking.
Program completion checkpoints: Use fixed-date milestones with progress alerts to surface at-risk students before their deadlines pass.
Multi-program shared requirements: Use shared milestones to maintain a single milestone across multiple cohorts, so updates to the milestone apply everywhere it appears.
Automated pipeline movement: Configure milestone completion to automatically update a student's recruitment pipeline status or move them to a new cohort, reducing manual data entry for common transitions.

Configuration Overview

The following settings are available when creating or editing a milestone. Detailed instructions are in the How To articles linked in the Next Steps section below.

Setting	Description
Title	The name of the milestone, visible to students and staff
Description	Free-text instructions or details for the student
Type	Standard, Meeting, Whiteboard, or Event
Due date type	Fixed Date or Duration
Completion handling	Self-complete, notify cohort staff, notify specific staff, or whiteboard auto-complete
Linked group (Meeting type)	The meeting group whose attendance triggers auto-completion
Linked form	A custom form the student submits as part of their completion request
Linked whiteboard (Whiteboard type)	The whiteboard document the student completes
Completion actions	Move to cohort, remove from cohort, update recruitment status, start/stop drip campaign, send completion email
Reminders	One or more reminder triggers with optional custom email template
Labels	Color/category tags for visual organization in the milestone list
Attachments	Files (instructions, forms, reference materials) attached to the milestone for the student to access
Order position	Controls where the milestone appears within the cohort's milestone list
Parent milestone	Links this milestone as a child of another; it will start automatically when the parent completes

Things to Know

Cohort membership controls milestone access. Students only see milestones for cohorts they're currently in. Removing a student from a cohort removes their access to that cohort's milestones.

Moving a student to a new cohort on milestone completion is a full transfer. If a milestone is configured to move a student to a different cohort at completion, the student is removed from their current cohort at the same time. This cannot be undone automatically.

Duration-based due dates show "Not Yet Started" until the student begins. This is expected — the due date is calculated individually per student from the moment they start. Until then, the field will appear blank or show "Not Yet Started."

Child milestones start silently. When a parent milestone is completed and child milestones become active, students are not notified. The milestones will simply appear in their list.

Meeting auto-complete requires a recorded join time. If a student attended a meeting but their join time wasn't captured (for example, due to a connection issue), the milestone will not auto-complete. Staff will need to mark it complete manually.

Completion request notifications are once-daily. When a student submits a Milestone Completion Request, staff receive a digest email once per day — not an immediate alert per submission.

Next Steps

How to Create Standard Milestones
How to Create Meeting Milestones
How to Create Whiteboard Milestones
How to Create Event Milestones
How to Create a Shared Milestone
How to Approve or Deny a Milestone Completion Request
How to Use Milestone Progress Alerts