Running a scheduled training

In the previous lesson, you learned how the practitioner series is structured and where to find instructor resources. When a new session is confirmed, three things need to happen before it starts: sandbox capacity must be requested, a Linear issue must be created to track the event, and the sandbox team must be notified through Slack.

In this lesson, you will learn how to complete all three steps using the events:practitioner command.

What needs to happen before a session

Workshops use pre-provisioned Neo4j sandbox instances. Unlike online courses — where sandboxes are created on demand as each learner starts — workshops require a fixed number of sandboxes to be available for the entire session window. The sandbox team needs advance notice to provision them.

For each workshop session, you need to:

Request sandbox capacity — notify the sandbox team of the use case, participant count, and session window
Create a Linear issue — track the event with the correct labels, due date, and course link
Use unique course links — each training session uses a tracking URL with a ?ref= parameter so enrollment from that session can be attributed correctly

Requesting sandbox capacity

To request sandbox capacity, use the /workshop command in the #sandbox-experience Slack channel.

/workshop {usecase} {participant-count} {start-date in UTC} {end-date in UTC}

usecase is the use case of the workshop, e.g. fraudmovies
participant-count is the number of participants in the workshop
start-date in UTC is the start date of the workshop in UTC
end-date in UTC is the end date of the workshop in UTC

The following example requests 20 sandbox instances for the fraudmovies use case from 14:00 UTC to 16:00 UTC on 2026-02-03.

/workshop fraudmovies 20 2026-02-03 14:00 2026-02-03 16:00

Using the practitioner command

The events:practitioner npm script automates all three steps. It reads every course tagged practitioner:N from the repository, groups them by day, and for each course:

Creates a Linear issue with the events > practitioner label, the correct use-case label, the event date as the due date, and the course URL with a ?ref= tracking parameter
Posts two messages to the #sandbox-experience Slack channel: a header identifying the training, and a /workshop command with the use case, participant count, and session window

The command derives session times from the region you specify:

APAC — 03:00 UTC start
EMEA — 09:00 UTC start
AMER — 15:00 UTC start

Sessions run for the duration of the workshop (or the combined duration of same-day workshops). All times are UTC.

Basic usage

npm run events:practitioner -- --region EMEA --start-date 2026-03-24

--region and --start-date are both required. The start date is the date of Day 1; subsequent days are calculated automatically from the practitioner:N tag on each course.

Testing before running for real

Always run with --dry-run first to verify the output before creating issues or posting to Slack:

npm run events:practitioner -- --region EMEA --start-date 2026-03-24 --dry-run

To run one component for real while skipping the other, pass the component name to --dry-run:

# Create Linear issues, skip Slack
npm run events:practitioner -- --region EMEA --start-date 2026-03-24 --dry-run slack

# Post to Slack, skip Linear
npm run events:practitioner -- --region EMEA --start-date 2026-03-24 --dry-run linear

Testing Slack output in a different channel

Use --slack-channel to redirect output to a test channel before posting to #sandbox-experience:

npm run events:practitioner -- --region EMEA --start-date 2026-03-24 --slack-channel C1234567

Pass the Slack channel ID (not the name). Find it by right-clicking the channel in Slack and selecting View channel details.

What gets created

For each workshop in the series, the command creates:

Linear issue

Title: {Course title} — {REGION} {date}
Labels: events > practitioner and usecase > {use-case}
Due date: the date of that workshop day
Description: the course URL with ?ref=practitioner-{region}-{YYYY-MM} appended

Slack messages (posted to #sandbox-experience)

Practitioner Training: {Course title} on {date}:
/workshop {use-case} 30 {YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM} {YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM}

The /workshop command is handled by the sandbox team’s bot. It provisions 30 sandbox instances for the specified use case and time window.

Summary

In this lesson, you learned how to prepare for a scheduled practitioner training session:

Three steps required — request sandbox capacity, create a Linear issue, and send the Slack notification; the events:practitioner command does all three automatically
Dry-run first — use --dry-run, --dry-run slack, or --dry-run linear to verify output before committing
Unique tracking links — each Linear issue description contains a course URL with a ?ref=practitioner-{region}-{YYYY-MM} parameter for attribution

For questions about upcoming sessions or trainer coordination, join #neo4j-datacouch-practitioner-training on Slack.

How we teach

Introduction to GraphAcademy’s Learning Philosophy

Developing a GraphAcademy course

Lesson Types

Releasing courses

Monitoring courses

Workshops