How to Use Succession Planning

As an admin, import, create, and nominate candidates for your organization's Succession Planning.

In this article: 

• Access & Navigate Succession Planning
• Create & Manage a Succession Plan via a Talent File
  • About the Talent File
  • Import a Talent File
• Create & Manage a Succession Plan via the Dashboard
  • Create a Critical Role
  • Add a Candidate
  • Add an External Candidate
  • Edit a Candidate
  • Promote a Candidate
• Candidate Nominations
  • Requesting Nominations
  • Nominating Candidates
• Presentation Mode
  • Access & Navigate Presentation Mode

  • Save Presentation Filter Presets 

  • Share Presentation via Shareable Link

 

Access & Navigate Succession Planning

Access Succession Planning

To access the Succession Planning dashboard: 

1. Click and expand Analytics in the left-hand navigation menu 
2. Click Succession Planning

Note: As an admin, you can give users access to Succession Planning via the User Management page.

Navigate Succession Planning Dashboard

To navigate the Succession Planning dashboard:

• A. Filters: Use the Filter button to filter incumbents according to several quick filters or demographics
  • Quick Filters include: Vacant Roles, Roles with no Candidates, and Outstanding Nominations
• B. Critical Roles: Indicates the number of critical roles identified in your organization
• C. Candidate Readiness: Visualizes the number of candidates in each readiness state
• D. Candidate by Demographic: Visualize each candidate color-coded by the selected demographic
  
  
  • Click the ⋮ icon (Figure B) to select the demographics reflected in the card and via Manage Demographics, configure which demographics are available to be used when filtering
    
    • Alternatively, access this modal via the Manage drop-down > Change Available Filter Demographics
      
      
  • Toggle the visualization between a dot diagram and a pie graph (Figure B)
  • Click the ⋮ icon (Figure C) to expand a list of selectable demographics to view candidates by 
• E. Incumbents & Empty Roles: Indicates the number of critical roles with and without incumbents
• F. New Role & Search: Create new critical roles and use the search field to narrow visible roles by role name or employee name

Create & Manage a Succession Plan via a Talent File 

Quantum Workplace uses a Talent File CSV file to communicate and update succession planning information. Click to download a template talent file. 

Learn more about Succession Planning.

About the Talent File

The Role field is the only required field. The information for the other fields can be completed within Quantum Workplace after the talented file has been imported.

The file includes the following columns: 

• Role: Title or role of the incumbent user
  • This does not need to match the HRIS to account for roles that don't currently exist or roles that have a pool of candidates for different locations
• Incumbent Employee ID: Employee ID or Username for the user in the associated role
• Candidate Employee ID: Employee ID or Username of the candidate 
  • There is one row per candidate that correlates with their readiness level  
  • This field can be left blank if the Readiness Level field is left blank
• Readiness Level: Valid readiness levels or the associated import value: 
  • • Ready Now (4)
    • Ready in 12 months (3)
    • Ready in 24 months (2)
    • Ready in 36 months (1)
    • On The Radar (0)
    • Emergency Candidate*
  • *To indicate a candidate as an Emergency Candidate, check the ☐ icon for Is an emergency candidate
    
    
  • This field can be left blank if the Candidate Employee ID field is left blank

• Strengths: Candidate's strengths, optional
• Gaps: Areas of concern or growth, optional
• General Notes: General comments about the candidate, optional

Note: The Strengths, Gaps, and General Notes columns are optional, but if one of the three columns is included, all three must be included in the talent file. 

Import a Talent File 

To import a talent file: 

1. Click and expand the Manage drop-down menu in the top-right
2. Click Import Talent File to open the import process 
3. On the Upload File step, click Browse and select the talent file
4. Click Upload and Validate
5. On the Validate step, if the validation is successful, click Import
   • If the validation fails, see the validation error and make the necessary edits before saving the file and clicking Download Template File Again to validate the updated file
6. On the Import step, click View Analytics to return to the Succession Planning page

Create & Manage a Succession Plan via the Dashboard

You can quickly create your succession plan within the dashboard with a few simple clicks. Begin by creating a critical role, and then adding candidates to the roles. 

Learn more about Succession Planning.

Create a Critical Role

To create a critical role: 

1. Click +New Critical Role
2. Complete the Role Name field 
3. Optionally, complete the About this Role or enter an employee name/ID in the Incumbent field
4. Click Save

The incumbent must exist as part of your organization to appear in the search. 

Add a Candidate

To add a candidate for an existing role: 

1. Click an existing role to expand the detailed view
2. Click Add Candidate to open the Add Candidate modal
3. Enter an employee in the Candidate field and complete as many fields as necessary
4. Click Save

You can return to the candidate's card to edit the details as needed. 

If an existing candidate is added as a candidate for a different role, you can optionally import their strengths, gaps, and general notes to the new role they were added to. 

Add an External Candidate

To add an external candidate for an existing role:

1. Click an existing role to expand the detailed view
2. Click Add Candidate to open the Add Candidate modal
3. Click the Add External Candidate tab
4. Enter an employee in the Candidate field and complete as many fields as necessary
   
   • If an external candidate has been added as a candidate for a different role, click +Existing Eternal Candidate to quickly pull in their information
5. Click Save

External candidates are always indicated with an External Candidate label.

Edit a Candidate

To edit a candidate's information: 

1. Click an existing role to expand the detailed view
2. Find the candidate under the Identified Candidate's column and click the corresponding ⋮ icon
3. Click Edit Candidate 
4. Make the necessary edits and click Save

Promote a Candidate

To promote an identified candidate to the critical role: 

1. Click an existing role to expand the detailed view
2. Click Promote Candidate 
3. In the modal, select the candidate from either the Identified Candidates or Someone Else tab
4. Click Promote 

Candidate Nominations

Request Nominations

As an admin, you can request candidate nominations for specific roles in your organization and add them to your Succession Plan.

Nomination requests are delivered to the managers of the specified role who can then nominate potential successors to step into the role. 

To request candidate nominations: 

1. Click and expand the Manage drop-down menu
2. Click Manage Nominations 
3. Request candidate nominations, either in bulk or individually:
   • A. In Bulk: Click Bulk Request Nominations to open a modal to send nomination requests to all or specified nominators who have not submitted a nomination; make the appropriate selection and click Yes, Send Requests
     
     • Optionally, click Quick Assign Managers to automatically assign the manager of each role as a nominator

• • B. Individually: Click the ⋮ icon for a role, then Manage Nominations to expand a menu where you can enter a nominator (Figure A below) and manage requests, i.e. send/cancel nomination requests and remove nominators (Figure B below)
    
    To request a candidate nomination, add the nominator and click Send Request in the Actions column
    

Nominate Candidates

As a manager, you can nominate a potential successor for a downline role when requested to do so by an admin. 

Access the Candidate Nomination Form

Once requested, the Candidate Nomination form can be accessed in two ways: 

• Via the link in the Succession Planning Nomination email notification
• As an admin, from the Manage drop-down menu, click Nominate
  
  

 

Complete the Candidate Nomination Form

To nominate a candidate: 

1. Access the Candidate Nomination form
2. Click Add Nomination for the corresponding critical role
3. Click Select for a corresponding candidate to open the nomination modal
4. Complete each of the fields, i.e. Strengths, Gaps, etc.
5. Click the What is [Employee's] Readiness... drop-down and select the employee's readiness level
6. Click Save to save the candidate selection along with any information you entered
   • Optionally, repeat steps 3-6 for any other candidates
   • Optionally, nominate a candidate not listed on the form by entering and selecting the employee in the Nominate Someone Else field
7. Click Finalize Nominations to complete the Candidate Nomination form

Presentation Mode

Presentation Mode within the Succession Planning page provides an organized method to view critical roles and the state of the candidates. 

Filters can be applied in Presentation Mode and saved for future use, learn more.

Access & Navigate Presentation Mode

To access Presentation Mode:

1. Click Presentation Mode in the top-right corner of the page
   • To return to the previous view of Succession Planning, click Back to Analytics 

The Presentation Mode view begins with the Overview, displaying the number of critical roles and interactable views of the candidate by readiness or specified demographics. 

To navigate through Presentation Mode: 

• Use the search field in the top-left to search by a role or an employee 
• Use the filter function in the top-left to search via demographic or pre-selected quick filters
• Roles and the incumbent are listed on the left-hand side of the screen

Save Presentation Filter Presets 

In Presentation Mode, use the Filter feature to view only relevant roles and candidates. Use the Quick Filters to view vacant roles or roles without candidates, or apply a demographic filter, i.e. by department, generation, tenure, etc.

Saved presentation presets are organized in the Presentations drop-down menu in the top right and can be enabled on demand. 

To save a presentation with a filter:

1. From Presentation Mode, click Filter
2. Specify the active filters, i.e. Quick Filters and/or demographic filters
3. Click Apply
4. With an active filter, click and expand the Presentations drop-down in the top right
5. Click Save New Presentation
6. Enter a name for the presentation
7. Click Save

Saved presentations can be deleted via the Presentations drop-down menu by clicking the trash icon for the corresponding saved presentation.

Share Presentation via Shareable Link

When viewing a saved presentation, a view-only link can be shared. Users viewing a presentation using the link will be restricted to only the candidates and roles within the scope of the filter. 

To ensure a shared link only shows the correct presentation with the specified filters, active filters must match the filters of a saved presentation. For example, if a presentation were saved with the Finance filter, the presentation would not be shareable if an additional filter was in place, or if the Finance filter was disabled. 

To share a view-only filtered presentation: 

1. Click and expand Presentations in the top right
2. Click Save New Presentation 
3. Enter a name for the presentation and click Save
4. Click Share
5. Click Copy Link to copy the unique view-only link
6. Share the unique link with the appropriate users