Launch an Automated Performance Review Cycle

Use Performance Review cycles to provide opportunities for direct reports and their managers to discuss performance.

In this article: 

• Overview
• Requirements
• Launch an Automated Performance Review Cycle
  • Cycle Setup
  • Notifications & Milestone Schedule
  • Participants
    • Add Participants Automatically by Demographic
    • Add Participants Manually
  • Activation Settings
    • Activate Now
    • Activate Later

Overview

Use Performance Review cycles to provide opportunities for direct reports and their managers to discuss performance. Reviews, when paired with other ongoing touch points such as 1-on-1s, Feedback, and Goals, allow managers to guide, coach, and support their employees more effectively.

This article is a guide for automated Performance Review cycles, learn how to launch a single Performance Review cycle.

Requirements

• Available to organizations with 1-on-1s enabled
• Available to admin users

Launch an Automated Performance Review Cycle

To launch a Performance Review cycle:

1. Click and expand Administration in the left-hand navigation menu 
2. Click 1-on-1s
3. Click Automated Cycles
4. Click New Automation in the top-right to open the cycle setup

Cycle Setup

On the initial step of the cycle setup, configure the cycle's details:

1. Cycle Setup: Leave Automated selected to launch an automated cycle
2. Cycle Name: Enter a title for the cycle
   
   • It's typically recommended to enter a date-based name, i.e. [month, year] or [quarter, year]
3. Cycle Template: Use the drop-down to specify the template to be used across the cycle
4. About This Cycle: Optionally, enter any context or additional information about the cycle 
   
   • Enable the Include in emails? toggle to include this information in the email invitation sent to the cycle participants
5. Manager Analytics: Optionally, check and enable this box to give managers access to aggregate, non-attributed analytics for their employees- this includes direct reports and down-line employees
   
   • Managers and Upline Managers can always view 1-on-1s that occur in their downline individually
6. Settings: Enable the Mark as Performance Review option and any additional options
   • If Facilitators must 'Submit for Approval' before sharing is selected, responses from the manager/facilitator require an admin to approve the response before the employee is notified and able to view the response
     
     
     
     • Allow upline managers to approve content allows the facilitator's upline managers, in addition to admins, to approve a facilitator's response
     • After approval, facilitators must share... requires the facilitator to enter the 1-on-1 and click Share to allow the employee to view the facilitator's response

Click Save and Continue to continue.

Notifications & Milestone Schedule

On the Notifications & Milestone Schedule step, specify what triggers a cycle launch and the timeline for the cycle's milestone moments. 

To configure the Notifications & Milestone schedule:

1. Click and expand the drop-down menu to select the trigger for a new cycle launch
   • Hire Date: Cycle launch dates are relative to an employee's hire date
   • Exit Date: Cycle launch dates are relative to an employee's exit date
   • Anniversary: Cycle launches on the first day of the employee's hire anniversary month
   • Recurring: Cycle launches on a regular basis, i.e. biweekly, monthly, quarterly, etc. relative to a specified date
2. Click on the date field for the corresponding milestone to open a date-picker to specify the new date and time for the milestone
3.  Repeat as necessary for each milestone

Click Save and Continue to continue. 

Participants

In the Participants step, configure the participants of the Performance Review cycle.

For an automated cycle, use the Limit by Demographic function to automatically invite employees based on specified demographics. Users who fall outside of the demographic-invite rules can still be manually added and participate in the cycle.

Add Participants Automatically by Demographic

To add participants automatically by demographic:

1. Click Limit By Demographic and configure one or both of the Include and Exclude fields
2. Optionally, use the Include field to specify the demographic(s) that qualify to participate in the cycle
3. Optionally, use the Exclude field to specify the demographic(s) that do not qualify to participate in the cycle
   • Note: The Include and Exclude fields operate in order, i.e. the Include field creates a pool of qualified employees, then, the Exclude field specifies which employees are removed from the pool
4. Click Save
   
   • If cycle participants should still be manually added to the cycle, follow these steps
5. Click Save and Continue to continue on the next step of the cycle setup

Add Participants Manually

To add participants manually:

1. Click Add Participants
2. Click and select the employees' corresponding ☐ icon (Figure A)
   • Optionally, use the Quick Select function to easily select either all employees or all managers within your organization
   • Optionally, use the search fields to filter the results by name or demographic to narrow the employees in the window (Figure A)
3. Click and expand the Select a Template drop-down and select the template for the selected employees (Figure B)
4. Click Add [x] People
5. Optionally, to add additional employees under a different template, repeat steps 2-4
6. Click All Done to finalize the participant selection for the cycle

Click Save and Continue to continue.

Activation Settings

In the final Activation Settings step, decide whether to launch and enable the automated cycle or schedule the cycle to launch at a later date.

Activate Now

To enable the automation and launch the cycle:

1. Click Enable Automation Now in the Activate Now card
2. In the Confirmation Needed card that appears, confirm the decision and click Yes, Enable Automation

Activate Later

To schedule a future launch date for the automation and cycle launch:

1. Click Schedule for Later in the Activate Later card
2. In the new card that appears, click the date field corresponding to Start Automated Cycle On to specify the activation date
3. Optionally, click the date field corresponding to End Automated Cycle On to specify an end date
4. Click Schedule