Completing and approving reviews

This article is for everyone who completes a review: the employee for their self review, the manager for their team members’ reviews, colleagues nominated as peers, and HR staff. It explains where to find the reviews to complete, how to fill them in and submit them, how the manager finalizes them, how to open a one-off review outside a campaign, and how to reopen or delete a review.

Before you start #

• The Performance module must be activated for you.
• Reading reviews (Performance Overview tab): “Feedback”, Access level. Filling in, submitting, finalizing, signing, opening a one-off review and proposing or nominating peers: Execute level. Reopening a review: Admin level. By default, all employees have the Access and Execute levels; only the administrator has the Admin level.
• Deleting a one-off review: “Delete a performance form”, Execute level (by default: administrator, HR and manager).
• Who you can act on depends on the scope of your role, set together with permissions in Settings › Manage Employees › Employee Roles.

Reviews to complete #

Open your Performance space (your profile menu › Performance) and the To fill tab. It only exists on your own page and lists the reviews you have to write: your self review (“Your review”), your team members’ reviews, those where you are nominated as a peer, and the upward review of your supervisor. The cycle selector at the top of the screen filters the list.

Three counter buttons split the rows: To fill, Waiting and Done. Each row gives the person reviewed, the step, the cycle, the contract where relevant, the form and the deadline. A review that cannot be filled in yet shows its reason:

• “Waiting for the previous step”: the step it depends on has not been submitted yet;
• “Step closed for input”;
• “Assigned to someone else”;
• “Finalized — read-only”;
• “Missing permission to fill in”: your role does not have the Execute level of the “Feedback” permission.

Click Fill in to open a review, or View to read a completed one again.

Filling in and submitting #

1. The form opens full page, with the template name and the review status.
2. If the step allows it, a collapsed panel recalls the previous step (for example the self review, for the manager): click View to expand it.
3. Answer the questions. Required questions carry an asterisk.
4. Click Save to keep a draft and come back to it later.
5. Click Submit when you have finished. If a required question is still unanswered, the message “Required questions without an answer: …” names it; you must also have answered at least one question.

Once submitted, the review moves to Submitted status and becomes read-only for you: to change it, it must be reopened. The person reviewed (if they can read the review at this stage) and their managers receive the “Review submitted” notice. Closing the form takes you back to the To fill tab.

The upward review #

In an upward review, you assess your supervisor. The form opens from To fill and only offers Submit. Your supervisor does not see who wrote it: the upward reviews of a step are combined for them into a single card, with no author name.

The peer review #

When a campaign includes a peer review, tasks appear at the top of the To fill tab, depending on the step setting:

• “Choose your peers”: you propose the colleagues who will review you, while the step is open;
• “Choose the peers — <name>”: the manager or HR choose a team member’s peers;
• “Approve the proposed peers — <name>”: the manager approves or declines the proposals.

1. Click Choose or Review. The panel recalls the step’s rule and the number of peers expected (minimum and maximum).
2. Look for a colleague in Search for a colleague. Only active employees who can fill in a review are offered, excluding the person reviewed and their manager.
3. Click Propose (the person reviewed) or Choose (manager, HR). For a proposal awaiting approval, the manager clicks Approve or Decline next to each name.

Chosen and approved peers receive a review in their To fill tab. A peer can be removed as long as their review has not been created. Nobody chooses or approves peers for their own review file. The peer review is not anonymous: when the review becomes visible to the person reviewed, they see the name of the peer who wrote it.

Reading and finalizing #

A person’s reviews are read in the Performance Overview tab of their Performance space (their profile › Performance). Two figure cards show the number of reviews completed and in progress; the All, Completed and In progress filters sort the list. Each review shows its date, its author, its status (Draft, Submitted, Finalized, Signed) and its completeness (“Completed” when every required question has an answer). Click a review to open it.

Finalizing a review means approving it: it becomes read-only and its questions are frozen. In a campaign, a review written by someone else (the team member’s self review, for example) is finalized once it has been submitted: open it and click Finalize. The manager can finalize their own review directly. The person reviewed and the author receive the “Review finalized” notice. The person reviewed never finalizes their own reviews.

Campaign reviews are not signed one by one: they are validated with the end-of-cycle dossier, once all of them are finalized. See The end-of-cycle dossier: validating and signing.

What the person reviewed sees #

• Their own self reviews are always readable for them.
• A campaign review written by someone else becomes visible to them at the moment set on the step: on finalization, on signature request, or never. A draft or a review that has only been submitted is never shown to them; a signed review always is.
• Private questions stay hidden from them, except in their own self review.

Opening a one-off review #

Outside campaigns, a manager or HR can open a review at any time, for example at the end of a probation period.

1. Open the person’s profile › Performance › Performance Overview tab, then click New feedback.
2. In the “Add new feedback” window, choose the Feedback template from the active templates.
3. Click Add feedback. The form opens; you are its author, and the review is linked to the contract selected in the profile header.
4. Answer, click Save, then click Finalize.
5. A finalized one-off review can then be signed with Sign, by its author as well as by the person reviewed, who thereby acknowledges it.

If a one-off review based on the same template is already open for this person, it opens instead of a new one, with the message “An open review based on this form already exists: it has been opened.”.

Reopening or deleting #

Reopen puts a finalized, signed or submitted review back into draft: the “Reopen the review” window asks for a Reason for reopening (3 to 1,000 characters), which is kept in the history; the signature and the frozen questions are cleared. You need the Admin level of the “Feedback” permission on the person. Nobody reopens their own review, and reopening is refused if the cycle is closed or if the end-of-cycle dossier has been signed. The person reviewed, the author and the managers receive the “Review reopened” notice.

The bin on a card deletes a one-off review that has not been finalized (“Delete this feedback?”). A campaign review can never be deleted.

Several contracts #

When a person holds several contracts under your responsibility, a banner may appear above the tabs of their Performance page, once a cycle is selected: Treat as a single interview merges their review files, One interview per contract splits them. You need the “Merge / split review files” permission at Execute level, to be the supervisor of the contracts concerned, and no review file may have been filled in yet.

Good to know #

• A passed deadline flags a delay without blocking input; only closing the cycle freezes the reviews.
• Notices arrive in the Performance tab of the bell and by e-mail, according to your “Performance reviews” preference (Personal Settings, Notifications tab).
• Performance forms do not include a skills assessment: the skills part of the annual review belongs to the Training module, if it is installed for your workspace. See Managing skills.