Planning Your Performance Review Cycle

planning your performance review cycle running a performance review cycle in charthop involves more moving parts than it might first appear — and the order you build them in matters this guide walks you through the full picture before you dive into setup, so nothing surprises you mid cycle how the pieces fit together every performance cycle in charthop is built from four components, and they have a dependency order forms → automated actions → profile tabs → review cycle build your forms first — one per review direction (self, manager, peer, upward) then configure automated actions so downstream forms trigger at the right moment then set up profile tabs so managers can approve and release feedback from employee profiles only then create the review cycle and attach everything together skipping steps or building out of order is the most common cause of cycle issues map your full flow before you build anything before you build key decisions a few decisions should be made before you touch a single form get these wrong and you'll be reconfiguring mid cycle start with a clean org chart charthop pulls review assignments directly from your reporting structure before any cycle begins, make sure recent transfers, dotted line reports, and manager assignments are accurate this is one of the most common causes of reviews going to the wrong people — and it's much harder to fix mid cycle than before launch questions vs fields every form item is either a question or a field — and this distinction matters more than it first appears field question what it is a charthop data point tied to a person's record a standalone form input — not tied to any record lives on profile? yes — written to the employee's profile no — only exists within the form response queryable in datasheets/reports? yes — accessible via field code across charthop no — only accessible via answervalue in dashboards best for rating scales, performance scores, any data you want to surface, track over time, or use in comp reviews open ended comments, supplementary narrative the rule if you ever want to display a rating on a profile tab, filter by it in a datasheet, use it in a compensation review, or track it over time — it must be a field, not a question a "manager performance rating" that feeds into a comp cycle should be a field a "please share any additional context" text box can be a question fields are created and managed in settings → fields before building any form, confirm whether the fields you need already exist or whether new custom fields need to be created custom fields support single select, multi select, yes/no, date, text, numeric, and calculated (expression based) types visibility and release when can employees see their own reviews? some organizations release feedback immediately on submission others hold it until after calibration, or until managers have had a 1 1 conversation charthop supports both — but you need to decide upfront and configure your form sensitivity settings accordingly one of the most common regrets after a cycle launches is "we didn't think through who sees what, and when " data flow downstream if performance ratings will feed into a compensation review, promotion workflow, or succession planning process — map those connections before you build your forms fields that need to flow downstream must be set up as custom fields from the start questions don't flow anywhere step 1 build your forms navigate to people ops tools → forms only users with owner or technical owner access can create or edit forms you'll need a separate form for each review direction you're running self review manager review (downward) peer review — requires two forms a peer selection form and a peer feedback form upward review (if applicable) build and fully configure each form before moving on the decisions that differ by type — sensitivity settings, anonymity, release configuration — are covered in the individual setup guides for each review type form settings what they mean once your form is built, go to the settings tab here's what each setting controls status active — the form can collect responses, appear on profiles, and be used in review cycles inactive — the form cannot collect responses and won't appear anywhere archived — hidden from the forms list; use for retired cycles set forms to inactive until you're ready to launch don't leave test forms active approvals toggle on if a form response needs to be reviewed and approved before it's finalized you can set the approver as the manager or manager's manager use this for workflows like manager reviews that need hr sign off before ratings are released anonymity controls whether respondent identity is visible for performance reviews this is typically off note charthop performance reviews is not designed for fully anonymous deidentified feedback — that belongs in the engagement module save/edit after submission controls whether forms can be edited after submission for multi stage cycles where a self review should be locked before the manager review opens, turn this off release toggle on if you want managers or leaders to manually release form responses to employees at a time of their choosing, rather than employees seeing results immediately this is critical for cycles where managers need to deliver feedback in a 1 1 before results go live release is managed from the employee's profile tab email notifications configure who gets notified and when use thoughtfully — over notifying causes employees to ignore communications sensitivity levels field sensitivity settings override form response visibility if a field on a form is set to manager only, an employee will not see that field even if they have access to view the form response level who can see it org public the entire organization manager shared the employee, anyone they report to, and users with sensitive access manager only only people the employee reports to and users with sensitive access personal only the employee themselves and users with sensitive access highly sensitive completely hidden (including field name) from anyone without sensitive access before finalizing any form preview the form before launching click preview in the header, select a real employee to preview as, and verify that all fields, conditional logic, and visibility settings work as expected step 2 set up automated actions automated actions are what make a multi stage cycle actually work without them, you're manually coordinating every handoff — and things get missed navigate to admin → automated actions to configure your triggers each action has three parts a trigger (what causes it to fire), a trigger source (the specific form or event), and an action (what happens as a result) common actions to configure self review → manager review trigger on form submitted from the self review form, then send the manager review form to the employee's manager this ensures manager reviews only open after self reviews are complete peer selection → peer reviews trigger on form submitted from the peer selection form, then send the peer review form to the selected reviewers without this action, peer review forms don't go anywhere automatically approval triggered forms you can configure whether a downstream form fires on submission or on approval of the prior form for example the manager review launches only after hr approves the self review conditional downstream forms if a manager selects "yes, recommend for promotion" in their review form, a promotion justification form is automatically sent to that manager this uses conditional logic within the form combined with an action trigger reminder automations set up timed reminders for incomplete submissions at key intervals (e g , 3 days before deadline) reduces manual chasing map your entire cycle end to end before configuring actions — what triggers what, at what point, and under what conditions adding automations retroactively mid cycle can cause missed sends or double sends step 3 configure profile tabs profile tabs are required for a performance cycle — they're where managers go to approve and release reviews without a configured profile tab, there's nowhere for that to happen navigate to admin → profile tab configuration create a new tab, name it clearly (e g , "performance"), set whose profile it appears on, then set who it's displayed to using sensitivity levels add your forms as form response history content — this is the recommended content type for performance reviews, as it displays historical responses over time for tabs that mix field data and form response data, use the custom sensitivity filter target proxyreviewer=me or target managers=me or target=me this ensures the employee sees their own data, their managers see it, and anyone filling out a form on their behalf can see it sensitivity guidance by audience employees should see their own self review responses and any released manager feedback managers should see self review responses and be able to complete and release their own review hr/admins should have visibility into all responses use manager only sensitivity for rating fields that should not be visible to the employee prior to release admins can also manage approvals and releases in bulk from the form's responses tab → sheet view but the profile tab is the primary interface for managers test your profile tab from the perspective of an employee, a manager, and an admin before launching step 4 create the review cycle with forms built, actions configured, and profile tabs ready, create the actual review cycle from the left sidebar, select performance , then create a new review from there link each form to the appropriate stage of the cycle define which employees the cycle applies to (full org or a specific group) set staggered deadlines for multi stage cycles — each phase should close before the next opens, with buffer time built in reporting relationships during the cycle because charthop's org chart is live and continuously updated, you need to decide what happens if someone changes managers, transfers, or a manager goes on leave mid cycle two approaches exist freezing relationships to the org chart at cycle launch, or keeping them live so they reflect real time changes a company going through a reorg mid cycle almost certainly wants them frozen; a stable org may be fine either way check with your charthop admin or the in product documentation for the exact location of this setting pilot before full launch scope the cycle to 3–5 trusted employees first give them a few days to go through the experience and flag anything off use view as (click your profile picture in the top right, select an employee) to test visibility from different perspectives — charthop renders exactly what that person sees test across different roles, levels, and departments fix anything in admin before sending invitations to the full org catching a misconfiguration in a pilot of 5 is very different from catching it after it's live for 500 step 5 launch, track, and monitor send forms from within the reviews page track completion rates and send reminders from the same place in the form's responses tab, use sheet view to monitor approval status and release status across all employees use individual view for direct admin actions — approve, reject, or release individual form responses step 6 calibration (alpha) calibration is available as an alpha feature and needs to be enabled before use calibration happens after ratings are submitted — it is not a pre launch step before your calibration sessions map out your sessions in advance — who is being calibrated in each meeting and who the facilitator is navigate to the calibrations tab within the review cycle and configure the calibration table, adding or removing columns to show the mix of charthop fields and form data most relevant to each session only employees who have had a form completed about them will appear apply the appropriate filter for each session (e g , filter by department), then copy and save the url charthop encodes filters directly into the url, so the filtered view is fully preserved in the link paste each saved url into a shared doc or calendar invite — when the session arrives, whoever is running calibration just clicks the link and lands directly in the pre filtered view, with no fumbling with filters in the room repeat for every scheduled session before any of them begin during sessions pull up the pre saved filtered url and share your screen click the expand icon on any employee's row to drill into their specific form responses lock manager review scores before the session begins to prevent changes during calibration you can approve or release responses directly from this view if you have the appropriate access after calibration final ratings surface on employee profiles via the profile tabs configured in step 3 export calibration results as needed before closing the cycle how performance data connects across charthop performance data in charthop doesn't live in isolation — it connects across the platform compensation reviews — ratings stored as fields can directly inform compensation recommendations in a comp cycle scenarios — planning decisions can be informed by performance data alongside headcount and comp employee profiles — ratings and review history surface on profile tabs, visible based on sensitivity settings org chart — review relationships are driven by the live reporting structure datasheets — any rating stored as a field is queryable and filterable across the org this integration only works if ratings are stored as custom fields questions don't flow anywhere common setup mistakes mistake why it matters using questions instead of fields for ratings ratings won't be queryable, reportable, or usable in comp reviews not configuring profile tabs before launch managers can't approve or release reviews skipping actions setup peer reviews never get sent; downstream forms don't trigger not cleaning the org chart first reviews go to the wrong managers designing visibility after launch employees see things they shouldn't — or can't see things they should tight timelines with no buffer every phase runs late; the cycle collapses leaving test forms active employees receive accidental form assignments