Lifecycle Reviews allow you to launch performance reviews automatically based on employee milestones such as hire date, anniversaries, or probationary periods. This eliminates the need for manual setup and ensures that every employee receives timely feedback throughout their journey — from onboarding to anniversaries.
This feature is especially useful for:
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Excluding employees still in onboarding from company-wide reviews.
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Creating structured 30/60/90-day reviews for new hires.
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Automating anniversary or probationary reviews without manual scheduling.
In this article, you will learn...
Access and availability
⛔️ Required access to Best-Self Review® and feature settings.
👥 This article is relevant to Review admins.
📦 This feature is available in the Perform and Total Platform pricing packages.
How to Access Automated Reviews
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From the left-hand navigation in 15Five, click Best-Self Review®.
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At the top, you’ll see two tabs:
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Manual Reviews → works the same as before.
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Automated Reviews → where Lifecycle Reviews live.
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On the Automated Reviews tab, you’ll see two sections:
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Active automatic cycles → Workflows that are confirmed. When active, they automatically generate new review cycles whenever an employee meets the trigger (e.g., 90 days after hire).
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Draft automatic cycles → Workflows that have been started but not yet launched.
Note
👉 You can expand each section to see additional details:
- For Active automatic cycles, expanding shows all individual cycles generated for cohorts that met the trigger (with details like participants, start date, status, and response rate).
- For Draft automatic cycles, expanding shows workflow details and options to edit, activate, or delete.
Create an Automatic Review Cycle
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Go to the Automatic Reviews tab.
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Click Add review cycle.
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Choose Send Automatically → click Next: Customize.
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Select an automatic review template:
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30-day
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60-day
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90-day
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Anniversary
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Probationary
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Or create your own automated review template
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Continue to Customize the setup:
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- Name your cycle.
- Choose a lifecycle trigger (e.g., 60 days after hire). Adjust the number of days if needed.
- Set audience. You can include all employees, specific groups, or exclude groups.
- Select review types. Options include self, manager, peer, or upward reviews.
- Choose collaborators, calibrations, objectives, and ratings as needed.
- Define timelines. Set the number of days for each stage (writing, calibrations, sharing, finalization).
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Review your configuration and select how you’d like to save:
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Save as draft → Appears under Draft automatic cycles. Reviews will not launch.
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Save and confirm → Appears under Active automatic cycles with status “Inactive.” Reviews won’t launch until you resume it.
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Save and activate → Appears under Active automatic cycles with status “Active.” Reviews will launch automatically once employees meet the trigger.
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How It Works
Each time an employee (or group of employees) meets the trigger condition, the system automatically generates a new individual cycle under that workflow.
You can click into a cycle to view:
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Cycle details (start date, end date, status, participants)
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Participant progress and status
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Calibrations tab
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Company results (once the cycle ends)
Cycles move through three statuses:
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Upcoming → Scheduled but not yet started
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Active → In progress
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Ended → Completed
Admins can edit timelines, send nudges, manage participants, or download reports as needed.
FAQs
When do automatic cycles launch?
Always on Mondays after the trigger condition is met.
What templates are available?
30-day, 60-day, 90-day, probationary, and anniversary templates (or custom).
Can I pause or edit a workflow once it’s live?
Yes. Use the three-dot menu on the workflow.
Will employees notice anything different?
No. The employee and manager review experience is the same. Automation only changes admin setup.