Edit a question template in performance reviews

Use the edit workflow to rename a template, change its type, or modify its questions. Changes save to the template immediately and reflect in any future review cycle that uses it.

Before You Begin

• Only review admins can edit question templates.
• Default 15Five question templates cannot be edited.
• Templates tied to an active review cycle can be edited, but changes do not apply to the cycle automatically. See Apply template changes to an active cycle below.

Steps

1. Click Reviews in the left navigation.
2. Click the Template configuration tab at the top of the page.
3. Click ... next to the template you want to edit.
4. Select Edit from the dropdown menu.
5. To rename the template, update the text in the Template name field.
6. To change the template type, select the desired type from the type options.
7. Click Yes, Switch template type to confirm the change.
8. To edit a section title, click ... to the right of the section name.
9. Select Edit title and description from the dropdown.
10. To add a question, scroll to the bottom of a section and click Add new question.
11. To edit an existing question, click the settings gear to the right of that question.
12. Select Edit from the dropdown.
13. To copy an existing question, click the settings gear and select Copy.
14. To reorder questions, click and hold the six-dot handle to the left of a question.
15. Drag the question to the desired position.
16. Click Save at the bottom of the screen.

Apply template changes to an active cycle

When you edit a template that is attached to an active review cycle, changes save to the template but do not apply to the cycle automatically. To apply changes, open the cycle and follow the prompt to review and apply template updates.

Before applying, 15Five shows an impact preview listing the number of added, removed, updated, type-changed, and scale-changed questions for each review type (Self & manager, Peer, Upward).

What happens when changes are applied:

• If you change a question's rating scale, all previously submitted answers for that question are permanently deleted. They are not remapped to the new scale.
• Applying can reopen submitted reviews if the update adds a new required question, changes a question type, changes a rating scale, makes a question required, or forces a reopen.
• Applying can unshare or unrelease results for participants whose reviews were already shared.
• Notifications are sent to affected reviewers by email, in-app notification, and Slack DM.

Restrictions:

• Once a template has answers in an active cycle, the template type and question visibility settings are locked. Auto-generated competency questions cannot be added, edited, or deleted.
• Recommended templates, global templates, and templates created by the 15Five system cannot be edited.
• Cycles with calibration sessions have additional restrictions: type changes, scale changes, and new required questions cannot be applied. Force-reopen is disabled. Other changes (wording edits, optional questions, section reordering) can still be applied. Coordinate with calibration owners before applying changes to a calibrated cycle.

If Something Goes Wrong

Not Covered Here

This article does not cover changing the answer scale on individual questions within a template — see Edit an answer template in performance reviews.

Related Articles

• Copy a question template in performance reviews
• Create a custom question template in performance reviews

-