Roles and permissions in 15Five

The role(s) that a person is assigned determines what they can see and do in 15Five. Some roles have default permissions that cannot be changed, while other permissions can be managed based on feature. To give you an idea of who can do and see what in 15Five, permissions for each role are listed below.

In this article, you will learn...


General 15Five roles

This section discusses all general roles in 15Five. If you'd like to see feature-specific roles, please refer to the next section of this article.

Role Permissions
Employee/Direct report Any person in 15Five who has a manager. Direct reports can use the platform and manage their own account settings including some personal information, notifications, and vacations.
Direct manager Any person in 15Five who has direct reports. Managers can manage account settings for their direct reports and have various feature-specific responsibilities, including reviewing their direct reports' Check-ins and overseeing their Best-Self Review® cycles. Managers also have visibility into their direct reports' Check-ins, reviews, and objectives by default. Can also manage Check-in questions for their direct reports and pull reports based on hierarchy and follow permissions.
Help Center article 💡: Change a person's direct manager
Account owner Can approve global viewer permissions for people within your company, and run a report containing all Check-in questions and answers for everyone in your company, past and present.

To see who your current account owner is, add an account owner, or change an account owner, please contact our Support Team. 

Account admin Can add/deactivate users, assign user permissions, manage company, group, and user settings/permissions, manage feature settings (including turning on/off features), manage billing information, set up and manage integrations, create/modify Check-in questions, and pull reports. You can see a list of your company's account admins here.
Help Center article 💡: Add or remove an account admin
Billing admin Can manage account billing preferences and plans, view past invoices, and designate a company's billing contact. Account admins have billing admin permissions by default; this role is reserved for people who need to have access to billing settings, but shouldn’t have full account admin rights.
Help Center article 💡: Manage 15Five billing admins
Global viewer Can access and view the Check-ins of everyone in their organization, with the exception of answers marked as “private.” Users with this role can also see objectives that are set to "15Five permissions". Everyone in your company can see a list of global viewers in your company. This permission is typically reserved for HR teams, co-leaders, and administrators.
Help Center article 💡: Manage Global Viewers
Group admin Can manage group settings and Check-in questions for group members. Only managers or account admins can be appointed as group admins.
Help Center article 💡: Change a group administrator
HR admin HR admins can view and manage demographic attributes and run reports that contain demographic information. HR admins also have administrative permissions in Engagement that allow them to manage Engagement feature settings, create and manage engagement campaigns, and view all engagement survey results. Only account admins can be appointed as HR admins.
Help Center article 💡: Manage HR admins

Feature-specific roles

Check-ins
Role Description/Permissions
Reporter

Someone who is responsible for filling out and submitting a Check-in.

Reviewer

A person whose direct reports are responsible for filling out Check-ins. Reviewers are responsible for reviewing their direct reports' Check-ins. They can also pull Check-in-specific reports based on hierarchy and follow permissions.

Follower

A person's "followers" are people who can view and interact with their Check-ins. You can add followers to view your own Check-ins, or request to follow another person's Check-ins.

Global viewer of Check-ins

Can access and view the Check-ins of everyone in their organization, with the exception of answers marked as “private.” Users with this role can also see objectives that are set to "15Five permissions". Everyone in your company can see a list of global viewers in your company. This permission is typically reserved for HR teams, co-leaders, and administrators.

Help Center article 💡: Manage Global Viewers

Engage

There are two kinds of access in 15Five's Engage feature: 1) role and 2) results access level. Employees can be given access to Engage as an employee, leader, Organization Admin, or Engagement Admin. They can also be granted full, limited, or no results access. Read more about assigning roles and results access levels in our Help Center.

Roles/Results access level Description/Permissions
Survey participant A person who is included as a participant in an engagement campaign. By default, any employee in 15Five is assigned as an employee in Engage. Can complete engagement surveys, but doesn't have access to the Engage Portal or Engage results.
Leader By default, any manager in 15Five is assigned as a leader in Engage. They have access to the Engage Portal, and may or may not have results access depending on their assigned results access level.
Organization admin Can access the Engage Portal and manage feature settings and employee/group data in Engage. By default, any account admin in 15Five is assigned as an organization admin in Engage.
Engagement admin Part of the HR admin role. Can access the Engage Portal, create and manage engagement campaigns, and view all engagement survey results.
Help Center article 💡: Manage HR admins
Full access Employees with full access have full visibility into company-wide results and details for all groups.
Limited access Employees with limited access will only see assessment results, feedback, and actions for the groups they have access to.
No access Employees with no access can manage employee and group data, but cannot see results.
1-on-1s
Role Description/Permissions
Participant

Someone who participates in a 1-on-1. Can create, schedule, and end 1-on-1s and use the 1-on-1 agenda.

Global viewer for 1-on-1s (additional permission that can be added for Global viewers)

Global viewers for 1-on-1s can view agendas for the following types of 1-on-1s:

  • 1-on-1s between a user and their manager
  • 1-on-1s between a user and any past manager
  • 1-on-1s between a user and their team members
  • 1-on-1s between a user and any past team member
Global viewers of 1-on-1s do not have visibility into 1-on-1s between peers.

If you need global viewers in your organization to have visibility into 1-on-1s, an account admin can reach out to 15Five's Customer Support Team and request this added visibility.

Help Center article 💡: Manage Global Viewers

Objectives
Role Description/Permissions
Objective owner A person who owns an objective. This person is the key stakeholder responsible for the completion of the objective.
Key result owner A person who owns a key result on an objective. This person may or not be the objective owner, and is responsible for the completion of the key result they own.
Objective follower This role is only available if the "Following Objectives" setting is enabled by an account admin in Objectives feature settings.
Objective viewer A person who can see an objective. If custom objective visibility is enabled in Objectives feature settings, a person can choose whether they want an objective to be public, to follow 15Five permissions, or to be private to specific groups or individuals during the objective creation process.
Objective creator A person who can create, edit, and assign objectives. The following is true by default:
  • Account admins can create, edit, or assign objectives for anyone
  • Managers can create, edit, or assign objectives for their direct reports
  • Employees can create, edit, or assign objectives for themselves.

Additional options are available in Objectives feature settings.

Global viewer Can see OKRs that are set to "15Five permissions", in addition to having visibility into all submitted Check-ins. To make someone a global viewer for Check-ins, either an account owner or an account admin must reach out to 15Five’s Support Team and request this permission to be added to that person’s account. Everyone in your company can see a list of global viewers in your company. This permission is typically reserved for HR teams, co-leaders, and administrators.
Best-Self Review®
Role Description/Permissions
Participant A review cycle participant is a person that is being reviewed in a review cycle. If someone is not a participant, reviews will not be written about them. Participants are determined during the process of creating a review cycle. Participants are responsible for things like writing a self review, nominating peers, and participating in a final meeting with their manager.
Manager Managers are people who are responsible for writing manager reviews about their direct reports, assuming the direct reports are participants in the cycle. Managers are also responsible for approving/denying peer nominations for their direct reports, sharing & finalizing results, and holding a final review meeting. Managers may also be able to remove feedback from their direct reports' peer or upward reviews, if the setting is enabled by review administrators. A participant's direct manager is assigned as their manager in a review cycle by default, but review admins can edit the manager reviewer for a participant.
Peer reviewer A peer is a person who is responsible for writing a peer review about a review cycle participant. Peers may or may not be participants in the review cycle.
Upward reviewer Upward reviewers are people responsible for writing an upward review about their manager. In this case, the manager is a participant in the cycle. A participant's direct reports are assigned as their upward reviewers by default, but review administrators can edit upward reviewers for participants. Upward reviewers may or may not be participants in the review cycle.
Additional manager

Additional managers are people other that a review cycle participant's direct manager that have the ability to write a manager review about them. One default additional manager and up to five cycle-specific additional managers can be appointed for any given review cycle participant. Additional manager feedback is also included in calibration sessions, and may be included in performance ratings formulas, depending on Best-Self Review® feature settings. Default additional managers can also be granted visibility into all past reviews of the person they're an additional manager for in Best-Self Review® feature settings.

Help Center article 💡: Add an additional manager for a participant

Review viewer

Review viewers are non-managers that have read-only permission to a participant's review results. Review viewers are helpful in change management, dotted-line, and matrix scenarios. A person can be appointed as a cycle-specific review viewer, which grants them visibility into a person's review results for only a specific review cycle, or a global review viewer, which gives them visibility into all review results for a person.

Help Center article 💡: Add a review viewer for a participant

Review admin

Review administrators are able to create, edit, and delete review cycles, create and edit question templates, report on cycle progress, nominate and manage peers for review cycle participants, view all submitted reviews and results, interact with calibration sessions, share and finalize review results for review cycle participants, and lock/unlock review cycles. They do not have to participate in a review cycle to see progress and results. By default, review admins have visibility into all review cycles that were created while in the role. If a review administrator is added after a cycle has begun or after a cycle has ended, there will be an option to allow or restrict visibility into those previous cycles.

Only account admins can be added as review admins.

Help Center article 💡: Add or remove review admins

Cycle collaborator

Cycle collaborators are added to a review cycle by a review administrator either during cycle creation or after the review cycle launches to help manage a cycle and its results. Cycle collaborators have the same permissions as review admins (with the exception of creating review cycles, managing question templates, and deleting review cycles), but only for specific review cycles.

Help Center article 💡: Add or remove cycle collaborators

Sharing user

Sharing users are individuals who have the ability to share and finalize review results with a participant (in addition to the participant's manager in the review cycle, review admins, and cycle collaborators).
Help Center article 💡: Edit individual settings for a participant

Calibration session contributor Also called contributors, people in this role are assigned to specific calibration sessions and can make changes to manager's review answers when holding a calibration session. Anyone can be appointed as a contributor.
Custom review role (early adopter only)

In addition to all the aforementioned roles, 15Five gives you the ability to create custom administrative roles that give individuals only the permissions they need.

Help Center article 💡: Create custom Best-Self Review® roles


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