Complete, share, & finalize summaries

Once a review cycle participant's self and manager reviews have been submitted and the 'Start sharing reviews' milestone has passed, the summary portion of their review will open up so their manager can view and fill out the review summary. The review summary is a condensed version of all reviews written about the participant. It serves as a discussion agenda as managers hold final review meetings with their direct reports, and is the resource that review cycle participants will have access to after their review cycle to communicate their review results.

In this article, you will learn...

Access and availability

⛔️ Required access to Best-Self Review®.
👥 This article is relevant to anyone with results-sharing permissions.
📦 This feature is available in the Perform and Total Platform pricing packages.

✏️

Note

In a review cycle that only contains self reviews, the manager will still be able to write a review summary and finalize the review, but sharing will not be needed since there is nothing to share— notes and summaries will become visible to the participant once the review is finalized. In a review cycle that contains manager reviews and in which results are hidden from participants, the manager will not be asked to share results. The Share button will be replaced with a Finalize review button, and results will not be shared with the review cycle participant.


Who can share and finalize summaries?

By default, the following roles can share and finalize a participant's summary:

  • The review cycle participant's manager in the review cycle
  • Any review admin
  • Any cycle collaborator in the specific review cycle
  • A person's assigned sharing users

If more people need the ability to share and finalize review results, a review admin or cycle collaborator can add them to the "Who can share and finalize the reviews of [Participant]?" on the participant's Edit Individual Settings page. These individuals are called "sharing users."


Ideal order of events

Below is the ideal order of events that you should follow when completing, sharing, and finalizing review summaries.

  1. All reviews are submitted and the 'Start sharing reviews' window opens.
  2. Managers of review cycle participants complete the initial summary for their direct report(s). The summary is a condensed writeup of all answers given to review questions asked about the review cycle participant.
  3. Managers ask their team members what they would prefer: to review the results prior to the live meeting or to review the results together in the live meeting.
    • If they would like to review the results prior to the live meeting, share the Best-Self Review with them beforehand using the Share review button at the bottom of the summary. Encourage them to read the results in advance and come to the meeting ready to talk about the feedback. Please note that sharing reviews releases submitted review information and summary notes to the participant— private answers are not shared.
    • If they prefer to go over the results together in the live meeting, you can share your screen during the live meeting and share the results when the meeting is complete.

      ✏️

      Note

      Depending on the settings applied to the review cycle, a manager sharing their screen during the final meeting may not be advisable. For example: if settings are configured so that participants can't see peer/upward feedback or identities, managers may not want to share their screen (as this would allow participants to see verbatim feedback and review author identities). Keep this in mind as you decide how to structure your conversation.

  4. The manager schedules and holds a final meeting with their direct report. This meeting should address the content of all reviews, even those that have not been shared verbatim.
  5. After the meeting, the manager makes any desired edits to the review summary and notes.
  6. If the "Review Acknowledgement" setting is turned on in a company's global review settings, the participant should acknowledge their review results.
  7. The manager, a review admin, or a cycle collaborator finalizes the results. After Finalize results has been clicked, no further edits can be made to that participant's review cycle.

Blog post 🗒: Why Managers Needs To Be More Vulnerable And Authentic To Give Employee Feedback


Complete, share, and finalize review results

This section walks through how to complete, share, and finalize review results as either a participant's manager or someone in an administrative role (a review admin, cycle collaborator, or sharing user).

Before any role shares review results with a participant, the review cycle participant's manager is responsible for filling out their review summary. This process is a pivotal part of the review process, as it allows managers to create the resource that will be used as they hold a final meeting about review results with their direct report. Because of this, it is not possible to perform these action in bulk for multiple users.

Managers Administrative roles
  1. Click on Best-Self Review® in the left navigation of 15Five.
    BSR.png
  2. From the 'Review cycles' tab, click on the name of the review cycle. ActiveReviewCycle.png
  3. You're now on the review cycle's overview page. Scroll down to the filter section, then select to filter by 'Participants' and 'My team'.ParticipantMyTeamFilters.png
  4. Scroll down to 'Cycle Participants' section of the page and click '...' next to the participant whose review summary you want to view. Select 'View' from the dropdown menu.ViewParticipantReview.png
  5. You will be directed to the review cycle participant's review page. Look directly under the box that contains their avatar and name, and click 'Summary'.ReviewSummaryTab.png
    ✏️

    Note

    A lock icon will appear next to the 'Summary' tab until the self and manager reviews have been completed for the participant and the 'Start sharing by' review milestone has passed. Though the summary may be open, there may still be peer and/or upward reviews in progress. The best practice is to give everyone time to submit their reviews before writing and sharing the summary. There will be pop-up messages that appear if you try to share or finalize before all reviews are submitted. If there are outstanding peer or upward reviews, we suggest nudging those writers and not sharing/finalizing until all reviews have been submitted.

  6. Fill out the review summary for the review cycle participant. The summary is a condensed writeup of all answers given to review questions asked about the review cycle participant. We suggest that managers use responses given in all reviews written about the review cycle participant to guide the summary and final meeting. In other words, use the reviews as resources for the summary. This is especially important if the review cycle includes peer and/or upward reviews and your company's review settings dictate that peer and upward feedback is hidden from the participant— since the verbatim feedback will not be shared with the participant, it is your responsibility to ensure the peer and upward feedback is included in the summary of answer and the final development conversation.
  7. Take private notes. If you want to take private notes on the review summary that are not visible to your direct report, you can make each "summary of" notes section private to yourself and review admins by clicking the 'lock' icon. The "Notes for" section at the bottom of the review will be visible to everyone who has access to the review.
    Screen_Shot_2022-01-18_at_10.19.46_AM.png

  8. Remove or send back answers. If desired, remove any answers you would prefer not to appear on the shared results with the review cycle participant, or send the answer back to the review author for editing. To do so, click the "..." to the right of the answer and select your desired action from the dropdown menu.
    RemoveOrEditResponse.png
    Check out our "Remove or edit feedback on a review summary" Help Center article for more information.

  9. Share the summary with the participant. After entering your initial thoughts in the summary fields, scroll to the bottom of the page and click Share review. Sharing reviews releases submitted review information and summary notes to the participant— private answers will not be shared. You should share review results with your direct report before you hold a final meeting with them to discuss review results.
    ShareReview.png

      ✏️

      Note

      By default, the Private Manager Assessment is never visible to the participant, even when results are shared and/or finalized. However, visibility into the PMA can be extended to a review cycle participant and/or their hierarchy as outlined in our "Manage visibility options for private manager assessments" Help Center article. This set visibility option determines whether or not the Private Manager Assessment will be shared with the review cycle participant upon clicking Share review.

    1. Hold meetings and make final changes. Next, it's time to hold the final meeting with your direct report. The two of you can go over the review information that has recently been shared. After the final meeting, make any desired edits to the review summary and your notes.

    2. Finalize review results. Once the summary is in its final state, click on Finalize results to share the edited/final version of the review summary with the review cycle participant and prevent any further editing to their review cycle.
      FinalizeResults.png

    3. You're done! This participant's review is complete and your steps as their manager are finished. 


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