Once the self and manager reviews have been submitted for a person and the 'Start sharing reviews' milestone has passed, the summary portion of their review will open up for the manager to begin work on.
The 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.
Managers are responsible for completing summaries for their direct reports. Either a review cycle participant's manager, a review admin, or a cycle collaborator can share review summaries with review cycle participants and, once final meetings are held with review cycle participants, finalize summaries, which prevents any further changes and completes the review process.
In this article, you will learn...
- What the ideal order of events is when completing, sharing, and finalizing summaries
- How to complete, share, and finalize summaries as a manager
- How to share and finalize summaries as a review admin or cycle collaborator
If you're a review viewer, check out our "View reviews as a review viewer" Help Center article.
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.
Ideal order of events
- All reviews are submitted and the 'Start sharing reviews' window opens.
- 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.
- 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 to the participant— summary notes and private answers are not shared.
- If they prefer to go over the results together in the live meeting, share your screen during the live meeting and share the results when the meeting is complete.
- 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.
- After the meeting, the manager makes any desired edits to the review summary and notes.
- If the "Review Acknowledgement" setting is turned on in a company's global review settings, the participant should acknowledge their review results.
- 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 the results for your team
1. Click on Best-Self Review® in the left navigation of 15Five.
2. From the 'Review cycles' tab, click to open the active cycle that you're working on.
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'.
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.
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'.
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.
Note
Though the summary may be open, there may still be peer and/or upward reviews in progress. 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. 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.
8. 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.
Check out our "Remove or edit feedback on a review summary" Help Center article for more information.
9. 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 to the participant— summary notes and 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.
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.
10. 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.
11. After the final meeting, make any desired edits to the review summary and your notes.
12. Click on Finalize results to share the review summary with the review cycle participant and prevent any further editing to their review cycle.
13. You're done! This participant's review is complete and your steps as their manager are finished.
Share and finalize summaries as a review admin or cycle collaborator
Review admins and cycle collaborators can share participants' reviews by navigating to their review summary. Please note that you cannot share results with people who do not have a manager in the review cycle, as results are shared with those individuals automatically.
1. Click on Best-Self Review® in the left navigation of 15Five.
2. From the 'Review cycles' tab, click on the active cycle that you're working on.
3. You're now on the review cycle's overview page. Scroll down to the 'Cycle Participants' section and find the person whose summary you want to manage. From here, click the "..." next to the participant's name and select 'View' from the dropdown menu to open their review summary. 
Note
You cannot manage a person's summary until after 1) their manager has submitted their manager review, and 2) the "Start sharing on" milestone has passed. Though the summary may be open, there may still be peer and/or upward reviews in progress. 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.
4. Before sharing review results with a participant, you or the review cycle participant's manager should fill out the review summary. 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.
5. If desired, you can 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.
Check out our "Remove or edit feedback on a review summary" Help Center article for more information.
6. 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 to the participant— summary notes and private answers are not shared. Review results should be shared with a review cycle participant before their manager holds a final meeting with them to discuss review results.
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.
7. The next step is for a person's manager to hold a final meeting with their direct report to discuss review results.
8. After this meeting takes place, managers can still edit the review summary before finalizing and sharing it with the review cycle participant.
9. Click on Finalize results to share the review summary with the review cycle participant and prevent any further editing to their review cycle.
9. You're done! This participant's review is complete.