We sometimes get asked, "Why can I only create a public Objective?" "Who has the ability to create company-wide objectives?" or "How do I allow another person to be able to edit my objective?" The answer- it depends on your company's settings! 15Five account administrators have the ability to customize permissions for creating, editing, and viewing objectives within their organization. Below are the steps on how to do so.
Change permissions for Objectives
1. Click on the Settings menu at the upper right corner of your 15Five account.
2. Select Features from the dropdown menu.
3. Click on 'Objectives'.
4. Click on the 'Permissions' tab in the top navigation bar.
5. From the 'Permissions' tab, select the desired settings for your company. The options and definitions of each setting are outlined in the next section.
6. Save your changes.
Types of objectives
To best understand the settings you can set on this page, you need to know what visibility options are available for objectives. Below is a high-level overview of objective permissions. For a more in-depth look at objective permissions, please see this article.
- Public objectives: Can be seen by anyone in the company.
- Objectives that follow 15Five permissions: Can be seen by the objective owner's hierarchy and anyone else who can see the objective owner's Check-ins. To find out who can view your Check-ins, you can use this link.
- Objectives that are private to specific groups and individuals: The objective owner gets to pick and choose who can see the objective, along with their direct manager. The objective owner's direct manager can see these objectives automatically.
"Objectives privacy settings" section
Select objective privacy settings
If you only want people to be able to create public objectives, select the 'Public' button.
If you want people to be able to create objectives that have visibilities besides public, select 'Custom'.
What kind of objective can people create?
After selecting 'Custom', another menu will appear. You will be prompted to choose which Objective permissions you'd like to allow. You can read more about these permissions in this article.
"Who can see the Objectives feature?" section
In this section, you can configure who in your organization can see the Objectives feature.
Everyone: The Objectives feature is visible to everyone in the organization.
Custom: The Objectives feature is visible to only the select group(s) and/or people that are selected. Even if this setting is chosen, all account admins and direct managers will still have access to report on Objectives through the 'Reporting' tab.
Note
Objectives and key results cannot be owned by people who do not have visibility into the Objectives feature. Similarly, you cannot create a group objective unless everyone in the group has the Objectives feature enabled for them.
Note
Direct managers and account admins will still be able to access reporting for Objectives, even if the Objectives feature is not enabled for them.
"Creating, editing, and assigning objectives" section
Who can create, edit, and assign objectives for others?
In this section, you can manage who in your company has the ability to create and edit objectives, for whom they can create, and who can create company-wide objectives.
Standard permissions: Standard permissions mean that admins can create/edit/update objectives for everyone, direct managers can only create/edit/update their immediate direct reports' objectives- and cannot create/edit/update objectives for their hierarchy, and reporters can only create/edit/update objectives for themselves. If you like the limited permissions that direct managers have with creating and maintaining objectives, leave this option checked.
Advanced permissions: If you want to allow everyone in the company to create/edit/update objectives for everyone else in the company, select the 'Everyone' option here. This option is helpful for flat companies. If you want to allow direct managers to create/edit/update objectives for their entire hierarchy (not just their immediate direct reports), choose the 'direct managers' option.
Note
The 'Everyone' option under 'Who can create, edit, and assign objectives?' allows anyone in the company to create, edit, manage, etc objectives for anyone else in the company. If your company is not flat and fully transparent, we do not recommend using this setting. Alternatively, this setting is helpful if people on a team need to be able to create objectives for their teammates. If you are concerned about this setting being abused, please choose another option.
Who has the permission to update and edit my objectives?
If this setting is on, the objective owner can pick additional editors for the objective. Individuals and/or groups can be added as editors here. This option should be used for opening up visibility on objectives that more than one person might need to edit/update.
Team/Group objectives, objectives being worked on by multiple people from different teams, or cross-departmental objectives are examples of use cases here.
Note
Objectives that you have been given access to edit will not appear on your 15Five. You will not receive a notification that you have been added as an editor. The objectives you are able to edit will need to be accessed through the 'All objectives' page.
Who can create company-wide objectives?
Everyone: If you want everyone in the company to be able to create company-wide objectives, choose this option.
Custom: If you want to limit who can create company-wide objectives, choose this option.
Who can create group-type objectives?
Everyone: If you want everyone in the company to be able to create objectives for each group type, choose this option.
Custom: If you want to limit who can create each group type objectives, choose this option.
Select the roles, groups, and/or people that should have the ability to create company-wide and each group type objectives using the checkboxes and drop-down menus.