> Note: Your organization may have renamed this feature. If you don't see "Objectives" in your navigation, check with your admin for the name used in your account.
Aligning an objective with a parent objective marks it as a contributor to the parent's progress. When complete, the child objective appears linked under the parent in the Objectives view.
Before You Begin
- The Enable aligned objectives setting must be on. If you do not see the alignment option when creating an objective, contact your account admin. See Enable or disable aligned objectives.
- The child objective's start and end dates must fall within the parent objective's date range.
- You must have access to Objectives. This feature is available on the Perform, Legacy Focus, and Total Platform pricing packages.
Steps
- Go to Objectives in the left-hand navigation.
- Click Create a new objective.
- Fill in the objective title and other required fields.
- Click into the Select an objective field under Align with a parent objective.
- Your manager's objectives appear at the top of the list. All other objectives follow in alphabetical order.
- Select a parent objective from the list, or click Filter by to filter by objective type or owner.
- Complete any remaining fields.
- Click Create objective.
To align an existing objective: Open the objective, click Edit, and follow steps 4–7 above.
What You Should See
After clicking Create objective, the new objective appears in your Objectives list. Opening it shows the parent objective name in the Aligned with field. The parent objective's progress bar reflects the child's contribution.
If Something Goes Wrong
| Issue | Check | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Align with a parent objective field does not appear | Confirm the Enable aligned objectives setting is on in company settings | Ask your account admin to enable it. See Enable or disable aligned objectives. |
| No objectives appear in the Select an objective field | Confirm at least one objective exists that you have permission to view | Create a parent objective first, or ask the owner to make it visible to you |
| Parent objective does not appear in the list | Confirm the parent objective's dates overlap with the child objective's dates | Adjust the child objective's start or end date to fall within the parent's date range |
| Progress is not updating on the parent after saving | Confirm the Allow child objectives to impact the progress of parent objectives setting is on | Ask your account admin to enable the setting. Note: this applies to newly created child objectives only. See [Does enabling child objective progress impact apply to existing objectives?] |
Not Covered Here
This article does not cover how child objective progress is calculated or weighted. See [How do child objectives affect parent objective progress?].