This article orients Review admins to all phases of a performance review cycle — from pre-launch configuration through post-cycle wrap-up — and links to the atomic task articles for each step.
> Note: Your organization may have renamed this feature. If you don't see "Performance Reviews" in your navigation, check with your admin for the name used in your account.
Required role: Review administrator Available on: Perform and Total Platform pricing packages
Feature Structure
A performance review cycle moves through four phases. Review admins are responsible for all four.
- Before the cycle — configure feature settings, assign roles, set up question templates and answer templates, configure Performance Ratings+, and create the cycle
- During the cycle — manage participants, peer nominations, review authors, nudges, progress reporting, and calibration setup
- Results phase — hold and lock calibration sessions, share and finalize results, unshare if corrections are needed
- After the cycle — lock the cycle and download review data
What You Can Do
Before the Cycle
Configure feature settings and roles
- Configure basic performance review feature settings (Admin); link to correct article
- Manage company-level performance review settings
- Add or remove Review administrators
- Add or remove cycle collaborators
- Roles in a performance review cycle
Manage notifications
- Disable or manage performance review email notifications
- Email notifications in a performance review cycle — reference catalog
Set up question templates and answer templates
- Understand performance review question templates
- 15Five default question templates
- Create a custom question template for a performance review cycle
- Copy a question template in performance reviews
- Create a custom answer template for performance review questions
Configure Performance Ratings+
- Configure Performance Ratings+ for a review cycle
- Create a performance ratings formula
- Create a performance ratings rubric
Create the cycle
During the Cycle
Manage participants
- Add or remove a participant from a review cycle
- Add an additional manager to a participant in a performance review cycle
- Change the manager review author for a participant in an active review cycle
- Add or remove a review viewer for a participant
Manage peer nominations
- Manage peer nominations for a review cycle participant
- Approve, deny, or remove peer nominations for a participant
- Track the status of peer nominations in a review cycle
Monitor progress and send nudges
- Send nudges to review timeline participants
- Monitor Progress in a Review Cycle
- Download the full progress report for a review cycle
Set up calibrations
Results Phase
Calibrations
Share and finalize results
- Complete, share, and finalize review summaries
- Share review results with a review cycle participant
- Finalize a participant's review results
- Undo shared and finalized review results
- Unshare a participant's review results
- When do reviews become visible to participants in a performance review cycle?
Analyze results
- Analyze review results using the Questions & Answers tab
- Analyze Performance Ratings in a Review Cycle
- Use the Talent Matrix in review results
After the Cycle
Lock and download
- Lock or unlock a review cycle
- Download Company Results for a Review Cycle (Admin))
- Download individual review PDFs from a review cycle
- Export or print performance review results
Key Rules
- Review administrators can create and delete review cycles, manage all participants, view all submitted reviews, and share or finalize results.
- Cycle collaborators have the same permissions as Review administrators — except they cannot create or delete review cycles — and only for cycles they are added to.
- Lock a review cycle only after all summary meetings are held and the cycle is fully complete. Locking prevents any further review submissions or edits.
- Calibration sessions should be created and contributors assigned before all manager reviews are submitted, so contributors have adequate time to hold sessions.
- Once results are shared with a participant, review edits are disabled. Use the unshare workflow to reopen results for editing if corrections are needed.
- To confirm a cycle is locked, go to Reviews and look for a lock icon next to the cycle name.
Related Articles
- Roles in a performance review cycle
- Configure basic performance review feature settings (Admin))
- Configure advanced performance review components (Admin))
- Create and launch a manual review cycle
- Calibrations in performance reviews — overview
- Email notifications in a performance review cycle — reference catalog
- Performance Reviews (Best-Self Review®) — Feature Overview — Feature Overview)
- Best-Self Review® FAQs — overview and index
- What cycle collaborators can do in a performance review cycle
- Manager roles and visibility in performance review cycles