Write a manager review with AI-Assisted Reviews

Complete these steps to write and submit a manager review in a review cycle using AI-Assisted Reviews. When you are finished, the submitted review contains the written feedback you approved and the ratings you selected.

Applies To

Primary managers and additional managers assigned to write a manager or additional-manager review in a manual review cycle using AI-Assisted Reviews. AI drafting is available for eligible open-text questions when you are included in the drafting audience configured for the cycle.

This article does not cover the new review experience without AI, or the legacy review experience. For the new review experience without AI-Assisted Reviews functionality, see Complete a manager review in the new review experience without AI. For the legacy experience, see Complete a manager review in the legacy review experience.

Before You Begin

An account admin must have enabled AI-Assisted Reviews for the review cycle.
You must be assigned to write a manager or additional-manager review for at least one participant in an active cycle.

Steps

Open To-dos.
Under Team reviews, find the participant and select Start.
Review the context available for this review, if needed. This can include Moments, 15Five data, Company Context, and any notes or files already added.
Select Start drafting to generate initial answers for eligible open-text questions, or select Write it myself to begin without generating those answers up front. Selecting Write it myself does not turn off AI-Assisted Reviews. You can still draft individual answers later, open the Context library, use the review assistant, and redraft.
Select a question from Questions in the left-hand panel. You do not have to work through the review in a fixed order.
Select Context library to inspect the context available for that question. The library brings together Moments, 15Five Data, Notes, Files, My Context, and Company Context.
Add or leave out relevant context as you work, where those controls are available. Company Context is controlled by your organization and cannot be removed.
Select Redraft after changing the context so the answer can account for the change.
Edit the answer directly, or use the review assistant to make it more specific, more concise, or better aligned to how you communicate.
Select every required rating yourself. AI-Assisted Reviews does not select ratings. You can use the review assistant to think through the evidence behind a rating, or to help write the explanation that accompanies the rating you choose.
Complete Notes & Files or the private manager assessment, when applicable.
Complete the manager preview and final check. This is a final read of what you are about to submit, not another AI assessment of the participant.
Select Submit. 15Five AI never submits a review on your behalf.

What You Can See While Writing

Managers write about the participant rather than from the participant's perspective, and you have additional review information available while you write, subject to the permissions you already have.

The participant's self-review answer can appear alongside the corresponding manager-review question, so you can compare what they said about their own performance with the feedback you are preparing.
You can open other available reviews you have permission to view when you need more context. Seeing another review does not by itself make a statement in it verified performance evidence. It is another perspective to weigh while you make your own assessment.
Everything available through the Context library remains subject to your existing permissions. AI-Assisted Reviews does not make a record available to you because AI is involved.

After You Submit

If conversation guides are enabled for the cycle, the guide becomes available once the participant's self review and manager review have both been submitted. The guide is built from those two submitted reviews.

The guide includes a Review Summary that brings the two reviews together into a manager-ready wrap-up of the review period, and you can edit it before you use it. The Review Summary is manager-private. It is not displayed or sent to the participant when you share or finalize the review. Sharing the review shares the standard review, not the Review Summary.

If Something Goes Wrong

Issue	Check	Fix
Start drafting is unavailable	Confirm the cycle uses AI-Assisted Reviews, the template includes at least one open-text question, and you are included in the configured drafting audience	See Troubleshoot: A review writer has no AI drafts
A question has no draft answer	Review the context available for that question. A question can remain undrafted when there is not enough usable context, rather than being filled with a plausible answer	Add a note, add a File, review 15Five Data for a relevant record, include another applicable Moment, then redraft. You can also write the answer yourself
A draft is inaccurate, weak, or focused on the wrong work	Open the Context library and decide whether the problem is the evidence behind the answer or the wording	See Troubleshoot: An AI draft is inaccurate or emphasizes the wrong thing
Part of a draft has no citation	Not every influence on a draft produces a citation, so an uncited sentence is not automatically an unexplained claim	See Why can't I see where part of an AI draft came from?
Fewer Moments appear than expected	Check the cycle's performance period, whether the source is supported and connected, and your existing permissions	See Troubleshoot: A review has fewer Moments than expected
A draft no longer reflects the context you selected	Confirm your context changes were saved in the Context library	Select Redraft so the answer accounts for the current context
Submit is unavailable	Confirm every required question and rating is complete	Complete the remaining required questions and ratings, then submit

Not Covered Here

Peer and upward reviews can be included in the same cycle, but they use the new review experience without AI-Assisted Reviews drafting. This article also does not cover editing a manager review after you submit it.

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