Prompt Instructions let HR Admins and Company Admins shape how 15Five AI approaches the writing in AI-Assisted Reviews, including tone, structure, what to emphasize, and what strong feedback should look like at your organization.
Prompt Instructions are configured at the company level. They are not evidence about anyone's performance, and they do not appear as citations in a review.
Before you begin
- You must be an HR Admin or Company Admin.
- Required access to Agents Hub
- Available in the Total Platform and Perform & Goals pricing packages.
- Applies to manual review cycles. Lifecycle Reviews are excluded from AI-Assisted Reviews and are unaffected by these settings.
Note: To ensure the highest level of security, 15Five is continually investing in our overall information security program, resources, and expertise. To review 15Five's security documents, and how we handle your company data, see our Trust Website.
Set up Prompt Instructions
- Select Agents in the left navigation.
- Click Agents Hub.
- Open AI-Assisted Reviews from the Agents tab.
- Find the 15Five AI Prompt Instructions section.
- Click the edit icon next to the set you want to change: Manager review answers, Self-assessment answers, or Conversation guide.
- Enter your instructions and save your changes.
Each set is configured separately, so you can update one without changing the others.
What each set of instructions does
| Instruction set | What it shapes |
|---|---|
| Manager review answers | The open-text answers a manager writes about someone else. Use these to reinforce expectations around specificity, clarity, development-focused feedback, business impact, or the structure and tone of the written review, including what to emphasize or avoid. |
| Self-assessment answers | The open-text answers 15Five AI drafts for employees writing about themselves. Use these to influence what employees highlight, how growth areas are framed, and the format to follow when reflecting on their own performance. |
| Conversation guide | The guide a manager uses to prepare for the review conversation, including how to open it, what to cover, and how to keep it a two-way dialogue. The guide is created from the submitted self review and manager review, so these instructions shape how 15Five AI works with that material rather than adding new information to it. |
Each set can be different, because the job 15Five AI is doing in each part of the process is different. The guidance that helps an employee reflect on their own performance is not necessarily the guidance you want a manager following when writing about someone else.
What to include
- Tone, how direct or concise you want answers to be
- Structure, how an answer should be organized
- Emphasis, what matters most at your organization, and what to avoid
- Standards for strong feedback, what good performance feedback looks like to you
Specific guidance produces more useful results than general statements. "Balance recognition with one concrete development area, and cite a specific example for each" gives 15Five AI more to work with than "be constructive."
What you should see
Saved instructions apply to active review cycles rather than to a single cycle. Because they are company-level, an update to the self-assessment instructions is guidance for self reviews across your account. Write each set with that broader use in mind.
Prompt Instructions influence how an answer is written. They do not choose ratings, they do not submit reviews, and the review writer still decides what is accurate and what stays in the final answer.
How Prompt Instructions differ from Company Context
Company Context is what 15Five AI should understand about your organization, such as business goals, values, management philosophy, and performance expectations. Prompt Instructions are how 15Five AI should approach the writing. Company Context may shape a draft without being evidence that an employee did something, and Prompt Instructions influence the response without being evidence at all.
Prompt Instructions are also different from what a review writer types into the review assistant. You set Prompt Instructions for the organization. The review assistant is controlled by the individual writer and is used to work on a particular review answer.
Not covered here
This article does not cover adding organizational context, choosing the review experience for a cycle, or setting the drafting audience and performance period.