A manager expects a conversation guide for a participant but cannot find one. The guide becomes available only after specific conditions are met, and the checks below cover each of them.
Access and Availability
- The conversation guide is a manager-facing experience, available to the participant's manager.
- Enabling conversation guides for a cycle requires permission to manage that review cycle, including review admins and collaborators where applicable.
- 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.
Diagnose
Check: Conversation guides are not enabled for the cycle
- How to check: Open the cycle's settings and confirm conversation guides are enabled.
- If true: Conversation guides are configured separately from AI drafting, so a cycle can have AI drafting without guides. Use the fix below.
- If not: Continue to the next check.
Check: The participant does not have a manager assigned
- How to check: Open the participant's profile and confirm a manager is assigned.
- If true: The guide is built for the participant's manager, so a manager must be assigned. Use the fix below.
- If not: Continue to the next check.
Check: The self review is not submitted
- How to check: Confirm the participant has submitted their self review.
- If true: The guide is built from the submitted self review and the submitted manager review. It does not become available until both are in.
- If not: Continue to the next check.
Check: The manager review is not submitted
- How to check: Confirm your manager review for that participant is submitted, not saved as a draft.
- If true: Submit the manager review. Peer, upward, and additional-manager reviews are not required and are not added as separate sources for the guide.
- If not: Continue to the next check.
Check: The person looking for the guide is not the participant's manager
- How to check: Confirm who is looking for the guide.
- If true: This is expected. The guide is available to the participant's manager.
- If not: See If It Still Fails below.
The manager does not need to wait until the review has been shared with the employee. Sharing the review is not a requirement for the guide to become available.
Fix
Fix for: conversation guides are not enabled for the cycle
- Open the review cycle's settings.
- Enable conversation guides for the cycle.
- Save your changes. For an active cycle, see Edit settings in an active performance review cycle.
Fix for: a required review is not submitted
- Confirm which of the two required reviews is outstanding.
- Ask the participant to submit their self review, or submit your manager review.
- Reopen the completed review for that participant.
Fix for: the participant has no manager assigned
- Assign a manager on the participant's profile.
- Confirm both required reviews are submitted.
Validate
The manager opens the completed review for the participant and the Conversation Guide is available. See Use the Conversation Guide after a review (Manager).
If It Still Fails
Do not ask the manager to regenerate the guide or resubmit reviews. Contact the 15Five Support Team with the review cycle name, the participant, the manager looking for the guide, confirmation that both reviews are submitted, and what was expected.
Not Covered Here
This article does not cover a guide that is available but does not include something the manager expected, or how to use the guide once it is open. See Use the Conversation Guide after a review (Manager).