This article is designed specifically for additional managers who have been assigned to provide feedback during a review cycle in 15Five. As an additional manager, you play a key role in supporting performance development by contributing your perspective to a participant’s review. This guide will walk you through everything you need to know—from understanding your role and accessing reviews to writing, submitting, and editing your feedback.
This article contains the following sections:
- Role Overview 👤
- How it Works 🔄
- Notifications 📩
- Access the Review 🔍
- Write Your Review 📝
- What Happens Next? 🔜
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) ❓
Access and availability
⛔️ Required access to Best-Self Review®.
👥 This article is relevant to Additional managers.
📦 This feature is available in the Perform and Total Platform pricing packages.
Role Overview 👤
In 15Five, additional managers are individuals besides a participant's direct manager who are invited to write a manager review during a review cycle. Your feedback helps enrich performance discussions and calibrations with broader insight. Learn how to assign additional managers →
👥 There are two types of additional managers:
- Default additional managers are assigned to all review cycles a person participates in.
- Cycle-specific additional managers are assigned to a participant in their individual settings for that review cycle. Up to five cycle-specific additional managers can be assigned per participant.
✅ What you can do
- Write an additional manager review
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[Default Additional Managers only] View past reviews for participants you're assigned to
Note
Visibility into past reviews is only available if the “Additional manager visibility into past reviews” setting is enabled. Learn more in the FAQs below →
❌ What you can't do:
- Nominate peers for the participant
- Submit, share, or finalize review summaries
How it Works 🔄
To help you understand where your feedback fits in, here’s a quick overview of how a 15Five review cycle flows:
- Review cycle launches. The review cycle begins when a review admin launches it. Participants, managers, and any assigned additional managers are notified.
- Participants complete self reviews. Each employee fills out a self-assessment based on the questions configured by the review admin.
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Peers and additional managers provide feedback. At the same time—or shortly after—peers and additional managers like you are invited to provide written feedback for assigned participants.
Note
You can submit your review once the participant submits their self review or the self review deadline has passed.
- Managers write their reviews. Direct managers write their reviews, often referencing input from peers and additional managers to inform a well-rounded evaluation.
- Review results are calibrated (optional). If your organization runs calibration sessions, feedback—including yours—may be reviewed and adjusted to ensure consistency and fairness in scoring or outcomes.
- Results are shared with participants. Managers or review admins share finalized results with the participant. At this point, your feedback becomes visible to them (based on the visibility settings configured for the cycle).
As an additional manager, your feedback provides critical context, especially if you’ve worked closely with the participant on cross-functional projects, dotted-line reporting, or mentorship.
Notifications 📩
Once you're added as an additional manager, you will be notified in three places.
When you're assigned as an additional manager in an active review cycle, you’ll see an action item on your Actions List (in-app link). Click on this action item to go directly to your review.
Upon being assigned as an additional manager, you'll receive an email notification from notifications@15five.com. Click on the call to action in the email to open your review.
- If you were added as a default additional manager, the text of the notification will read, "You are now an additional manager for [Name]'s future review cycles."
- If you were added as a cycle-specific additional manager, the text of the notification will read "You are now an additional manager for [Name] for their “[Review cycle name]” cycle."
You'll also receive an in-app notification, which you can access by clicking the notification bell at the top of your 15Five account. Click Go to cycle to open your review.
Access the Review 🔍
In addition to following the calls to action in the notifications listed above, you can also access your assigned participant’s review manually using the steps below.
- Click Performance in 15Five's main, left-hand navigation, then select Best-Self Review® from the dropdown menu.
- Open the review cycle to open the Cycle Overview page.
- You'll see individuals you're responsible for writing additional manager reviews for in the Cycle Participants section of this page.
- To access the participant's review, click the three dots to the right of their name and select "View" from the dropdown menu.
- You're now on the participant's review page.
Write Your Review 📝
Now it’s time to complete your review. Follow the steps below:
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Open the participant’s review by selecting the “Additional manager” tab at the top of their review page or by clicking their name in the Reviews bar on the left-hand side.
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Provide your feedback. Use the available answer fields to share your observations and insights.
Tip
We recommend using objective language, focusing on observable behaviors, and providing specific examples in your answers. Check out our "9 Tips For How To Give Effective Employee Feedback" blog post for tips on giving great feedback.
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Leverage available resources. Use these tools to inform and enrich your review:
- Resources for reviews: The "Resources for reviews" section allows you to view High Fives, Wins & challenges, Objectives, Past Check-ins, and Past reviews for the person you're reviewing. Learn more →
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Submitted reviews: Reference reviews already submitted about the participant using the review tabs at the top of your page.
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AI Assisted Reviews: If AI Assisted Reviews are enabled for your organization, click Summarize data in the top-right corner to launch the 15Five AI widget. It pulls key data to generate a helpful draft. Learn more →
In any answer field, you can also click Draft an Answer to generate an AI-powered first draft using relevant participant data—great for saving time and improving feedback quality.
- Your work is saved automatically. You can return and make edits at any time before submitting.
- Once you're done, click Submit at the bottom of the review.
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To edit a submitted additional manager review, simply navigate back to the review. At the top of the review next to the participant's avatar, you'll see an Edit review button, which you can click to reopen the review for editing.
Note
If you don't see the option to edit the review, please refer to the troubleshooting steps in the FAQs below.
What Happens Next? 🔜
Upon submission, your review will be visible to review admins, cycle collaborators, and managers in the participant's hierarchy (if hierarchy visibility is enabled in the review cycle).
Your review will be visible to the participant once results are shared with them. Results can be shared by either the participant's manager, a review admin, or a cycle collaborator.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) ❓
When enabled, this setting allows default additional managers to view the results of past performance reviews for the participants they’re assigned to, across all previous review cycles. Learn how to configure feature settings →
You cannot submit your review until either 1) the participant submits their self review, or 2) the self review deadline has passed.
There are a few scenarios in which you won't see the option to edit a submitted additional manager review. Follow the steps below to troubleshoot:
- You cannot edit yes/no or opinion scale answers in a review section that's being calibrated. If a section of your review is included in a calibration session, you won't be able to edit any yes/no or opinion scale responses of that review section once the calibration session is in progress. To resolve this issue, reach out to a review admin with your desired changes and they can make the changes for you in the calibration session.
- You cannot edit a review that's already been shared with the participanty. To resolve this issue, ask a review admin to unshare review results, make the desired edits, and then have them re-share review results.
- You cannot edit a review in a locked review cycle. Locking a review cycle prevents any further reviews from being submitted or edited. To resolve this issue, ask a review admin or cycle collaborator to unlock the review cycle. Once the cycle is unlocked, you should see the option to edit your review.
Yes. You can draft your review and return to it at any point— your changes will save automatically.
Your review will be visible to the participant once results are shared with them. Results can be shared by either the participant's manager, a review admin, or a cycle collaborator.
Your review will be visible to review admins, cycle collaborators, and managers in the participant's hierarchy (if hierarchy visibility is enabled in the review cycle) once you submit the review.
Yes—if enabled in feature settings. Account admins can configure performance ratings to include additional manager reviews alongside self and manager reviews, ensuring a broader perspective is captured in final scores. Learn how to configure feature settings →
Yes. Feedback submitted by additional managers is available to review admins and calibration session participants, providing additional context and insight that helps drive fair, balanced decisions during performance calibration. Learn more about calibration sessions →
Hierarchy visibility is a setting in Best-Self Review® feature settings that dictates whether or not skip-level managers can view performance ratings results for employees within their reporting hierarchy. Learn how to configure feature settings →