To help orient through the administration of a review cycle, this article will walk through the main stages from the admin perspective.

Note: View how notifications appear to all users in Review cycle email notifications and Review cycle Slack notifications.

There are four possible stages to a review cycle:

The Reviews and Share stages are required for all reviews. Peer selection and Scores are stages you must opt into when creating the review cycle.

Peer selection is an optional stage where admins, managers, or employees will nominate peers to write reviews for an individual. If included, you will be prompted to kick off the peer selection phase once the cycle has been created. Peer selection can be launched with or without a customizable notification.

Larger review cycles may show a progress bar after launching. Otherwise, the launch process is instantaneous. No updates to the review settings can be made while the review is launching.

Learn more about the peer selection phase in Administer Peer Selection.

During the Peer selection stage, admins can:

Next is the Reviews stage, also known as the Reviews Writing stage. This is a required stage where employees will draft and submit their reviews. This may include self reviews, a manager's downward reviews, upward reviews, and peer reviews.

If including Peer Reviews, upon ending this phase, you will also need to launch the Reviews phase with or without a customizable launch notification. Once launched, employees can enter the review cycle and write their review.

Learn more in Launch Review Writing.

During the Reviews stage, admins can:

The Scores stage is an optional stage that would follow the Reviews stage if included. This phase is where all admins can calibrate or add weighted scores.

Learn more in Calibration in Review Cycles and Set Up Weighted Scores in a Review Cycle.

During the Scores phase, admins can:

The Share stage is a required stage. Managers will be asked to share packets with employees, who will then be prompted to accept them. Only once shared will employees have visibility into any reviews the admin has chosen to be delivered to them.

All admins will see the reviews' shared status and export responses during this process. Admins can bulk export review packets within a single review cycle if needed.

Learn more in Review Cycle Exports.

If the review cycle ended with a notification, managers will receive a notification prompting them to view the responses/packets of their direct reports. They will also be prompted to submit final scores (if they've been turned on) or final summary remarks.

Note: If a reviewee has no manager (CEO, for example), the 'Summary writer and sharer' role defaults to admin. Admins are responsible for sharing review packets in this case. Learn more in Share Review Packets as an Admin.

This might be a good time for managers and direct reports to meet and discuss the review packet contents. If the manager wants to write draft summary remarks and download the Employee view PDF, they can do so here without sharing the packet.

When managers have completed their summaries and are ready to share them with their direct report, they should click Share with (employee).

Learn more in Share Your Team's Review Packets: With Summary Remarks and Share Your Team's Review Packets: Without Summary Remarks.

When a manager shares the packet with their direct report, the direct report will receive a notification to view their responses. The manager will be notified when the direct reports open the packet.

Learn more in View Your Review Packet.