Answer a skills review

When you are a reviewer in a skills review cycle, you rate the skills of a reviewee (a colleague, a team member, your manager or yourself) on the cycle's scale. This page explains how to find your reviews, answer and submit them, and how owners follow the reviews of their reviewees.

Find your reviews

• Email and notification: when a cycle is launched with invitations, you receive "You are a Reviewer for ... in the skills review cycle ..." with a Go to My Review link. The in-app notification "Skill review to complete" opens the review directly.
• Home page: your pending reviews of current cycles appear in the Next up! section.
• Skills › Reviews › Your reviews: the full list of the reviews you write, co-write or own, for cycles that have started. By default it shows the reviews still to do (Not started and In Progress). Use the filter to change the Status or filter by Deadline, and the search bar to find a person. Employees see only Reviews and Framework under Skills in the menu.
• Mobile app: go to Apps › Skills to open Skill Reviews, with To do and Done tabs.

Each card shows the cycle title, the reviewee, the Deadline and the status (Not started, In Progress, Completed). If a review was shared with you, the card says You are a contributor on this review, followed by the reviewer's name ("— Reviewer: Jane Doe"). Click the arrow button of the card to open the review.

The ⋮ menu of a card offers See reviewee profile, and, if you are the owner, the owner actions described below.

The Review Cycles in Progress panel on the right lists the current cycles you take part in, with their due date.

Answer a review

The review page shows the title of the form (for example the template name), the Reviewee, the Reviewer (or Reviewer & contributors when the review is shared), and the Deadline. The top bar holds a save status tag, the Manage contributors icon, the Download pdf icon and the Submit button (plus Submit all when you have several reviews in the cycle).

1. If earlier review cycles led to goals for this person, a From previous reviews block lists them, for context. It is read-only.
2. In the skills section ("Rate each skill on the agreed scale. Use comments to back up your scores."), skills are grouped by skill category. For each skill:
   • Read the definition shown under the skill name: it is what you rate against.
   • Click the stars to give your rating (for example 1 to 5 on a 1-5 scale).
   • If comments are allowed, click the comment icon next to the stars to open a comment field and justify your rating.
3. In the Conclusion section, answer the optional questions of the cycle, if any:
   • a True / False question,
   • an open question (free text),
   • a Job title list to pick the job title this person should hold next.
4. Your answers are saved automatically. The tag at the top shows Saving... then Saved.

All questions marked with * must be answered before you can submit.

If you have several reviews to write in the same cycle, use Previous review and Next review at the top to move between reviewees.

Review faster with Aleph AI

At the top of an open review, the Review faster with Aleph AI panel lets you describe the person in your own words and have the form filled for you. It is folded by default: click it to open it. It reminds you that "Aleph AI can misinterpret, please check AI-filled reviews." (See also Aleph AI assistant.)

1. Type your note in the field (Type or dictate to complete this review in one go…), or click the microphone (Dictate your note) and speak. Click Accept dictation to insert the transcript or Cancel dictation to discard it. If your browser doesn't support it, the message "Speech-to-text is not supported in this browser" appears.
2. Click Apply my note. The form is dimmed while Aleph AI works, and you are notified when it is done.
3. Each answer filled by the AI carries an AI-filled tag. Read and adjust them: Aleph AI can misinterpret. When you change an answer yourself, the tag disappears.

Submit the review

1. Click Submit (top bar, or bottom of the screen on mobile).
2. If a question is missing, the page scrolls to it and shows "Please answer all required questions (*)".
3. Confirm with Submit in Answers of this review will be locked ("Submitting this review will lock your answers. Ask an admin to unlock them if needed."). If the review has contributors, the text tells you that the answers are locked for them too.
4. The Congratulations ! window confirms the submission ("Review submitted successfully, your answers are locked."). Click Back to reviews, or Create a goal (see below).

Once submitted, the review is read-only for everyone who writes it (tag Submitted in the top bar): each answer shows the author and the date and time it was given. The people allowed to see all answers (owner, admins, the cycle creator and co-pilots, the reviewee's managers) can still correct the answers from the analysis panel of the cycle (see Results and exports).

Submit all your reviews of a cycle at once

If you have several reviews in the same cycle, click Submit all. The Submit all completed reviews window lists your reviews with "This review is ready to be submitted." or "This review is not ready to be submitted.". Submit reviews is available once all of them are complete.

Download a review as PDF

Click the download icon (Download pdf) in the top bar. On the mobile app, the PDF is available once the review is submitted.

Create a goal from a review

If your company has the Goals app, you can turn a submitted review into a goal for the reviewee:

• right after submitting, in the Congratulations ! window, click Create a goal,
• or later, at the bottom of the submitted review, click Create a goal.

The goal creation window opens with the reviewee as assignee and the cycle as related item (see Create a goal). The goal has its own owner, deadline and follow-up. In the next skills review cycle of that person, the goal appears in From previous reviews.

Co-write a review (contributors)

A review can be shared with colleagues, called contributors. Everyone on the review answers the same form, can submit it, and the answers are credited to the group, not to one person. Submitting locks the review for the whole group.

As the reviewer, click the Manage contributors icon (a person with a plus sign) in the top bar. In Contributors on this review ("Everyone selected here writes this review together. The answers are credited to the group, not to one person."), search or filter the list, tick people and click Save. They receive an email and a notification ("You co-write a skill review"), and the review appears in their Your reviews list.

Follow the reviews you own

The owner of a reviewee (by default their manager) oversees all the reviews about that person. In Your reviews, the owner's card says You are the owner of this review in followed by the cycle name, and shows how many reviews are submitted out of the total (for example "1/2"). Click the chevron of the card to unfold the Reviewers list with the status of each review (Not started, In Progress, Completed) and the See answers button.

If you are also one of the reviewers (for example a manager reviewing their team member), your own review is listed in that Reviewers list: click the arrow next to your name to open and answer it. The owner card can appear once for each review of the reviewee.

The card's ⋮ menu lets the owner:

• Send invitation email or Send reminder email to the reviewers of that reviewee (reminders only go to reviewers who haven't submitted),
• Manage reviewers: add or remove reviewers (removing one deletes their review and answers),
• Change owner: pick another owner (a manager or above) and click Apply,
• View all review answers: open a read-only page showing, for each question, the answer of every reviewer.

Who sees which reviews

• As a reviewer or contributor, you see the reviews you write.
• On an employee's profile, the Skills reviews tab lists the reviews about them. An employee looking at their own profile only sees their self-reviews. Their managers (direct and indirect), admins and scoped admins with access to them see every review about them.
• Owners, cycle creators, co-pilots, the reviewee's managers, scoped admins for their population and admins can see all the answers about a reviewee.

Common questions

I received an invitation but the review isn't in my list.

Reviews appear from the cycle's start date. If the invitation was sent early, come back on the start date. Also check the filter of Your reviews: by default it only shows reviews still to do.

I submitted by mistake. Can I change my answers?

Not yourself: submitting locks the answers. Ask the owner of the review or an admin: they can edit the answers from the cycle's analysis panel.

The Submit button does nothing.

A question is still unanswered. The page scrolls to the first missing answer. Every question marked with * must have an answer, including the conclusion questions.

Is the owner notified when I submit?

The owner follows the progress of each reviewer in Your reviews and on the cycle page. No email is sent to them for each submission.

Can I answer on my phone?

Yes. In the OpenAleph mobile app, go to Apps › Skills, open the review in To do, answer and tap Submit.

The Create a goal button is missing.

It only appears on submitted reviews, and only if your company has the Goals app.