Appraisals

1. How do I use the Appraisal Participants section of the List - All Appraisals Filters & Settings?
   The Filter options on the List-All Appraisal list are a great resource for finding the Appraisals that you’re looking for. You can filter the list by Workflow Step, Appraisal Type, Reviewer Status, Participants, and Company & Organization Levels.
   
   The Appraisal Participants section has four main filter options. These options (Employee, Manager, Editor, and Reviewer) refer to the individuals with those tags on an Appraisal. So, whoever is selected for any of those tags then the Appraisals where that person is the Employee, Manager, Editor, or Reviewer will show up when the filter is updated.
   
   Selecting the Direct Report option will filter the Appraisals to only show the Direct Reports of the User who is logged in.

2. How can a Manager see which workflow step an Appraisal is on when it doesn't show on their Dashboard?
   Managers can use the List - All Appraisals to view all Employee Appraisals at any time.
   Note: the User will only have access to the Employees designated in the Employee Access section of their User.

3. How do I activate the List - All Appraisals for a User?
   Navigate to Security > Setup > Group > and select the Group you wish to make changes to in the Group Security Maintenance.
   
   You can search by entering into the Filter lookup ‘List: Search Appraisals’ or you can set the filter with the following parameter selections (Module: Performance Management and Type: All).
   
   Scroll down to the Detail section and find ‘List: Search Appraisals’ then change it to Full Access. This will give the group access to the 'List – All Appraisals' section of LightWork.

4. Why is a terminated Employee's Appraisal still showing?
   LightWork does not automatically close an Appraisal when an Employee is terminated. This is because a company may want to complete the review for their record or any number of other reasons.
   
   However, HR or a User with the right to delete an existing appraisal can go in and do so using overrides.

5. How do the release to Manager/Employee buttons work?
   When a Manager sends an Appraisal back to the Employee (that had been submitted and released by the Employee), the Employee cannot change their score/comments, but they do have the ability to edit the other sections of the Appraisal that they have access to.
   
   Now, if an Employee were to release to a Manager and not submit their score, then that Manager was to release back to the Employee, the Employee would still be able to edit their score.

6. When does the reject button in an Appraisal become available?
   The reject button does not become available until the Appraisal is in the ‘approval process’, which means it has gone past the first approval of the initial Manager.

7. How do I stop an Employee from having an Appraisal initialized?
   You have two options that will stop an Appraisal from being initialized for a specific Employee:

   • Uncheck them in the list when initializing the Appraisals.

   • Change their “Next Performance Review Date’ to way out in the future, but that is assuming that it is not going to conflict with other uses of that field. By changing this date it would keep the Employee(s) from showing on the list since the date would not qualify. This date is found in their Employee profile.

8. Can HR override and open a review back up for changes, even if the Manager(s)/Approver(s) have “approved" it?
   Yes. HR or the Manager (if the review is still at their level) can reject a review and send it back to the Employee, as long as it has not been finalized (acknowledged). Do this by opening the review, selecting reject in the ribbon, and following the instructions from there.
   
   If the review is at the final workflow step, HR will have to use the override option to change the status.

9. I have an Employee who has worked for two different Managers during the evaluation period - how can I provide the rating option to both Managers?Navigate into the Appraisal, select the Manage button, and then select Reviewers. From the Manage Reviewers section, you can add a Reviewer (Manager(s) not a part of the Appraisal already). After adding this new Reviewer, you can also manage the weights for the Reviewers for this Appraisal by clicking on the Weights tab.

10. What does "Unable to Validate Appraisal" mean?
    When you click the 'Save' button to save your entries in an Appraisal, there are a couple of things happening simultaneously behind the scenes. As part of the process for saving your Appraisal in LightWork, the system first ‘validates’ all the sections in the Appraisal to make sure they are filled out adequately and have the required comments or acceptable content (no disallowed phrases). This is a notification to the User that a high-level verification of the structure of the Appraisal has failed, so the system can’t save correctly. When you receive this message from LightWork, the best thing to do would be to collect all the details about the Appraisal and the Users you’re logged in as and contact LightWork Support.

11. Why can't I remove a Rating Definition?
    To look at all the available Rating Definitions in your LightWork System, navigate into Maintenance > Performance Management > Performance Review > Rating Definition Maintenance. Once you click into the desired Rating Definition, you’ll be able to see ID, Description, Auto Score Setting, and Items configured under this definition.
    
    If a Rating Definition is currently in use, you’ll be unable to delete the definition or remove previously added items. While you can add new items and modify existing ones, removing existing items is disabled. The ID, Definition, and Auto Score settings can be modified as well. These modifications affect all existing Appraisals with this rating definition assigned (either on the Appraisal Type level or the Template level).

    • If the Delete button is available, but you are unable to Remove an item – this rating definition is in use in a Template but not an Appraisal.

    • If both the Delete and the Remove are unavailable, then they could be in use in either a Template and/or an Appraisal.

    • If both Delete and Remove are available, this rating definition is not in use.

    If you need to make structural changes to a Rating Definition that has been in use, you can make a copy or create a new one. Our team is working on making the process of knowing where a Rating Definition is in use within your LightWork more intuitive and easier than before. If you want to stay up-to-date on the latest LightWork updates, enhancements, and bug fixes, you can subscribe to our newsletters.

12. What does Custom Routing do within an Appraisal?
    The Custom Routing feature from the Appraisal Type Maintenance is used to define the Employees who will participate in the approval process when these are outside the ‘standard’ organizational structure hierarchy. The order in which the approvals happen would not fit within LightWork’s Standard Hierarchy approval process but would be defined under the Custom Routing Maintenance and assigned under the Approval Routing tab under the Appraisal Type Maintenance.
    
    To add a new Custom Routing, navigate to Maintenance > Performance Management > Performance Review > Custom Routing and select New.
    
    Enter an ID and Description, and then select the Employees that will be included in the approval process.

    • Please note that the Appraisal Manager must be the first step within the custom routing process. By default, the Appraisal Manager is the Employee's primary Manager.

    To control an Approver's place in the Custom Routing hierarchy/order, click to highlight the Employee’s name and use the navigational arrows to move that Employee up or down in the hierarchy list.
    
    When you are satisfied with your selections, click Save. Custom Routing can be assigned when initializing an Appraisal (in bulk or single within the profile) or it can be assigned at the Appraisal Type level.

13. How do I manage Templates from within an Appraisal?
    Within an Appraisal, depending on your configured access, you may have access to the ‘Manage’ dropdown. Upon selecting the ‘Manage’ dropdown, choose the ‘Templates’ option. Templates are the criteria items that an Employee is going to be rated on. In other words, templates create the competencies that an Employee is going to be rated upon during the appraisal process. When using Manage Templates, Users can change/edit (add/remove) the templates assigned to the Appraisal. Depending on the Appraisal Type configuration and initialization options selected, template(s) may already be assigned by default. Upon selecting the Manage Templates tool you can see the templates currently in use as well.

14. How do I attach Goals within an Appraisal?
    Within an appraisal, depending on your configured access, you may have access to the ‘Manage’ dropdown. Upon selecting the ‘Manage’ dropdown you would select the ‘Attach Goals’ option. This would allow a Manager to attach specific Goals assigned to an Employee into a memo section within the Appraisal and allow for comments to gauge the Employee’s success, the status of Goal completion, or any recommendations that they’d like to review with the Employee.

15. Where can I see the Reviewers and the score weights for an Appraisal?
    By selecting the ‘Manage’ dropdown, you can gain access to the Manage Reviewers tool. This allows you to manage who is assigned as a Reviewer to this Appraisal as well as their Reviewer Status. The Reviewer Status can be Not Started, In Progress, or Submitted. Reviewers rate and comment on criteria and whose scores are weighted for the Employee’s Appraisals. Using the Weights tab, you can modify the weight of each Reviewer’s scores to apply the same value of weight to all the criteria on the Appraisal. If you’d like to modify the weights on a criteria-by-criteria basis you can use the Manage > Weighting section.

16. How can I remind Reviewers to complete their scores and comments?
    Under the Manage dropdown, we can select ‘Remind Reviewers’. This functionality triggers a LightWork notification email to be sent out to all of the Appraisal Reviewers. To use this notification, be sure to have a functional email integration with your LightWork System and that this specific notification is turned on and configured under the Appraisal Type Maintenance’s Notifications tab.

17. Where can I see the Approvers for an Appraisal? Where can I add/delete/edit Approvers?
    By selecting ‘Manage Approvers’ from within the ‘Manage’ dropdown within Appraisals, you can manage who is assigned as an Approver to this Appraisal. Approvers, as the name implies, are the Users who can approve the Appraisal and move it up the approval hierarchy. The approval hierarchy is determined by the configured Routing style in the Appraisal Type and how many hierarchy levels are selected.

18. What does Manage > Weighting control within an Appraisal?
    This Manage Weighting tool brings up the criteria for each Appraisal section and allows you to set weights for Reviewers by each criterion. This is on a criteria-by-criteria basis whereas the weights tab in the Manage Reviewers section applies the same weight for every criterion in the Appraisal. For other weight information, go into the Appraisal Type Maintenance , to review the Appraisal Section Tab and after selecting a section, scroll down to Weighting Setup.

19. What is an override within an Appraisal?
    Completing an override on an Appraisal allows you to select an action to override the current Editor of the Appraisal as well as an option to complete an override of the Workflow Step and the Editor in one process. The current Editor is the person that has an action to take on the Appraisal such as approving to the next level in the approval hierarchy. An Appraisal’s workflow status can control what actions are available to a User interacting with an Appraisal and describes what status the Appraisal is in within its life cycle such as in Rate & Comment, Approval, HR, Acknowledgement, or in Final, to name a few. Overrides only affect the Appraisal you’re working on and would allow you to handle ‘one-off’ Appraisal scenarios dealing with Workflow Steps, Approval Steps, and current Editors.

20. Can you change the Manager listed on an Appraisal?
    Yes! From the Manage dropdown, the final option available is to ‘Change Manager’. This option modifies the Appraisal Manager assigned to this Appraisal. In most cases, the Primary Manager and Appraisal Manager are the same, but they don’t have to be. When using the override function, you can make another Manager on a one-time basis responsible for scoring and rating this specific Appraisal. An Appraisal Manager is determined by default through the configuration of the Appraisal Type whereas a Primary Manager is just the person assigned to the Employee as a Manager in the HRMS data. It’s always good to remember that an Appraisal Manager and a Primary Manager are different and separate.

21. Why does my report show N/A under an Appraisal Reviewer’s score?
    Based on the N/A being displayed on the report that signals to me that this is due to a weighting issue for a Reviewer added to an Appraisal whose assigned ‘Weight’ was set to zero (thus displayed as N/A) due to being considered ‘other’ within the weight categories brought in from the Appraisal Type. This can be resolved by modifying the weight listed for that Reviewer.
    
    To confirm the weight setup for ‘Other’ reviewers you can review the Appraisal Type Maintenance. Changing the weight assigned for ‘Others’ to ‘1’ would only affect newly created Appraisals.
    
    To correct the weight issue in the specific Appraisal for the current Appraisal in this situation – the Appraisal would need to be below the ‘Approval’ workflow status (If the status is at Approval or higher it means that there needs to be an Override (Manage > Override> Change Workflow Step and/or Editor) to change the workflow to ‘Rate & Comment’.
    
    Once the status is changed, you’ll have access to the ‘Manage Reviewers’ option in the Manage dropdown. From there, select the ‘Weights’ tab and assign the appropriate weight for the Reviewer in question which should be set to 1 based on the previously encountered scenario. That would then populate the corrected weights in the Appraisal Report.