Use Goals with Performance Review Cycles

Goals are an ongoing workspace for an employee’s priorities. They are not created inside a Performance Review and do not reset when a cycle ends. An admin can choose whether an employee’s current goals also appear in a particular performance review cycle; when that cycle closes, FeedbackPulse preserves a read-only snapshot for that review.

What each role can do with Goals

Role	Where to work	What they can do
Admin	Goals > Company and cycle settings	Turn Goals on for the organization, view and update anyone’s goals, and choose whether goals are shown in each eligible review cycle.
Manager	Goals > Team	View, add, edit, delete, and comment on goals for their current direct reports.
Employee	Goals > Yours	Create, edit, delete, and comment on their own goals.

Managers cannot open goals for skip-level reports, former reports, or unrelated employees. All admins can work with goals across their organization.

Set up Goals as an admin

1. Go to Settings > Performance Reviews.
2. In Goals, turn on Enable goals. This makes the Goals workspace available to your organization.
3. Open Goals > Company to find an employee and add or update goals when needed.
4. When you create or edit a review cycle that includes Performance reviews (or Performance and peer reviews), choose Show employee goals during this review if you want goals included in that cycle’s shared review view.

The cycle control is available only when Goals are enabled and the cycle includes performance reviews. You can change it while the cycle is open, including after reviews have been submitted. Once the cycle is closed, the setting is locked.

Create and maintain goals as a manager

1. Open Goals > Team and select a current direct report.
2. Select Add goal.
3. Enter a goal title. You can also add a description, due date, and status.
4. Use Not started, In progress, Completed, or Retired to keep progress current. Retired keeps a goal on record as stopped before it was completed.
5. Open a goal to add a comment, update its details, or delete it if it is no longer needed.

Managers and employees work with the same current goal list. A manager’s changes are visible to the employee, and either person can add progress comments.

Create and maintain your own goals as an employee

1. Open Goals > Yours.
2. Select Add goal and enter a title.
3. Add an optional description and due date, then set the current status.
4. Return to the goal over time to update progress or leave comments for your manager.

Goals remain available in Goals > Yours outside a review cycle. Choose Retired when a stopped goal should stay on record. Deleting a goal removes it from the current workspace, so use delete only when the goal should no longer exist.

How Goals appear in a Performance Review

Goals appear as a separate Goals panel, not as review-answer questions. For an open eligible cycle where Show employee goals during this review is on:

• An employee sees the shared Goals panel after submitting their self-review.
• A manager sees it after submitting their manager evaluation.
• An admin can see the current goals in the review.

Before a person submits their own review, the Goals panel is not shown on that person’s review form. During an open cycle, the panel shows the employee’s current goals, and people with normal Goals access can update them there.

What happens when a review cycle closes

When an eligible cycle with Show employee goals during this review turned on closes, FeedbackPulse captures the employee’s goals for each performance review as they were at close. That review then shows a read-only snapshot, including its goal details and comments.

The original Goals workspace remains separate: employees, their current direct manager, and admins can continue maintaining current goals there. Later changes do not alter the closed review’s snapshot. If the cycle setting was off when the cycle closed, no Goals snapshot is stored for that cycle.

A simple operating rhythm

1. Employees and managers keep goals current in Goals throughout the review period.
2. Admins turn on the cycle’s Goals setting when the current list should be part of the review conversation.
3. Each participant submits their review, then uses the shared Goals panel as needed while the cycle is open.
4. Close the cycle to preserve the review-time record; continue managing next priorities in the standalone Goals workspace.

For the review workflow itself, see Performance Reviews.