When setting up a review template or cycle, you define the timeline for the entire review process, including individual deadlines for each step. Which steps appear in your timeline depends on your scope settings (e.g., whether peers, direct reports, or calibrations are included). Please note: Timelines are calculated in calendar days, not working days.
For comprehensive 360° review processes, we recommend an overall timeline of approximately 4 weeks.
Timeline steps explained
The steps below appear in the order they occur in the timeline. Not all steps will be visible in every cycle — the timeline adapts based on your scope and settings.
- Kickoff
All participants are notified to begin. Managers and direct reports are asked to start writing their assessments or self-assessments. In a template, this is day 0 and all subsequent steps are defined as relative day offsets from this date. In a cycle, the kickoff becomes a specific calendar date.
- Peer nomination deadline
All participants are asked to select their peers by this date. Once the deadline passes, any nominated peers that have not yet been approved by their manager will be automatically approved (if the auto-approval option is enabled in the scope settings).
- Peer approval deadline
Managers are asked to confirm the peers nominated by their direct reports by this date.
- Peer / direct report / self-assessment deadline
The deadline for peer, direct report, and / or self-assessments. Depending on your 'Re-submission and sign-off' settings, submitted assessments may be locked for editing once this deadline passes.
- Manager deadline
The deadline for assessments by participants' managers. Similarly, submitted manager assessments may be locked after this date depending on your re-submission settings. Please note: You can enable calibrations or control when assessments are shared with employees in the 'Calibrations' tab and 'Visibility' settings.
- Calibration kickoff
Only visible when calibrations are enabled in the 'Calibrations' tab. The calibration kickoff must be set after the manager deadline. Once reached, the calibration view becomes active and calibration committee members can begin adjusting scores.
- Calibration deadline
Must fall between the calibration kickoff and the discussion deadline. After this date, the calibration window closes. Managers will receive a notification about any score changes made during calibration and can view calibration history from their review form.
- Discussion deadline
The deadline for development discussions and digital signatures between managers and reviewees.
- Sign-off
Sign-off has no fixed date — it occurs after the discussion phase. Once both the manager and the reviewee sign the assessment, it is permanently locked, regardless of any other locking settings.
- Cycle closure
The date on which the review cycle officially closes.
Re-submission and sign-off
Also within the 'Timeline' tab, the 'Re-submission and sign-off' section lets you control when submitted assessments become locked for editing. By default, assessments remain editable until cycle closure or sign-off. You can tighten this by locking assessments at the assessment deadline or immediately upon submission. For a full overview of the available options, see Lock Edits to Assessments After Deadline or Submission.
Automated reminders
While dates mark the official start of each step, the platform manages the process as efficiently as possible. If a step completes earlier than planned and all prerequisites for the next step are met, the cycle will automatically advance to the next step. Automated email reminders are sent to participants at each stage to keep the process on track. You can customize these in the 'Notifications' tab.
Closing the cycle
Review cycles do not close automatically when the final stage date is reached. A cycle must be manually closed by clicking 'Close cycle' in the cycle dashboard. If this is not done, the platform will auto-close the cycle 2 months after the last stage date has passed.
Please note: When a review cycle is closed:
- All open tasks related to that cycle will disappear from users' task lists.
- Participants can no longer edit or finalize an assessment.
- Managers can still share a finalized assessment with a participant if it was finalized before the cycle was closed.
- If signing is enabled, participants can still sign finalized assessments from the 'All Reviews' tab even after the cycle is closed.