User Guide for Migrating Data in the Performance Evaluation System

Development of the Performance Evaluation Feature in Jisr:

The performance evaluation feature has successfully collaborated with our clients to help them achieve their strategic goals by focusing on enhancing employee's performance and behaviors while enabling data-driven decision-making. Statistics have shown that some companies have expressed interest in exploring the performance evaluation system, adopting it, and testing the feature. Notably, 27% of companies demonstrated genuine interest by either using it out or reaching out to customer support for further inquiries.

Given its critical importance, Jisr team actively follows up with clients to identify the challenges they face while using the performance evaluation feature and analyze their usage patterns. This allows us to restructure and enhance the feature by addressing key areas, such as:

• Providing a simpler and more intuitive performance evaluation system, in response to client aspirations for replacing the traditional competencies and objectives framework with a more straightforward mechanism to achieve their objectives.
• The interest in evaluating certain positions that do not require adding objectives and competencies.
• Adjusting certain steps in the evaluation process to align with client needs.
• Controlling user access to evaluation processes for greater flexibility and security.

This comprehensive analysis and research into our clients’ real needs have been the driving force behind a significant upgrade to the system. The goal is to align with client preferences, support their diverse objectives, and deliver an entirely new and improved experience in the performance evaluation system!

With the new performance management system fully ready, we will begin rolling out the feature to all users. To ensure a smooth transition from the old system, the current evaluation data must first be migrated so users can seamlessly continue working on their employees' evaluations.

 

The Importance of Data Migration

Data migration is a critical and essential step for customers who have already used the performance management system, created review cycles, added objectives and competencies, and completed multiple evaluations for their employees. When transitioning to the new performance feature, this process ensures that they can:

• Access previously created evaluations for their employees, preserved and available in the new system.
• Save the time and effort invested in these evaluations.
• Retain a comprehensive record of employee evaluations, including annual reviews, probation period evaluations, or any other assessments. This contributes to better HR resource allocation and effective decision-making.
• Easily identify each employee’s overall evaluation through their recorded evaluation history in the system.
• Avoid disrupting the annual review process at the end of the year in case existing data and evaluations are not migrated.

During the Data Migration Process, We Ensured the Following to Preserve Data:

• Developing various solutions to ensure performance data is transferred in the closest possible format and structure. This was necessary due to differences between the current performance feature—with its components such as "review cycles, goals, competencies", its evaluation mechanism, and terminology—and the new performance feature, which replaces these components with "evaluation templates" which is a different evaluation mechanism, and new terms like "Passed submission date" and "In progress".
• Requiring users to input the same evaluation rating methods they currently use in the existing performance system before clicking "Migrate". This ensures that the migrated evaluations are accurate and match their actual evaluation records in the current performance system.

In Case of Choosing Not to Migrate:

If there is existing performance evaluation data in the current system, it will be at risk of being lost. When you start using the new performance feature, you will not find the previously recorded evaluations for your employees and will have to start using the performance feature from scratch.

How Will Employee Evaluation Data Be Transferred from the Current Performance Management System to the New Experience?

- The current performance management system differs from the new performance system in how evaluation criteria are structured. In the current system, evaluations are based on review cycles, objectives, competencies, and specific statuses for evaluations, such as:

• • Not Started
  • To be given
  • In Progress
  • Completed

- In the new experience of the performance management system, all the previous types have been unified into a single evaluation template, with different statuses for evaluations:

• Active
• Draft
• Upcoming
• Completed

- In the new experience, evaluation templates are reflected in the employee's profile and displayed there. So, when an employee is added to an evaluation template, the template name, status, and details are added to the employee’s profile, allowing managers and admins to easily track their performance.

Let's explore how the current evaluations will be transferred and displayed in the new performance system.

Evaluation Statuses (Current Performance Management System)	New Evaluation Statuses (Performance Management System - New Experience)	Details
Completed+ shared with the employee Completed + not shared with the employee	Completed	If the start date of the current evaluations has already been reached, and there are employees who have been evaluated (evaluation status is "Completed"), these employees will be transferred to individual evaluation forms with the status 'Completed.' Example: If there are 3 employees added to a review cycle, with two objectives and one competency, and all of them have been evaluated with a status of "Completed,".  When the data is migrated to the new system, the review cycle will be converted into 3 individual evaluation forms, one for each employee, and the status of the forms will be 'Completed.' Each evaluation form will contain two groups: one called "Objectives" and another called "Competencies." The evaluations for each employee will be migrated as they are, whether in scale or percentage rates.
In progress  To be given (Objectives & Competencies)	Active	If the start date of the current evaluations has already been reached, and there are employees who have not yet been evaluated (evaluation status is still "In Progress", these employees will be transferred to individual evaluation forms with the status 'Active' Example: If there are 3 employees added to a review cycle, with two objectives and one competency, and they have not been evaluated yet, with their status still "In Progress".  When the data is migrated to the new system, the review cycle will be converted into 3 individual evaluation forms, one for each employee, and the status of the templates will be 'Active.' Each evaluation form will contain two groups: one called "Objectives" and another called "Competencies," on which the employees will be evaluated later.
Not started ( With objectives & competencies added)	Upcoming	If the start date of the current evaluations has not been reached yet, the employees added to the review cycle will be transferred to individual evaluation forms with the status 'Upcoming.' Example: If there are 3 employees added to a review cycle, with two objectives and one competency, and the start date of the evaluation has not yet reached. When the data is migrated to the new system, the review cycle will be converted into 3 individual evaluation forms, one for each employee, and the status of the templates will be 'Upcoming.' Each evaluation form will contain two groups: one called "objectives" and another called "Competencies," on which the employees will be evaluated later.
Not started (Without objectives and competencies added)	No conversion to any evaluation template	If the start date of the current evaluations has not been reached yet, but no objectives or competencies have been added to the review cycle, the employees added to the review cycle will not be converted to any evaluation forms in the new performance system. Example: If there are 3 employees added to a review cycle that has no objectives or competencies added, and the start date of the evaluation has not yet reached. When the data is migrated to the new system, the employees added to this cycle will not be converted to any evaluation forms as in the previous examples, and the data for this cycle will not be available in the new performance management system.

Important Notes:

• In the new performance management system, the types of evaluation forms are: fixed duration, contract period, probation period.

Therefore, when migrating review cycle data from the current system, the type of evaluation template is determined based on the review cycles defined in the current system, which are as follows:

• Normal review cycles (Annually, Semi-annually, Quarterly): These will be converted into fixed-duration evaluation templates with the same frequency (Annually, Semi-annually, Quarterly).
• Probation period review cycles: These will be converted into probation period evaluation templates.

• If the end date of the review cycle has already passed and the cycle contains objectives and competencies, but there are employees added who have not yet been evaluated, this cycle will be transferred according to the number of employees into individual evaluation forms for each employee, in the "Active Evaluation Templates" section, but with the status 'Passed submission dates".

• In the new performance management system, there will no longer be a separate normal and probation review overall rating for the normal review cycle and the probation review cycle as in the current performance management system. Instead, there will be a unified overall evaluation at the level of the evaluation form. Therefore, the overall evaluation of employees will only appear in the "Performance Summary Report." Learn more details about generating the report.

Steps for Data Migration Process

1. Introduction to the Features of the New Performance Experience

When clicking on "Performance" from the homepage, introductory steps will be displayed, explaining the features of the new performance experience. You will click "Next" until you reach the "Rating Methods Set up" page.

2. Setting Up the New Performance Experience Settings

On this page, the system will allow you to assign users to two new roles in managing the performance system from the available options, which are:

• Performance manager
• Primary Reviewer

3. Adding rating Methods

The system will allow you to add the evaluation rating methods you wish to follow when evaluating your employees while using the new performance experience.

However, you will find an important note before starting to add evaluation rating methods, which explains that in the next step you will have the option to migrate data. If you proceed and choose to do so, the new evaluation rating methods added on this page will be linked to and used with the evaluations from the current performance system that will be migrated. After the data migration, they will be available and recorded when using the performance feature in the new experience.

To review the current evaluation rating methods and ensure they are added to this page in the same format, you can click on "View Current Rating Methods". 

 

 

Which will display a window containing the current rating methods.

 

What does this mean exactly?

- In the current performance management system, there are 4 performance evaluation rating methods: (Objective Evaluation, Competencies rating, Normal Review Overall Rating, probation review overall rating). You can choose whether each of them is evaluated by (scale or percentage).

However

- In the new performance management system, there are only two evaluation methods (scale or percentage), as the new performance feature does not include competencies or objectives but relies solely on the evaluation form. For the overall rating method, it is also selected to be either scale or percentage.

In the new performance system, the rating method is selected at the criteria group level. When starting a new evaluation form and adding a set of group criteria, the system allows you to specify whether this group will be evaluated by scale or percentage. Learn more information about how to create an evaluation form and add a set of criteria groups.

Therefore, before migrating the data, the system requires from the user to add the rating methods that will be followed later in the new performance management system, which will be used to migrate the current evaluation data:

• Scale (Set the levels to be used for evaluating employees)
• Percentage (Set the percentages to be used for evaluating employees)
• Specify the preferred method to be used for the overall rating methods (scale or Percentage)

To ensure the accurate migration of evaluation data and obtain the same evaluation results with the same labels and numbers for scales and percentages, the current evaluation methods must be transferred as they are, without any changes.

Use case: 

If the evaluation rating methods for a client in the current performance management system is: scale for competencies, Percentage for objectives, and Percentage for both the overall evaluation for the normal period and the probation period.

In this case, when setting the evaluation method before migrating to the new performance management system, the same scales used for competencies must be added as they are when adding the scale method, for example: (from 1-5) with label names (Unsatisfactory, Needs Development, etc.).

Similarly, the same percentages used for objectives and overall evaluations in the current system must be added as they are, for example: (0-100%) with percentage labels (Meets Expectations, Good, etc.).

 

 

When selecting the preferred method for the overall evaluation, the percentage method will be chosen to align with the current system's approach.

By following this method, if the client has a review cycle with quarterly rounds that has already started and continues through the last quarter of the year, and an employee has been evaluated for the first quarter with a rating of 90% labeled as "Very Good," when migrating the evaluation data, the employee's rating will appear as is: 90% "Very Good." The admin will be able to complete the remaining evaluations for the last quarter using the same method. Therefore, the final overall evaluation for the employee will appear consistently, as the same evaluation method (scales/numbers and labels) was used.

What if?!

The same evaluation rating methods used in the current performance management system were not added, and different evaluation methods (whether scales, percentages, or labels) were added, or the added evaluation methods by the system were saved as they are in this page, and then the user proceeded to the next step and clicked on "Migrate!"

 

In this case

The data for your evaluations added in the current performance management system will not appear in the same method (scales, percentages, or labels) in the new performance management system. Instead, these evaluations will appear with the new evaluation method you saved on this page. You will not be able to go back and change them, as the migration process will have already been completed. Any updates to the evaluation rating methods in the settings will only apply to any new or upcoming evaluations.

4- Save Settings

After entering your evaluation rating methods and ensuring they align with the previously used evaluation methods, you must click "Save."

All evaluation rating methods added, including scale, percentage, and the overall evaluation method, must be saved.

 

5. Start the Data Migration Process

Once saved, the "Start Now" button will be activated, leading to the next page for the "Data Migration" step.

In this step, a window will appear summarizing the migration process and important information you need to know before making your decision. You must read the instructions carefully, then select "I understand and agree on all the above" to confirm your knowledge of all the details of the migration process, including its benefits and risks. After that, one of the following options will be activated:

1. Migrate Data
2. Continue Without Migration

If you choose to migrate the data, you will be directed to the "Evaluation forms" page in the Performance, and a confirmation message will appear stating "Data migration in progress."

Once the migration process is complete, all your previous evaluations will be added to the "Evaluation Forms" page within the Performance system, as shown below.

If you choose not to migrate the data, you will be directed to the "Evaluation Forms" page in the Performance, which will be empty, allowing you to start creating new evaluation forms.