Set Up an Approval Cycle for Evaluations Before Submission

Many companies require the employee evaluation process to go through multiple levels of approval before it is confirmed and sent to employees. This ensures that all relevant parties in the company — including HR, department heads, and executives — are involved in overseeing the evaluation.

With the system’s ability to add an approval cycle that allows assigning specific approvers (such as a department manager or branch manager) to approve employee evaluations before submission, this will ensure greater:

• Efficiency

• Transparency

Setting Up an Approval Cycle for Evaluations

Admins with the "View Performance Requests" permission — which grants access to performance requests and related approvals — can set up an approval cycle for performance evaluations from the system settings. They can specify the roles responsible for reviewing and approving the evaluation before it is confirmed and sent to employees. 

The list of approvers in the cycle may include roles such as the direct manager, department manager, and performance manager, and they can be assigned in any order chosen by the admins. 

Steps to Set Up the Evaluation Approval Cycle:

• Settings > Requests > Evaluation Review

When selecting “Review Evaluation” you will find a default approval cycle created by the system. The settings for this cycle are configured for all types of evaluation forms, and the approver is assigned by default as the “Performance Manager” However, no employees have been selected to apply the approval policy to, so this cycle will not be effective for evaluations until the employees to whom the approval cycle applies are specified.

• If you wish to modify the default cycle, click the edit icon.

• When opening the approval sequence, you can modify the following:

- Approval cycle name

- Form type: This allows you to specify the types of forms the approval cycle will apply to, or select "All" to apply it to all types of evaluation forms.

- Specify the employees to whom the policy applies: You can choose to apply it to all company employees, specific employee groups, or selected individuals.

- Assign approvers: Select up to 6 approvers in the approval cycle, choosing from the available roles (e.g., direct manager, department manager, etc.).

Add Approval Cycle

• To add a new approval cycle, click on "Add Approval cycle" from the same window. Fill in the required fields, then click "Add"

Note:

When one of the approvers is also selected as the primary evaluator, the system notifies the user accordingly. In this case, the approval from that approver is considered automatic by the system, since they are the primary evaluator who created the evaluation and do not need to approve their own submission.

Example:

If the primary evaluator for the performance system in a company is the "line Manager" and one of the approvers is also assigned as the "line Manager" the system will display a warning stating that "The approver is also the primary evaluator." This allows the admin to change the approver to another role (e.g., Department Manager, Branch Manager, etc.) if they prefer not to include the primary evaluator in the approval cycle for the evaluation.

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Approval Process by the approvers

• When the primary evaluator submits the employee evaluation, it will not be immediately shared with the employee. Instead, it will go through the defined approval cycle.
• Once the evaluator completes the evaluation and before sending it, the system displays a message indicating that the evaluation will be pending until it is approved by the designated approvers.

• Notification of Approvers about Review Evaluation Requests

 

1. After clicking “Submit Evaluation” the system will send a web notification to the first responsible employee in the approval cycle to review the evaluation. By clicking on the notification, the system will transfer you directly to the employee’s evaluation page for review.

 

2. In the "My Approvals" list under the "Requests" tab, the review request is also added. By clicking on it, you will be redirected to the evaluation page for review.

 

3. Through the evaluation form in the performance system, the review can also be carried out by opening the profile of the employee whose evaluation is to be reviewed.

• Through any of the previously mentioned methods to start the evaluation review, the approver will be able to take one of the following two actions:

- Approve: The evaluation will move to the next approver in the cycle, or be confirmed and shared with the employee if the approver was the last one in the approval process.

- Reopen: The evaluation will be sent back to the primary evaluator for revision, with a mandatory comment explaining the reason for reopening.

Note:

In the case of reopen, the primary reviewer re-evaluates the employee, and the evaluation goes through the same approval workflow until it is approved.

Note:

- The approval step is skipped if no employee is assigned to the specified role in the system.

While evaluating the primary reviewer for employees, the system displays a confirmation message showing the approval cycle the evaluation will go through, including the responsible employees. If a certain role has not yet been assigned to a specific employee, this is also clearly indicated.

For example, if (the second approver) in the cycle is the “Branch Manager” and the branch manager for the employees in the evaluation form has not yet been assigned in the system, this step will be automatically skipped. The system will either move the evaluation to the next available approver in the cycle or confirm it based on the approval of the first approver and immediately share it with the employees.

• Once the evaluation is approved by the approver, the employee’s status within the evaluation form changes to “Green".  An employee whose evaluation has not been approved by the approver will have a status of “Pending Approval". 

Note: 

A user with the 'Manage Performance' permission can mark the evaluation form is completed even if the approvers in the approval cycle have not reviewed or approved the evaluation, or reopen it.

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Approvals and Comments Section

Within the evaluation form for each included employee, there is a dedicated section titled "Approvals and Comments", which displays the following:

• A list of approvers, including their names, job titles, and approval statuses.

• Comments added by the approvers, including the time of the comment and the action taken (approval or reopening).

Note:

• This section is only visible to users with permission to view performance requests and is hidden from employees who do not have this permission.
• Even employees with permission to view performance requests will not be able to see this section if they are listed to be evaluated in the evaluation form.

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Approval of the Evaluation and Employee Notification

• Once the final evaluator approves the evaluation, it is considered complete and becomes visible to the employee.
• The employee will receive an email notification informing them that their evaluation has been submitted.

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Export PDF Report with Approval Details

Users with permission to view performance requests can download the evaluation file in PDF format, including the list of approvers and their statuses (approved with timestamps, pending, or not yet started in the approval cycle). This way, the report is considered approved and includes the names of the approvers without the need for manual signatures afterward.

• From the employee profile (Evaluated) within the evaluation form, click on “Download PDF report".

  

• The report allows you to choose whether to include the parts that are not visible to the employee using the toggle button.
• When downloaded, the report appears in this format and includes all employee information, their evaluation, and the approval users who approved the evaluation.