Creating and Managing Review Workflows

Review workflows let you save your review workflows and reuse them whenever you need. Create a workflow once for your annual review process, then launch it again next year without rebuilding everything from scratch.

This article walks you through creating workflows, configuring each step, setting permissions, and managing your workflow library.

A workflow is a blueprint for your review workflow. It defines:

Once you create a workflow, you can launch unlimited campaigns from it. Each campaign follows the workflow's workflow but applies to different employees.

Think of it this way:

You create workflows once and reuse them many times. You create campaigns whenever you want to run reviews.

Workflows are created from the review workflow page. Here's how to build one from scratch.

You'll see the workflow builder with several sections to complete.

Start by defining what your workflow is for:

Workflow name
Choose a name that describes the review type.

Good names: "Annual Performance Review," "90-Day New Hire Check-in," "Manager Feedback Survey"

Review period
Select which time period this review covers. This helps employees understand what timeframe they're being evaluated on.

Review admins can manage all aspects of reviews created from this workflow. They can add or remove participants, move reviews through steps, and close reviews.

HR and Group HR (only on employees from their groups) roles are always review admins as well as campaign adminss. You don't need to add them — they have access by default.

You can give admin access to:

Managers — Every manager becomes a review admin for their own team's reviews only. They can manage reviews where they're the employee's manager, but can't access other departments' reviews.

When to use: If you want managers to handle their own team's reviews without involving HR for every step.

Specific users — Add individual people by name who should be review admins for all campaigns from this workflow.

When to use: If you have an HR partner, talent manager, or executive who needs to oversee all reviews.

Groups — Give admin access to everyone in a specific group.

When to use: If you have an "HR team" or "People Ops" group that should all have admin access.

You can combine these. For example: HR (automatic) + all managers + one executive assistant.

Review viewers can see all review content but can't make changes. They have read-only access to everything.

This is useful for people who need visibility without needing to manage the process — like skip-level managers, HR business partners, or executives.

Choose who gets read-only access:

By role:

By user:

By group:

The feedback step collects input from multiple people using a questionnaire. This step is optional — turn it on only if you want to collect written feedback.

Toggle the feedback step on or off. If you disable it, you must enable the meeting step (you need at least one of the two).

Give your feedback step a name that participants will see. The default is "Feedback," but you can customize it to match your language.

Examples:

Write instructions or context that participants will see when completing their feedback.

Example: "Share specific examples of this person's strengths and areas for growth. Your feedback will be visible to the employee and their manager during the review meeting."

Select which questionnaire feedback givers will complete. You can choose any questionnaire from your question templates.

Choose who will give feedback by adding roles or specific users:

By role:

By user:

You can add multiple feedback givers. A typical 360 setup might include: manager + 3-5 peers + employee.

Feedback givers never see each other's responses. This is automatic and can't be changed — it prevents bias and encourages honest feedback.

The feedback content becomes visible to meeting participants and signature participants only if you configure those later steps to show it.

The review meeting step is where participants discuss the review and create a summary. This step is optional — but if you disable feedback, you must enable this step.

Toggle the review meeting step on or off. If you disable it, you must enable the feedback step (you need at least one of the two).

Customize what participants see. Default is "Review meeting," but you can use your own terminology.

Examples:

Provide context about what should happen during this step.

Example: "Meet with your manager to discuss feedback, review accomplishments, and set goals for the coming period. Your manager will write a summary of the conversation."

Select which questionnaire will be used during the optional preparation and the note taker will complete when writing the summary. This can be the same as or different from the feedback questionnaire.

Common approaches:

Preparation is a sub-step within the meeting that lets participants draft their responses before the actual meeting happens.

Turn preparation on when you want participants to think through their responses in advance:

Turn preparation off for:

Choose who should prepare by selecting roles or specific users:

Common setups:

You can add others too, like skip-level managers or HR partners who will attend the meeting.

Decide whether preparation participants can see the feedback from the feedback step while preparing:

Most organizations show feedback during preparation so people can prepare thoughtful responses. Hide it only if you want fresh, uninfluenced preparation.

The meeting summary is where the final review gets written. Every meeting needs these settings:

Choose who will write the summary. Only one person can be the note taker:

Common choices:

The note taker is the only person who can edit the summary. Others can view it (based on your settings), but only the note taker can write.

Choose who participates in the meeting or needs to see the summary:

This typically includes:

All meeting participants can see the summary the note taker is writing.

Decide what the note taker and other meeting participants can see while working on the summary:

Options:

Common setups:

Choose based on how much information you want available during the meeting conversation.

The signature step lets participants review the completed review and formally acknowledge it. This step is completely optional.

Toggle the signature step on or off. Many organizations skip signatures for informal reviews and only use them for annual reviews or PIPs.

Customize what participants see. Default is "Signature," but you can match your terminology.

Examples:

Provide instructions for signature participants.

Example: "Review your completed performance review and acknowledge that you've read and discussed it with your manager. You can add optional comments if needed."

Choose who needs to sign by selecting roles or specific users:

Common setups:

You can add as many signature participants as needed.

Decide what each signature participant can see when reviewing before they sign:

Options:

Common setups:

All signature participant have the same visibility.

Once you've configured all your steps, you'll see an overview showing:

The system checks for common issues:

If something's wrong, you'll see an error message explaining what needs to be fixed.

Click Save workflow to add it to your workflow library. You can now use it to launch campaigns or continue editing it.

All your workflows live on the New reviews > Workflows page.

The workflow list shows:

Use the search bar to find workflows by name or filter by steps included.

Click any workflow to open it and make changes. Your edits won't affect active campaigns — only new campaigns launched after you save the changes.

Click the three-dot menu next to any workflow and select Duplicate. This creates a copy you can customize without changing the original.

When to duplicate:

Click the three-dot menu and select Delete. You can delete workflows that are currently being used by active campaigns.

Click Use as campaign draft from the workflow's three-dot menu. This takes you to the campaign builder with all the workflow's settings pre-filled.

See Launching Your First Campaign for details on customizing settings for specific campaigns.

Follow these guidelines to build maintainable, reusable workflows:

Use descriptive names that explain the review type and when to use it:

Add notes about:

This helps other HR admins use your workflows correctly.

Create separate workflows for different review types rather than trying to build one universal workflow:

This keeps each workflow simple and purpose-built.

Before launching a workflow company-wide:

Consider your company culture when setting who can see what:

When in doubt, ask employees what they're comfortable with.

Keep notes (in the description field or separately) about:

This helps you (and future HR team members) improve the workflows over time.

Here's how different organizations structure their workflows:

Steps: Feedback → Meeting (with preparation) → Signature
​Feedback from: Manager + 3 peers + employee
​Meeting: Manager and employee both prepare. Manager is note taker. Both can see feedback during preparation and meeting.
​Signature: Employee and manager both sign. Both see everything.
​Why this works: Comprehensive 360 input, thoughtful preparation time, structured discussion, formal documentation.

Steps: Meeting only (no feedback, no signature)
​Meeting: Manager and employee both prepare for 15 minutes. Manager is note taker. Neither sees feedback (there isn't any) during meeting.
​Why this works: Quick and lightweight. No overhead of collecting formal feedback. Just a structured conversation.

Steps: Feedback → Meeting
​Feedback from: Manager + 2 peers
​Meeting: Only manager prepares. Manager is note taker. Manager sees feedback during preparation, employee sees it during meeting.
​Signature: Skipped (developmental, not evaluative)
​Why this works: Gathers input from early colleagues, focuses meeting on development, keeps it informal without requiring signatures.

Steps: Feedback → Signature
​Feedback from: Direct reports only (anonymous)
​Signature: Manager reviews and acknowledges. Skip-level manager also reviews and signs.
​Why this works: Upward feedback without face-to-face discussion. Manager's manager provides oversight. No meeting needed — feedback speaks for itself.

Steps: Meeting (with preparation) → Signature
​Meeting: Manager and employee both prepare. Manager is note taker. Both see each other's preparation during meeting.
​Signature: Employee, manager, and HR all sign. All three see everything.
​Why this works: Clear expectations documented. Multiple parties acknowledge understanding. Formal process with proper documentation.