Review forms

A review form is the set of questions a reviewer answers. You build forms once and choose them for each kind of feedback when you create a review cycle. Rating scales and a question bank make forms quicker to build and more consistent.

Who can build forms, rating scales and the question bank: Owner, HR admin.

Everything here is under Reviews → Set-up, in three tabs: Forms, Question bank and Rating scales.

Before you start

Open Reviews and choose the Set-up tab. If reviews are not set up yet, click Add starter content. It adds editable rating scales, a question bank, competencies and three forms (annual, probation and upward feedback). Anything you already have is left as it is.

The starter content is a starting point. Change it to suit your organisation.

Rating scales

A rating scale is the set of points a reviewer chooses from, such as 1 to 5.

On the Rating scales tab, click New scale, or Change on an existing one.
Enter a Name and an optional Description.
For each point, set its Value, Label and an optional Description. Use Add a point and Remove point. A scale needs at least two points.
Click Save.

Forms copy a scale’s points when they are saved, so changing a scale does not change a published form. Archive stops a scale being chosen for new questions; published forms keep the points they copied.

The question bank

The question bank holds questions you use again and again. On the Question bank tab:

Click New question.
Write the Question.
Choose its Type and who it is Asked of: The reviewee, Their manager, Peers or Direct reports.
For a rating question, choose the Rating scale. For a competency rating, choose the Competency.
Add an optional Category and Help text. For a multiple-choice question, add the options.
Click Save.

Filter the bank by Category. Archive stops a question being offered when you build forms; forms that copied it are not affected.

Question types

Type	What the reviewer does	Counts in the score
Rating	Chooses a point on a rating scale	Yes, by its weight
Competency rating	Rates one competency on a rating scale	Yes, by its weight
Rate each goal	Rates each of the reviewee’s goals from the linked performance cycle	Yes, by its weight. Goals count by their own goal weights
Role competencies	Rates each competency the reviewee’s job role expects, on the organisation’s proficiency scale	Through the cycle’s competencies’ share, not a question weight
Multiple choice	Picks an option	No
Written answer	Writes free text	No

Rate each goal needs the review cycle to be linked to a performance cycle. A reviewee with no goals in it has nothing to rate.

Role competencies can appear at most once on a form. It rates each competency expected of the reviewee’s job role and level, frozen when the cycle launches. See Competencies and skills.

Build a form

On the Forms tab, click New form.
Enter a Name, choose what the form is Suggested for (the kind of cycle, optional) and add a Description.
Give the first section a Title and an optional Description.
Click Add a question to write one, or Add from the question bank to copy questions in. Questions copied from the bank are copies: changing them on the form does not change the bank.
For each question, set the Question, the Type and who it is Asked of. For a scored question, choose the Rating scale and the Weight in the score. Add Help text and tick Required where needed.
Use Add a section to group questions, and Remove section or Remove to take things out.
Click Create form.

The form shows how many questions it has and who they are for. A form can hold questions for several audiences, so one form can serve the self review and the manager review.

Weighted questions

Each rating, competency rating and goal-rating question has a Weight in the score. 0 asks the question without scoring it.

A reviewer’s answers become a score from 0 to 100: each rating is placed on its scale (the lowest point is 0, the highest 100), and the weighted questions are averaged by their weights. An optional question left unanswered drops out and the others are re-weighted. Cadre calculates this; you set the weights.

How the self, manager, peer and upward scores combine is set on the review cycle. See Review cycles.

Change a form

Open the form from the Forms tab, change it, and click Publish new version. Saving publishes a new version. Cycles already launched keep the version they started with, so a review in progress never changes under a reviewer.

Archive stops a form being offered for new cycles. Cycles already using it are not affected. Turn on Show archived to see archived forms.