How to Customize Questions for Quarterly or Annual Reviews
Owners, Admins, and Coaches can customize the questions and commitments used in Quarterly and Annual Reviews from the 1-on-1 tool. Customizing these is a great way to keep these important conversations tailored to your team. Before you start, it's important to know that any change you make applies to your entire organization — there is no way to give different questions to different people. The 1-on-1 tool is available on the Accelerate and Thrive plans.
Note: Custom questions and commitments apply to your entire organization. There is no way to show different questions to managers versus team members, or to set different questions by team, department, or role — the same question set appears for everyone.
How review questions apply across your organization
Review questions and commitments are shared organization-wide. Every Quarterly and Annual Review across your company draws from the same single set of questions and commitments, and both the manager and the team member (managee) see the same questions on their forms.
You can't target questions to a specific team, department, or user role.
You can't give managers a different set of questions than team members.
Changing a question or commitment affects everyone on every future review.
Reviews that were already started won't pick up later edits — only new reviews use the updated questions.
The only place a manager and a team member see different wording is on commitments. A single commitment can be phrased one way for the manager's view and another way for the team member's view (for example, "I provide the necessary resources" versus "I am provided the necessary resources"). This is the same commitment shown from each person's perspective — it is not a separate question, and it does not let you ask managers and team members different things.
What you can and can't customize
You can customize the questions and commitments inside the Leadership and Management Assessment sections of the review. The other sections of the review form are fixed and cannot be removed, hidden, or turned off.
You can customize:
The open-ended questions in the Quarterly Questions and Annual Questions sets.
The Leadership and Coaching commitments (including their per-perspective wording and descriptors).
The order questions and commitments appear in.
You can't remove or hide:
The Core Values section.
The GWC® (Gets it, Wants it, Capacity to do it) section.
The Performance Data section (Rocks, To-Dos, and Measurables).
If one of these fixed sections isn't relevant for a particular conversation, note that during the meeting discussion, but the section itself will always appear on the form.
Creating and editing commitments
Access Review Settings by clicking 1-on-1 from the left navigation, then clicking the settings gear icon on the top right of the page to create new or edit existing commitments.
Creating
New commitments are added to the bottom of their respective list. You can drag and drop commitments into your desired order.
Click the plus sign next to either Leadership or Coaching Commitments.
Click the new commitment called "Commitment Name."
Write a new title.
Click Add Descriptor to add additional context (optional).
Click the Save button.
Click the toggle to switch between how your team members and how your managers will read each commitment, so each is clear and easy to understand from that person's perspective. You can edit the language of the same commitment in each view.
For example, the second default leadership commitment has different language for each person in a review:
Team members will read: "I am provided the necessary resources."
Managers will read: "I provide the necessary resources."
Editing
Click any commitment to change its title and add or remove descriptors in the Edit Commitment panel.
Deleting
Click the trashcan icon on any commitment's or descriptor's row to delete it.
Organizing
Hover over and then click and hold the six-dot icon on the left of a commitment or descriptor to drag and drop items into your preferred order.
Resetting
Click Reset at the top right of the page to:
Click Cancel Changes to remove any unsaved changes to your Review Settings.
Click Reset to Default to remove every change you've made to Review Settings.
Both options result in permanent changes that cannot be undone.
Creating and editing review questions
Access Review Settings by clicking 1-on-1 from the left navigation, then clicking the settings gear icon on the top right of the page to create new or edit existing Review questions. Then click the Quarterly Questions or Annual Questions tab. Questions for Quarterly and Annual Reviews are always open-ended, written responses.
Creating
Click Add Question at the bottom of the current list of questions.
Write the new question's Side Bar Link (which usually describes the question's category).
Write the new question's text.
Click Save.
Editing
Click an existing question's Side Bar Link or Question text to access its text field.
Deleting
Click the trashcan icon on any question's row to delete it.
Organizing
Hover over and then click and hold the six-dot icon on the left of a question to drag and drop items into your preferred order.
Resetting
Click Reset at the top right of the page to either:
Click Cancel Changes to remove any unsaved changes to your Review Settings.
Click Reset to Default to remove every change you've made to Review Settings.
Both options result in permanent changes that cannot be undone.
Working around the lack of team- or role-specific questions
Because questions apply to the whole organization, there's no built-in way to show a department, team, or role its own questions. If you need a question that only applies to some people, the practical workaround is to label it clearly so reviewers know when it's relevant to them.
Add a prefix to the question text, such as "Accounting only — …" or "Managers only — …," so people know whether to answer it.
Remember that any question you add appears for everyone, every quarter, until you remove it. There's no per-quarter or per-cycle version of the question set — changing questions from quarter to quarter means editing them globally each time.
If you need true department- or role-specific competencies (for example, evaluating each role against its own set of competencies), you could create a customized form using the Assessments tool.
Frequently asked questions
Can managers and team members have different review questions?
No. The question set is shared across your entire organization, and both the manager and the team member (managee) see the same questions. The only per-role difference is the wording toggle on commitments, which shows the same commitment phrased for each person's perspective — it does not let you ask managers and team members different questions.
Can I set different questions for different teams, departments, or roles?
No. Review questions and commitments apply to the entire organization. It is not currently possible to set different questions for different teams, departments, or user roles. As a workaround, label questions clearly (for example, "Accounting only — …") so reviewers know which ones apply to them.
Can I change the review questions from quarter to quarter?
There's no per-quarter version of the question set. You can edit the questions at any time, but each edit is global and applies to everyone going forward. Reviews that were already started keep the questions they were created with; only new reviews use the updated set.
Can I shorten the form or remove the GWC or Core Values sections for some people?
No. The Core Values, GWC®, and Performance Data sections are fixed parts of every review form and can't be removed, hidden, or shortened, and form changes can't be limited to specific people. You can customize the questions and commitments in the Leadership and Management Assessment sections, but those changes also apply organization-wide.