Moving Reviews Through Steps

Reviews progress through steps sequentially — feedback, then meeting, then signature. As a review supervisor, you decide when to move from one step to the next. This gives you control over pacing, but it also requires judgment calls about when to proceed.

This article explains how to move reviews through their workflow, when to wait for completion, and how to handle participants who haven't finished.

Reviews move through steps in a fixed order. You can't skip steps or change the sequence, but you control the timing.

The order is always:

Once you complete one step, you move to the next. If you need to go back to a previous step — to correct information, collect additional feedback, or address something that was missed — review supervisors can reopen earlier steps.

The system doesn't automatically move reviews forward. You decide when to proceed:

This flexibility lets you adapt to your organization's needs and circumstances.

Deciding when to proceed requires balancing completeness against timeline. Here's how to think through it.

When you'll see this:
All participants have completed

What to do:
Move to the next step immediately. There's no reason to wait when everyone has finished.

When you'll see this:
The completion count shows "4 of 5 completed". One or two stragglers haven't finished.

What to do:
Depends on who's missing and why:

Proceed if:

Wait if:

When you'll see this:
The completion count shows "2 of 5 completed" or "1 of 8 completed." Most people haven't finished.

What to do:
Don't move forward yet. Low completion indicates a bigger issue:

Investigate:

Take action:

When you'll see this:
One critical person (usually the manager or note taker) hasn't completed their part, and they're blocking progress.

What to do:

For feedback or preparation steps:

For meeting summary:

Once you've decided to proceed, here's how to execute the transition.

The next step opens, and participants for that step receive notifications.

When you move to the next step before everyone completes, here's what happens to those who didn't finish.

Once you move forward, the previous step closes. Participants who didn't complete:

Example: If you move from feedback to meeting step, feedback givers who didn't submit can no longer give feedback.

The system tracks that they didn't complete:

This creates an audit trail showing partial completion.

The review proceeds with whatever was collected:

Important: You can't go back and add their contribution later. Once the step closes, it's final.

Being incomplete in one step doesn't remove them from future steps:

Each step is independent.

Don't assume participants will notice steps changing. Active communication prevents confusion.

Send a heads-up message to participants:

Example message:

"Reminder: The feedback step closes tomorrow at 5 PM. Please complete your feedback before then. After that, we'll move to the review meeting step and you won't be able to submit feedback late."

This sets clear expectations and gives one last push for completion.

The system sends automated notifications to participants in the new step, but consider also sending:

To the previous step's incomplete participants:

"The feedback step has closed. Thank you to those who completed their feedback. If you didn't complete yours, please reach out if there were issues — we want to understand what prevented your participation."

To the next step's participants:

"We're moving to the review meeting step. Managers, please write your meeting summaries by Friday. You can see all feedback collected during step 1."

This keeps everyone informed and aligned.

When the final step finishes, acknowledge completion:

Example:

"All annual reviews are now complete! Thank you for your participation. Reviews are now available in read-only mode for your reference. Questions? Contact HR."

Sometimes you need to go back. Maybe feedback was submitted with errors, a participant wants to change their response, or the review was completed but something needs to be corrected. Review supervisors can reopen any previous step.

Reopen a step when:

This works for reviews that are in progress, completed, or cancelled.

When you reopen a step:

If someone wrote a meeting summary based on specific feedback, and that feedback was then changed, the summary might no longer be accurate. By requiring participants to go through later steps again, you ensure they're aware of any changes and can validate that their work still reflects the updated content.

Participants don't need to rewrite everything. They can review what they previously submitted, confirm it's still correct, and submit it again. But they need to actively do this so there are no changes made without their awareness.

If a review shouldn't continue — for example, the employee left the company, the review is no longer relevant, or there's a significant issue — you can cancel it instead of letting it sit in progress indefinitely.

If you cancelled a review by mistake or changed your mind, you can restore it.

The review picks up where it was before cancellation. Participants can continue their work.