How to use automations

You can use assessment automations to automate the creation of assessment cycles based on specific rules. Sample use cases include

• Probation period assessments: Assessments that are automatically created after a predefined number of weeks after an employee joins the company. They are used to discuss onboarding progress for the employee and manage performance expectations going forward.
  
  
• Decentralized annual assessments: Instead of assessing all employees in a centralized cycle, you can review them quarterly / bi-annually / annually based on their original start date. That way, performance assessments are spread out over the year, creating a more even workload distribution for managers.

How to set up a new automation rule

To create a new automation rule, you will first have to define a cycle template which will be contain the settings, scope and questions of your automated cycles. After you created your first template, please navigate to "Automations".

Name

Here, click "Create" to create a new rule. You will first be asked to provide a name for your rule.

Timing

Following that, you should select when your automation should be run:

• You can run the automation once for each employee, a certain number of weeks after he / she joined the company. This is the scenario of probation period assessments.
  
  
• You can also select to create a repeating automation. Each employee will be included for the first time a certain number of weeks after he / she joined, and then again (and again) after your repetition interval has passed. 

In the example above, an employee that joined on January 1st would be included for the first time on April 1st, and then every three months (on July 1st, October 1st, etc.).

Teams

In the next step, select for which employees (all of them, or only members of specific teams, or all employees except for members of a specific team) this rule should be applied.

Template

Finally, select the template that you want to use for your automation. Each time a new cycle is created based on your automation, we will use the current version of that template, so you can make changes in between.

Important notes on timing

• Each rule will be run once every Monday morning. All employees that matched the criteria you defined during the previous week will be included in a new cycle. When a rule is first applied, anyone that matched the criteria (based on the start / hire date) during the last 30 days will be included.
  
  
• Whenever a new cycle is created by an automation, it will be "ready for kick off". The actual kickoff will be triggered 7 days later, so you'll have plenty of time to make changes to your cycle, if required. Of course you can also (manually) kick it off right away by clicking the "Proceed" button in the cycle dashboard.
  
  
• Admins can preview who will be included in their review automations during the next 6 weeks. The preview can be found when accessing the automation details.

Filtering automated cycles

To find automatically created cycles as a super-admin, please go to "Cycles" and select "Created by a specific automation" from the dropdown filter. You can then select the automation and will see all cycles that were automatically created by it.

Setting start / hire dates for employees

If you're using our BambooHR or Personio integration, the hire dates will automatically be imported from those systems. If you're using our excel import, please make sure to add the hire date in the last column. You can also edit the start / hire date manually by opening the user details on the "Users & Teams" tab.