Formal Review Cycles in TaskRely

The automatic performance score runs quietly in the background every month. A review cycle is different - it's a deliberate, scheduled period where a manager sits down and adds real written context on top of that number, and it follows a clear, structured lifecycle from start to finish.

Only an org admin can create one. Click New cycle from the Review Cycles page and set:

• Type - Monthly, Quarterly, or Custom. Monthly and Quarterly fill in sensible period dates automatically; Custom lets you pick your own.
• Evidence cutoff - the point after which nothing new counts toward this cycle.
• Manager deadline - how long managers have to write their part before the window closes.
• Employee response window - how many days someone gets to respond once results are published.

It's created as a Draft - nobody but admins can see it yet, which gives you room to set it up properly before anyone's aware it exists.

From there, it moves through four stages:

• Draft - being set up, invisible to everyone else.
• Open - managers can now write their assessment for each person on their team, up until the manager deadline.
• Published - results are visible to employees, who get their response window to read it and, if something seems off, respond or open a dispute.
• Locked - final. Nothing about the cycle can change after this.

Each move forward is a deliberate click - Open cycle, then Publish (which checks that things are actually ready first), then Lock cycle - never automatic, so a cycle only advances when an admin decides it should. For what actually happens inside the Open and Published stages - writing an assessment, responding, disputing - see Manager assessments & disputes.