Administrator's Guide to Activating Review Cycles

Activating a Review Cycle is what turns a published template into a live, in-flight performance process. It tells Prosper which employees should be reviewed, who reviews them, when the cycle opens and closes, and how progress is tracked. A well-activated cycle drives high completion rates and clean, comparable reporting at the end.

Who this is for: Administrators only

Read time: 6 minutes

What is a Review Cycle?

A Review Cycle is a scheduled run of performance reviews against a published template. Where a template defines what the review looks like, a cycle defines:

Who is reviewed — the population of employees.
Who reviews them — typically each employee's direct manager.
When the cycle runs — open date, close date, and key milestones.
What template is used — locked in at activation so every reviewer works from the same version.
How progress is tracked — completion rates, reminders, and reporting.

Activating the cycle is the moment Prosper notifies managers, opens the reviews for completion, and starts tracking progress.

Prerequisites

You must have Administrator permissions in Prosper.
The Performance Reviews module must be enabled for your organisation.
The template you intend to use must be published (enabled). See Administrator's Guide to Publishing Performance Reviews.
Employee and manager relationships must be up to date — Prosper uses these to assign reviewers automatically.

Before you activate: pre-flight checklist

Activating a cycle is straightforward; what makes a cycle successful is the preparation. Run through this list before you click Activate:

Template is finalised and published. Walk through it in Preview one last time.
Employee data is current. Confirm new starters are in Prosper and leavers have been deactivated.
Manager assignments are correct. Spot-check a sample — incorrect manager mappings are the single biggest cause of review chaos.
Audience scope is defined. Decide whether the cycle covers the whole business, a single site, a department, or a specific role group.
Dates are agreed with leadership. Open date, close date, and any internal milestones (for example, "all manager ratings done by") should be locked in.
Comms plan is ready. Managers and employees should know the cycle is coming, why it matters, and what's expected of them.
Calibration plan is in place. Decide when calibration sessions will happen relative to the cycle close.

How to activate a Review Cycle

Step 1 — Open Review Cycles

From the Prosper main menu, navigate to Performance.
Select Schedule Review.

Step 2 — Create a new cycle

Select a Start Date and End Date for the Review Period.

Step 3 — Select the template

Choose the published template the cycle will use. Only enabled templates appear in the dropdown.

Important: Once a cycle is activated, the template version is locked. If you need to change the template after activation, you'll need to cancel and restart the cycle. See Cloning and Versioning Review Templates for guidance on template changes.

Step 4 — Define the audience

Specify who the cycle applies to. Options typically include:

All employees — the entire active workforce.
By site — one or more selected sites.
By department — one or more functions.
By role — specific job roles.
Custom list — a manually selected group of employees.

The audience builder displays a live count of employees who match your criteria — confirm this number matches your expectation before continuing.

Step 5 — Notifications

Automated reminders drive completion:

Cycle open notifications — sent to managers when the administrator activates the cycle.
Employee notifications — sent to employees via SMS and email, prompt to submit their self-reflection.
Manager notifications — sent to managers when an employee submits their self-reflection.
Reminders — sent to employees if their self-reflection remains incomplete before or after the scheduled review date.

Managing a live cycle

Tracking progress

Use the Performance dashboard to monitor completion rates by site, team, department, and manager. See Using Filters to Export Performance Dashboard Data for how to scope the view to what you need.

Adding employees mid-cycle

New starters who join after the cycle opens are not automatically added. If you want them included:

Open the active cycle from Manage Reviews.
Select Add Recipients.
Choose the employees to include. Prosper will create reviews for them and notify their managers.

Removing employees from a cycle

If an employee leaves or is excluded after activation, archive their review to keep your completion metrics clean:

Locate the employee in the Performance Dashboard.
Find the upcoming or completed review.
Select ⋮ > Archive.

Tips and best practices

Activate one cycle at a time per audience. Running two active cycles against the same population creates confusion and fragments completion data. If you need to run parallel cycles, scope them to different audiences (for example, frontline vs managers).
Brief managers before activation, not after. Managers should know the cycle is coming before they receive the open notification — surprise reviews land poorly.
Build in a buffer before calibration. Allow at least a week between the cycle close and any calibration session, so you have time to clean and review the data.
Run a small pilot for new templates. If you're activating a significantly changed template, consider running it with one site or department first before rolling out organisation-wide.
Watch completion rates daily in the final week. A 30-second check on the dashboard each morning surfaces stuck reviews early, when you can still do something about them.

Troubleshooting

The employee count in the audience builder looks wrong.
Check that the audience filters match your intent, and confirm employee status is current. The count reflects active employees matching your criteria at the moment you're configuring the cycle.

The template I want to use isn't in the dropdown.
Templates must be enabled (published) to appear here. Go to Manage Reviews, confirm the template is active, then return to the cycle setup.

A manager says they can't see the reviews they should be conducting.
Check that the manager's direct reports are included in the cycle audience. The most common cause is an out-of-date manager assignment.

I activated the wrong template — what now?
Create and activate a new cycle with the correct template.

Completion has stalled mid-cycle.
Use the dashboard to identify managers with outstanding reviews and send a targeted nudge. Public completion rates (visible to leadership) often move things faster than individual reminders.

Can I run two cycles for different audiences at the same time?
Yes — for example, an annual review for managers running alongside a quarterly check-in for frontline staff.

Can I schedule a cycle to activate automatically on a future date?
Activation is a manual action. Set a calendar reminder for yourself to activate the cycle in advance of that date.

Administrator's Guide to Publishing Performance Reviews
Creating a Performance Review Template
Cloning and Versioning Review Templates
User Guide: Manager Ratings
Using Filters to Export Performance Dashboard Data
Exporting Performance Review Data

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