Skill map cycles
A cycle runs the skill maps again for a group of people, with an opening date, a deadline, reminders and a record of each round. Use it when your company wants to map the same people again, say every semester, and compare one round with the previous one. The same cycle can also include an assessment and an announcement.
Cycles live in Skills > Cycles. The Cycles tab lists drafts, scheduled, open and closed cycles; the Archived tab keeps the ones you took off the list. Search by name and use the Status filter to find a cycle. Below the title you see how many cycles were scheduled in the last 12 months and the plan limit.
Create a cycle
Click New cycle. There are four steps.
Period: the name, a short description (bold, italic and underline are allowed), when the cycle opens and when it closes. Under Repeat this cycle, you can have the next cycle created as a draft a few months later. It only starts when someone schedules it.
Steps and audience: who joins and what each step asks for.
The audience can be the people in the chosen careers (each one gets the map of the position they hold) or the same people and maps as a previous cycle. The preview shows how many people join, how many have no map among the checked ones and who is left out.
The skill maps step applies the maps you check.
Add assessment creates a step with one of the company's published assessments. Each person gets the assessment's own invite, valid until the step closes.
Add profile update creates a step where each person reviews their own profile. Check the sections they need to review (education, experience, languages, certifications, profile skills and others) and, among them, the required ones.
Add announcement creates a step that only sends an e-mail, for example to say the cycle has started.
Flow and notifications: for each step, when it is sent (at the opening, on a date, or some days after the person finishes another step), the deadline and when it closes.
Under The step closes, choose With the cycle or On a date. After the deadline, whoever has not finished shows as overdue and can still answer until the step closes.
Under E-mails, each send shows the date it goes out to the first person: invite, reminders before the deadline and overdue notice. Reminders and notices only go to people who have not finished. Use Add e-mail to include another reminder or notice.
Each e-mail uses the company template (or the default one, if the company has none). To write a text just for this cycle, click the pencil on the send. Preview shows the e-mail with sample data.
The invite of the assessment step is the assessment's own e-mail; the cycle sends the reminders and the overdue notice, with the link to take the assessment.
If the company would rather tell people itself, check The company tells people itself and the step sends no e-mails.
Review: the number of people, the credits and the comparison with the previous cycle.
Skill maps do not use credits. The assessment uses the credits of a regular invite, per person. If the balance does not cover everyone, the review warns you, and whoever does not fit waits for credit.
The comparability tag shows how much of the maps' content is the same as in the previous cycle. Hover over it to see what the number means. Below 90%, confirm you are aware before scheduling.
Click Schedule cycle. From then on, the list of people is frozen and the platform sends each step on its date. To stop halfway, use Save draft.
Follow up
Open the cycle from the list. The Overview tab shows, per step, how many people are done, in progress, open or overdue. The timeline shows each step with the part already done and a line on today; hover over a step to see its dates.
The People tab shows where each person is in each step, with the date they finished or the deadline, and the next planned send, which tells you why someone has not received it yet.
In the cycle's action menu you can:
Open now a scheduled cycle, before its date.
Send now a step to whoever has not received it yet.
Pause sends and Resume sends.
Make a new revision of a step after changing the map: people not sent yet get the new version, and people already sent keep theirs.
Close now, Cancel cycle and Duplicate.
Archive a closed or canceled cycle. It moves to the Archived tab, where you can Unarchive it.
The actions of a step sit in the same menu, grouped under its name. Closing, canceling and the other actions that cannot be undone ask for confirmation first.
In a profile update step, the People tab tells apart who updated (with the sections that changed) from who reviewed with no changes. See what changed, in the row menu, shows the difference by section: what was added, removed and changed, and the sections confirmed as they were.
On the People tab, the menu of each row lets you extend a person's deadline or remove them from the cycle. The Add people button brings in whoever joined the company after scheduling.
💡 Once a step is sent, its audience, maps and dependencies no longer change. Future dates, deadline and notifications can still be adjusted.
Close
When you click Close now, the confirmation shows, per step, how many people have not finished. On the closing date (or when you close early), whoever has not answered stays pending, the cycle's maps stop taking answers and assessment invites nobody started expire. The results are kept as they were, to compare with the next cycle.
After the close, changing the result of an assessment of the cycle (granting an appeal, annulling a question, changing a score or applying the integrity ruler again) asks for confirmation. The change is made and kept as a revision of the result, with who made it and the previous value.
What people see
Participants get the step e-mails and find their cycles in Skills > Cycles: the steps, the status of each one and the dates. With maps pending, they see Answer my maps; with the assessment open, Take the assessment; in a profile update, Review my profile. The cycle configuration is not shown to them.
In a profile update, the top of My Profile lists the sections to review and the required ones. For each section, the person confirms it is right (Confirm as is) or edits it in their profile, and an edited section already counts as reviewed. After the required ones, they click Send review. Whoever has not sent it when the step closes shows as incomplete.