A cycle organizes an activity your company needs people to repeat from time to time: answering a skill map, taking an assessment, reviewing their profile or having their levels confirmed by their manager. It works like a small project, with an opening date, steps, an audience, deadlines, automatic emails and a record of what each person delivered that time.

This article explains the idea, the two kinds of cycle and some ways to use them. To create your first one, see Skill map cycles.

Without cycles, a mapping or assessment round usually relies on manual work:

A cycle brings all of this into one place. You set up once what should happen, for whom and when, and the platform sends, reminds, tracks and keeps each round separate. Next time, the new result shows up next to the previous one, so it is easy to see how each person and the team have progressed.

A cycle can have a single step or several. Each type has its own purpose:

Steps can go out together, on their own date or only after the person finishes the previous step. This lets you build a sequence, such as reviewing the profile first, then answering the map and finally getting the manager's endorsement.

The most important choice in a cycle is its type. It defines how people come in, how deadlines count and what happens afterwards.

Choose a round when your company works with a calendar: everyone answers in the same period, results are presented together and the next round has a set date, like a twice-a-year assessment.

Choose continuous when the activity follows each person's journey rather than a company date: newcomers need to do it at some point, and those who already did should repeat only after an interval. Completions from before the cycle existed also count, so nobody is invited again too early.

Once scheduled, the cycle type cannot change. If in doubt, ask yourself "does everyone start on the same day?". If yes, it is a round.

These are common scenarios, and they can be combined.

The company maps the team's skills, provides training for the gaps and wants to know, six months later, whether people improved. A round cycle with a skill map step and a manager endorsement step does the job. With Repeat this cycle every 6 months, the next round is created ready for review, and the new map appears next to the previous one in Compare results across cycles.

The company wants each employee to take a knowledge assessment once a year, but people join on different dates. A continuous cycle with an assessment step invites newcomers a few days after they join and brings each person back 12 months after their last completion. Anyone who took the assessment recently, even before the cycle, waits for the interval and does not get a repeated invite.

Completeness reports show outdated profiles with missing education or experience. A cycle with a profile update step asks each person to review the chosen sections by a date, with reminders, and shows who updated, who confirmed without changes and what changed. To make sure the profile only changes at those moments, the company can lock the profile outside cycles.

Every new hire should complete their profile and answer the map for their position in the first weeks. A continuous cycle with a profile update followed by a skill map handles it on its own: the person joins the cycle a few days after being hired, gets the profile first and the map only after finishing the profile.

A round has closed and some people did not finish, because of vacation, leave or a recent hire. A new cycle can read the step of the previous cycle and create it only for those who did not finish, or bring the new audience and the pending people together. Those who already finished stay out, and each cycle keeps its own numbers.

Before opening the main step, the company wants to explain why the round exists and what is expected from each person. An announcement step at the start of the cycle sends that email to the whole audience.

Participants get an email for each step, in their profile language, and reminders stop as soon as the step is done. In Skills > Cycles, the My cycles page shows only what matters to them: the steps, the status of each one, the deadline and a button for what is left. Cycle settings are visible only to administrators. See Take part in a cycle at your company.

Do I need one cycle per activity?

No. A cycle can have several steps of different types. Create separate cycles when the activities have different audiences or calendars.

What happens to people who join the company during the cycle?

In a round, check Include who joins the audience after scheduling so they come in on their own until the cycle closes. In a continuous cycle, they always come in, following the entry rule.

Will someone who did the same activity recently be invited again?

In a round, use Skip who completed this activity in the last N days. In a continuous cycle, renewal already counts from the last completion, even if it happened before the cycle.

Can I use my own text in the emails?

Yes. Each email has a default text you can edit for that cycle only, with variables such as the person's name, the deadline and the link. In an assessment step, the cycle text replaces the assessment's own invite.

Can I delete a cycle that has already started?

An open cycle is not deleted: you can close it and then archive it to remove it from the list. Each round's record stays available for comparison. See Track and close a cycle.