Create and manage conversation plans in Perform & Engage 365

Introduction

Required role: Super admin.

The Conversations feature in Perform & Engage 365 enables managers to review employee's performance, schedule 1:1 discussions, and request feedback from anyone at the organization about employees.

As a Super admin, you can create conversation templates, including 360° feedback templates, which you can then use to create plans. This article describes how to create, view, and manage conversation plans.

Create a conversation plan

1. Go to Organization > Conversations. The Conversation Templates Configuration page opens on the Plans tab.

2. Select Create new plan. The Create a new review plan dialog opens.

3. Enter a Plan name, then select the Department (optional) and Template from the drop-down lists. If you're creating an ad-hoc plan and don't select a department, you can launch the template for all users.

4. The Key Statistics (optional) field is shown when you select a template. Select an option from the drop-down list if required and if there is one available.

5. In the Reviewers section, select a Primary Reviewer from the drop-down list.

6. If you want to add this template to the organization and department dashboards, select the Add to Org and Department dashboards checkbox.

7. Select an option in the When would you like the reports to be run? section. Additional options might be displayed, depending on your selection:

• Ad hoc only. Select Who can create from the drop-down list. Select the Allow edit of start/end date checkbox if you want to allow the reviewer or employee to adjust the review start and end dates.
• Specific dates. The report will run on a schedule. In the Schedule section that opens, enter the Cycle Name, and select the Period Start, Period End, and Generate Review on dates. Select Add new to define more report cycles. Select the X icon to delete a cycle. If an ad hoc conversation is created during the period of a scheduled conversation, you can choose whether you want to replace the scheduled conversation with the ad hoc one. To do this, select the Allow ad hoc creation checkbox.
• Repeating. The report will run at regular intervals. Select Weekly or Monthly form the Cadence drop-down list.
• Employee start date. Specify how many Days after start date you want to report to run. This option is available for organizations that have synchronized their Microsoft Entra ID (Azure Active Directory) data and have populated the employees' start date field.
• Employee anniversary.
• Person property date. This option is available for organizations that have an upload date data for their users, and this date differs from the conversation start date.
   

8. Select Create. The plan is created and displayed on the Plans tab. To launch the conversation template for all affected users, hover over In draft in the Status column and select Set to live.

View and manage existing conversation plans

Go to Organization > Conversations. The Conversation Templates Configuration page opens on the Plans tab.

All conversation plans are displayed in a table. Here, you can see the following information:

• Name. The name of the conversation plan.
• Department. The template is available only to users in the selected departments. If you want to make the template available to all users at your organization, leave this field blank or add all departments.
• Template. The template used for the plan.
• Status. Shows if the plan is live or in draft. You can set a live plan to draft, thereby deactivating it, or set a draft to live.
• Frequency. Shows if the plan is scheduled or ad hoc.
• Next Run. Shows the next scheduled run of the conversation plan. If a plan is live, and the plan has the Ad hoc option enabled, you can launch the template manually by selecting Run now.

Select Run now in the Next run column to run this plan now. The Run this plan now dialog opens, which shows the users affected by the plan. You can filter the information by any of the column headings.

When you're happy with your selection, choose how you want to run the plan. Select the checkboxes of the relevant people then Run plan for selected. Alternatively, select or Run plan for all. The number users for whom the plan will be run is shown in brackets. Select the dates the and select Confirm.

Back on the Plans tab of the Conversation Templates Configuration page, you can select the bin icon to delete a plan. You can delete plans with the In draft status only. This action can't be undone.

To edit a plan, select the edit icon.

Select Data to open the Report Summary page, where you can view the template's data as a line or bar chart. You can view the data for each template element or question by setting the relevant filters and grouping parameters. Below the chart, you can see the template data and export it to a CSV file.

Back on the Plans tab of the Conversation Templates Configuration page, select Dashboard to open the report dashboard page, where you can view the conversation's Review status and Key Statistics charts. On the right-hand side, you can see the number of conversation Participants, as well as the number of employees who have Started or Not yet started the conversation. Select View details in the Review status section to view the conversation status. Select View statistics in the Key Statistics section to go to the Review Summary page.

Deactivate a plan

Hover over a plan and select Set to draft. This deactivates the template. However, you can still view the data collected by the template.