Conversations v2 in Perform & Engage 365: introduction

Introduction

Conversations v2 helps organizations facilitate structured discussions between employees and reviewers through configurable templates and campaigns. Whether you're conducting performance reviews, career development discussions, one-to-one meetings, engagement check-ins, or feedback processes, Conversations v2 provides a consistent framework for meaningful and actionable conversations.

With Conversations v2, Organization admins can create reusable conversation templates, launch campaigns for groups of employees, and track progress through a structured review process. Participants complete conversations in stages, sharing responses, comments, and attachments as they work together through the conversation.

IMPORTANT

Conversations v2 and the legacy Conversations experience operate independently. They use separate templates, campaigns, notifications, and configuration settings.

Templates and campaigns created in the legacy Conversations experience can't be used in Conversations v2. Similarly, Conversations v2 templates and campaigns don't appear in the legacy experience.

How it works

Conversations is built around three key components: conversation templates, campaigns, and conversations.

Conversation templates

A conversation template defines the structure of a conversation. Templates contain stages, sections, and elements that determine what participants see and complete during the conversation. Templates can be reused across multiple campaigns and must be published before they can be used.

Campaigns

A campaign determines who receives conversations, when they are created, and which template is used.

A campaign determines who receives conversations, when they are created, which template is used, and how reviewers are assigned. Campaigns can be configured while in Draft status and become active when launched.

A single template can be used in multiple campaigns, enabling organizations to run different conversation programs while maintaining a consistent structure.

Conversations

A conversation is the individual experience completed by a focus person and one or more reviewers. Each conversation is generated from a campaign and follows the structure defined in the associated template.

Key concepts

Before you start using Conversations, it's helpful to understand some common terminology.

Focus person

The focus person is the employee the conversation is about. Each conversation has one focus person.

Reviewer

A reviewer is a participant assigned to review and contribute to a conversation. Depending on the conversation design, reviewers might provide feedback, ratings, comments, approvals, and other responses.

Stages

Stages represent the different phases of a conversation, such as a self review, manager review, or one-to-one discussion. Conversations move through stages in sequence until they are completed.

Sections

Sections help organize content within a stage, making longer conversations easier to navigate.

Elements

Elements are the individual items participants interact with during a conversation. Examples of available elements include:

Open text questions
Scale ratings
Single choice questions
Multiple choice questions
Checkboxes
To do lists
Goal planning activities
Informational content
Data summaries from other Perform & Engage 365 features.

Roles and permissions

Organization admins

Organization admins have full access to Conversations and can:

Create and manage conversation templates.
Publish templates.
Create, edit, launch and close campaigns.
Manage conversations.
Close campaigns.
Return conversations to previous stages when necessary.

Reviewers

Reviewers can access conversations assigned to them and might be able to:

Complete reviewer stages.
Add comments.
View participant responses.
Progress conversations through stages.
Complete conversations, depending on template configuration.

Focus persons

Focus persons can access their own conversations and might be able to:

Complete assigned stages.
Respond to questions.
Add comments.
Upload attachments where enabled.

Accessing Conversations

Conversations is available within Perform & Engage 365. Conversation and Super admins access Conversations through the administration area, where they can manage templates, campaigns, and conversations.

Participants can complete conversations using:

The Perform & Engage 365 app in Microsoft Teams.
The Perform & Engage 365 web application.

Conversation lifecycle

When a conversation is created, it begins in the first stage of the template. Participants complete and submit each stage, which advances the conversation to the next stage. The conversation continues through all stages until the final stage is completed.

The availability of stages depends on the stage visibility settings configured in the template. Some stages might be visible only to the focus person, some only to reviewers, and others to both focus persons and reviewers.

Conversation and Super admins can return a conversation to an earlier stage if changes or corrections are required.

Campaign statuses

At any one time, campaigns display one of the following statuses.

Draft. The campaign has been created but not launched. Draft campaigns can be edited and launched.
Scheduled. The campaign has been launched and is waiting for its configured start date. The campaign is read only.
Live. The campaign is actively creating conversations. The campaign is read only.
Completed. All scheduled conversations have been created and the campaign has reached its end date.
Closed. The campaign has been manually closed and won't generate additional conversations.

Existing conversations remain accessible even after a campaign becomes Completed or Closed.

Comments and attachments

Templates can be configured to enable participants to add comments and upload attachments to specific elements. Where enabled, attachments remain available throughout the conversation and after it has been completed. Participants can also use comments to provide additional context and collaborate with other participants.

Next steps

After understanding the basics of Conversations, you can:

Create and manage conversation templates
Configure stages, sections, and elements
Launch and manage campaigns
Complete conversations as a participant
Manage conversations as an admin.