Setting up a review cycle

Learn how, as an HR admin, you start a review cycle. In a review cycle everyone reflects on their own work, colleagues and the manager give feedback, and the manager then goes through it all with the employee. This is also called 360-degree feedback.

How does a review cycle work?

A cycle has three phases:

1. Collecting feedback: participants fill in a self-assessment, colleagues give peer feedback and the manager gives manager feedback. This runs until the Feedback deadline.
2. Manager review: after the deadline, the manager reviews all the feedback, writes a summary and releases the results to the employee.
3. Completed: the cycle is done. Everyone can look back at their own results.

Most cycles run 2 to 4 weeks. Only one cycle can run at a time.

Where do you find it?

In the left menu, go to HR → Review cycles.

Step 1: Setup

1. Click Start new cycle.
2. Enter a Cycle name, for example "Spring 2027 review". A Description is optional and only for you.
3. Choose the Language of the questions.
4. Choose the Feedback deadline: until when everyone can give feedback. Give people at least two weeks.
5. Choose Results released by: when managers share the results at the latest. Usually one to two weeks after the feedback deadline.
6. Under "Who picks the peer reviewers?", choose:
7. • Managers pick the peers: the manager decides who gives feedback to whom. Faster, and a good choice for a first cycle.
   • Employees pick their own peers: everyone invites colleagues who know their work well. Then also choose an Invitation deadline.
7. Set the number of peers with Min peer reviewers and Max peer reviewers. 3 to 5 is typical.
8. Keep Collect feedback anonymously on if you want. Anonymous feedback tends to be more honest. See "Good to know" below.
9. Click Next.

Step 2: Participants

Choose who gets reviewed:

• All employees: everyone with an active account.
• By team: everyone currently on the teams you pick.
• Individual selection: specific people, one by one.

Step 3: Questions

Heartsome loads a default set of questions, covering topics such as communication, collaboration and reliability. Use them as they are, adjust them, or add your own with Add a question.

• Rating questions are answered on a scale from 1 (Needs significant improvement) to 5 (Outstanding). Anyone who can't judge something chooses Cannot assess.
• Open questions bring out the stories behind the numbers. They're always optional.
• For each question you choose who it's for: the self-assessment, the peers or the manager. Not every question has to go to everyone.

Preview shows how the questions look. Restore default questions takes you back to the default set. Note: your own questions are then lost.

Step 4: Launch

Check your settings and click Launch cycle. All participants then get an email to fill in their self-assessment. If employees pick their own peers, the email also asks them to invite colleagues. If managers pick the peers, managers get an email to assign them.

During the cycle

Open the cycle via HR → Review cycles. You'll see how far everyone has got. Under Actions you can:

• Send reminders: an email to everyone who still has feedback to give.
• Add participants: for example a new colleague. You can do this while feedback is being collected.
• Edit cycle planning: move the deadlines. If you extend the feedback deadline while managers are already reviewing, feedback collection opens again.
• Cancel cycle: the cycle stops and there are no results. This can't be undone. You can then delete a cancelled cycle with Delete cycle.

Does someone not have peers yet? You'll see that at the top, and you can assign them with Assign peers.

After the feedback deadline, the cycle moves to the Manager review phase by itself. See Completing a review cycle.

Good to know

• Anonymous: peers' names aren't shown with their feedback, not even to HR. With fewer than 3 peer responses, Heartsome hides the peer feedback completely, because it could otherwise be traced back. Scores are then based on the self-assessment and the manager feedback.
• Not anonymous: the employee and the manager see who gave each peer response.
• No manager: if a participant has no manager, there's only a self-assessment and peer feedback.
• Is someone leaving during the cycle? The leaving checklist shows what feedback they still have to give. See Working through the leaving checklist.

Who can do this?

Only HR admins and the account owner can set up and manage review cycles.

Updated on: 21/10/2026