Coming in Q4 2026!
Available on: Patriot HR (HR add-on)
Required permission: Full Access for All Payroll
Performance Reviews in Patriot HR lets you run a review cycle for your employees. In a performance review cycle, you write the review questions and set due dates. Each employee completes a self-assessment in the employee portal, and each employee's reviewer writes a reviewer assessment beside the self-assessment. The reviewer shares the final review with the employee, and the employee acknowledges the review. You can track every employee's progress and download finished reviews as PDFs.
Important information about performance reviews before you get started
Employee portal access needed: Employees and reviewers need completed employee portal access to get performance review emails and to fill out their part of the review. Employees whose portal invite is pending or expired are still added to the cycle, but they can't complete their self-assessment until they finish setting up portal access. Go to Payroll > Employees > Employee List to view all employee portal registration statuses.
Managers in your org chart: Patriot assigns each employee's reviewer based on the manager listed in your org chart. Only employees with a manager designation can be selected as reviewers.
Employees with no reviewer: Employees at the top of your org chart default to no reviewer. An employee with no reviewer completes a self-assessment only, and the review is marked Complete once the employee submits it.
One cycle at a time: Your company can have one active performance review cycle and one draft cycle at a time.
Help in the app: Select the ? help icon next to the Performance Reviews or Create New Review Cycle page header to open this help article in a new tab.
How to Start a Performance Review Cycle
You start a performance review cycle on the Create New Review Cycle page. The Create New Review Cycle page has three steps: Details & Questions, Assign Employees, and Review & Publish.
Open the Create New Review Cycle page
When no performance review cycle is active, go to Human Resources > Performance Reviews and use one of these options to open the Create New Review Cycle page:
Select Start new cycle.
Select + New review cycle from the Select a cycle to view dropdown. The Select a cycle to view dropdown appears only when your company has past performance review cycles.
If your company has a past performance review cycle, a View last cycle link appears below the Start new cycle button. Select View last cycle to open your most recent performance review cycle.
Move between steps in the Create New Review Cycle page
The step headers at the top of the Create New Review Cycle page show your progress. Select the header of any step you've already completed to go straight back to that step. Steps you haven't reached yet can't be selected. If you have unsaved changes when you select a step header, Patriot asks whether you want to stay on the page or leave without saving.
Enter the performance review cycle details
On the Details & Questions step, enter a Cycle Name you'll recognize later (for example, "2026 Annual Review"). You can rename the cycle while it's active from the Manage Cycle page, but you can't rename a cycle after it ends.
Enter the Start Date and End Date for the review cycle. The start date can be in the past.
Enter the Employee Self-Assessment Due date and the Reviewer Assessment Due date.
The Employee Self-Assessment Due date must be on or before the Reviewer Assessment Due date.
The Reviewer Assessment Due date must fall between the cycle's start date and end date.
Optional: Enter a Reviewer/Employee Discussion Due date to let everyone know when review conversations should happen. The Reviewer/Employee Discussion Due date is for reference only.
Performance review question types
Performance review questions come in two groups, and the difference between the two groups is who answers each question. You add both groups of questions on the Details & Questions step:
Employee Questions: Both the employee and the reviewer answer Employee Questions. The employee answers each Employee Question in their self-assessment. The reviewer then writes their own response to the same question in the reviewer assessment, right beside the employee's answer. The employee, the reviewer, and admins can see both answers. Use Employee Questions when you want both perspectives on the same topic, such as "What were your biggest accomplishments this year?"
Reviewer Questions: Only the reviewer answers Reviewer Questions. The employee doesn't see Reviewer Questions while writing a self-assessment. Use Reviewer Questions for feedback that comes only from the reviewer, such as "What should this employee focus on next year?" or "Is this employee ready for a promotion?" The Visible to setting controls whether the employee sees the reviewer's answer once the review is shared.
Add Performance Review Questions
You add performance review questions on the Details & Questions step. To copy questions from a past cycle instead, see "Use questions from a past performance review cycle" below.
Select Add Employee Question to add a question to the Employee Questions group, or select Add Reviewer's Question to add a question to the Reviewer Questions group.
Type the question.
Optional: Add helper text to explain the question.
Choose the answer type: Long answer (the default) or Multiple choice. Multiple-choice questions need 2 to 10 choices.
For Reviewer Questions, choose who can see the reviewer's answer in Visible to:
Reviewer & Admins (default): The employee never sees the reviewer's answer, including in their shared review and PDF.
Employee, Reviewer & Admins: The employee sees the reviewer's answer when the review is shared.
Use the up and down arrows to reorder questions within each question group.
Performance review question limits
Each question group holds up to 10 questions.
Every question is required. Employees and reviewers must answer every question before they can submit.
Use questions from a past performance review cycle
If your company has an ended performance review cycle, you can copy that cycle's questions into a new cycle instead of typing them again. Patriot copies both question groups in the same order, including each question's text, helper text, answer type, multiple-choice options, and Visible to setting.
Patriot doesn't copy anything else from the past performance review cycle. The cycle name, dates, included employees, and reviewer assignments start blank, and employee and reviewer answers are never copied. After you copy the questions, you can edit, add, remove, and reorder them. Changes to the new cycle's questions don't affect the past cycle.
Copy questions from the Details & Questions step
On the Details & Questions step, select Use questions from a past cycle next to the Questions header. The Use questions from a past cycle link appears only when your company has at least one ended cycle.
In the Use Questions from a Past Cycle window, choose a cycle from the Cycle dropdown. Your most recently ended cycle is selected by default. The window previews the selected cycle's Employee Questions and Reviewer Questions with each question's answer type.
Select Use these questions. If you already added questions to the new cycle, the past cycle's questions replace them, and the window tells you how many questions will be replaced. To close the window without changing your questions, select Cancel.
Copy questions from an ended cycle's Manage Cycle page
Go to Human Resources > Performance Reviews and choose the ended cycle from the Select a cycle to view dropdown.
Select Manage cycle.
Select Use these questions in a new cycle below the cycle's Questions list. The Create New Review Cycle page opens on the Details & Questions step with the past cycle's questions filled in.
The Use these questions in a new cycle link appears only when no cycle is active and no draft cycle is in progress.
Assign Employees and Reviewers to the Performance Review Cycle
The Assign Employees step lists every employee with a status of Active, Employee Self-Onboarding, or Leave of Absence. Inactive and terminated employees aren't listed and can't be added. A blue banner at the top of the Assign Employees step reminds you that an employee must accept their employee portal invite before they can submit a self-assessment.
Review the employee list. All employees are selected by default. Clear the checkbox next to any employee you don't want to include. At least one employee must be included in the performance review cycle.
Check each employee's Reviewer. Patriot selects the employee's manager from your org chart. Employees at the top of your org chart default to No reviewer.
To change a reviewer, select a different manager from the Reviewer dropdown. A reviewer you choose stays in place even if your org chart changes later.
Check each employee's portal status. Employees who haven't accepted their employee portal invite show Invite not accepted. You can include these employees in the cycle, but they can't start their self-assessment until they accept the invite. See our help article, How to Invite an Employee to Register for the Employee Portal.
Save a performance review cycle as a draft
To finish setting up a performance review cycle later, select Save As Draft on any step. A draft needs a cycle name and dates. To pick up where you left off, go to Human Resources > Performance Reviews and select Continue draft. To discard the draft, select Delete draft.
Review and Publish the Performance Review Cycle
The Review & Publish step is your last chance to check the performance review cycle before employees and reviewers can see it. The Review & Publish step shows:
Cycle and Timeline: The cycle name, start and end dates, and every due date.
Questions: A numbered list of every question in the cycle, with Employee Questions first and Reviewer Questions second. Each question shows its answer type, its multiple-choice options (if any), and who answers it ("Employee answers · Reviewer responds" for Employee Questions, or "Reviewer answers" for Reviewer Questions). Reviewer Questions also show their Visible to setting.
Employees: Every included employee with their reviewer and employee portal status. Employees who haven't accepted their portal invite show "Invite not accepted."
The Questions and Employees sections are expanded by default. Select a section's header to collapse or expand it. The Review & Publish step is read-only. To change a question or an employee, select the Details & Questions or Assign Employees step header, make the change, and return to Review & Publish.
Check each Reviewer Question's Visible to setting carefully. The Visible to setting can't be changed after you publish the cycle.
To publish the performance review cycle:
Select Publish cycle.
Confirm in the window that opens. To keep the cycle as a draft, select Cancel.
When you publish a performance review cycle, Patriot immediately creates a review for each included employee and makes the cycle active. Patriot emails each included employee with portal access to let them know their performance self-assessment is open and ready for their input.
Tracking Progress on an Active Performance Review Cycle
The Performance Reviews overview shows the active cycle's name, dates, and due dates, plus a table of every employee in the cycle with their reviewer, status, and due date. A due date turns red and shows "Past due" once it passes.
Performance review statuses:
Employee Self-Assessment: The employee hasn't submitted their self-assessment yet.
Reviewer Assessment (previously called Manager Review): The employee submitted their self-assessment, and the reviewer is writing the reviewer assessment or has submitted it but not shared it yet.
Shared: The reviewer or an admin shared the final review with the employee.
Acknowledged: The employee acknowledged the shared review. Patriot records the date.
Complete: An employee with no reviewer (for example, an employee at the top of your org chart) submitted their self-assessment. The review shows "No acknowledgment needed" next to the Complete status.
How Complete performance reviews work
A performance review is Complete only when the review had no reviewer at the time the employee submitted their self-assessment.
A Complete performance review never shows as past due.
You can't assign a reviewer to a Complete performance review. The Reviewer dropdown is unavailable for Complete reviews.
If a reviewer is removed after the employee submits (for example, because the reviewer was terminated), the review isn't Complete. The review keeps its current status so you can assign a new reviewer.
An employee with no reviewer who hasn't submitted their self-assessment stays in Employee Self-Assessment status, and you can still assign a reviewer.
Use the search box, reviewer filter, and status filter to find specific employees. The status filter includes every status above, including Complete.
To see an employee's performance review, go to Human Resources > Performance Reviews and select View next to the employee's name. You see submitted answers only, never drafts. Reviewer answers appear once the reviewer submits them. For a Complete review, the review page shows "No reviewer assigned. [Employee first name] completes a self-assessment only."
How to Send Performance Review Reminders to Employees and Reviewers
Admins can send performance review reminder emails to employees and reviewers who still have a task to finish in a performance review cycle. You send performance review reminders from the Performance Reviews overview page. Performance review reminders aren't available on the Manage Cycle page or for a cycle that has ended.
Performance review reminder groups
Patriot sorts performance review reminders into three groups:
Self-assessments to finish: Employees who haven't submitted their self-assessment.
Reviewers with reviews to finish: Reviewers who haven't finished a reviewer assessment. Each reviewer gets one reminder email, even if the reviewer has several reviews to finish.
Shared reviews to acknowledge: Employees whose performance review was shared with them but who haven't acknowledged the review yet.
Send a performance review reminder to a group
Go to Human Resources > Performance Reviews.
Select Send reminders.
Choose a reminder group: Self-assessments to finish, Reviewers with reviews to finish, or Shared reviews to acknowledge.
Optional: Edit the reminder email's subject line. Patriot adds the cycle name, the due date, and a link to the employee portal to every reminder email. These details are listed under Added to every reminder and can't be edited.
Select Preview to check the recipients and the reminder email. To make changes, select Back to edit.
Select Send reminder.
The reminder email subject line goes back to the default subject each time you open Send reminders.
Send a performance review reminder to one person
Go to Human Resources > Performance Reviews and select Send reminders.
Choose the reminder group the person belongs to.
Select Remind on that person's row. The reminder email goes only to that one person.
What happens after you send a performance review reminder
Each person you reminded shows Reminded and the date the reminder was sent, under their due date. The Reminded date shows only while the step you sent the reminder for is still pending. For example, once an employee submits their self-assessment, the Reminded date for the self-assessment reminder no longer shows.
There's no limit on performance review reminders. The Remind link stays available after you send a reminder, so you can remind the same person again.
If a person can't receive a performance review reminder, their row shows the reason instead of Remind. Hover over the reason for more details. Reasons include:
Reviewer has left: The reviewer no longer works for your company. Assign a new reviewer on the Manage Cycle page.
Employee inactive: The employee's status is inactive.
Invite not accepted: The employee hasn't finished setting up employee portal access. See How to Invite an Employee to Register for the Employee Portal.
How to Share a Submitted Reviewer Assessment with an Employee
Admins can share a performance review with the employee when the reviewer has submitted the reviewer assessment but hasn't shared the review yet. Sharing a performance review lets the employee read the final review and acknowledge it in the employee portal.
To share a submitted reviewer assessment as an admin:
Go to Human Resources > Performance Reviews.
Find the employee in the cycle table and select View next to their name. The review panel shows that the reviewer assessment is submitted and not yet shared.
Select Share Review.
Read the confirmation window. Sharing a performance review can't be undone, and no one can edit the review after it's shared.
Select Share Review to share the performance review, or select Cancel to leave the review unshared.
After you share the performance review, the review status changes to Shared, and the employee can acknowledge the review.
How to Make Changes to an Active Performance Review Cycle
After you publish a performance review cycle, you can edit the cycle name, dates, question wording, and helper text, but you can't add, remove, or reorder questions, change answer types, or change the Visible to setting.
To change an active performance review cycle, go to Human Resources > Performance Reviews and select Manage cycle. On the Manage Cycle page, you can:
Rename the cycle: Change the Cycle Name field and select Save Changes. The cycle name can't be blank. The new name shows everywhere the cycle name appears, including the Performance Reviews overview, the Select a cycle to view dropdown, the employee portal, and emails sent after the change. You can't rename a cycle after it ends.
Edit dates: Change any of the cycle dates.
Edit question wording: Change question text and helper text.
Add employees: Add eligible employees to the cycle. See "Add employees to an active performance review cycle" below.
Remove employees: Remove an employee from the cycle. Removing an employee permanently deletes that employee's review, including anything the reviewer already wrote.
Change a reviewer: Select a new reviewer. The employee's self-assessment stays in place, and any reviewer assessment in progress moves to the new reviewer. The previous reviewer loses access right away. Reviewer changes save automatically. You can't change the reviewer on a Complete review.
Add employees to an active performance review cycle
On the Manage Cycle page, select + Add employees next to the Employees heading.
In the Add Employees window, select the checkbox next to each employee you want to add. Use the Search employees box to find employees by name. Employees who haven't accepted their employee portal invite show a No Portal Access tag. You can still add these employees, but they can't start their self-assessment until they accept the invite.
Select Add employee (or Add [N] employees when you select more than one).
Patriot creates a new review for each added employee with the employee's default reviewer and shows a confirmation message. If the cycle's self-assessment due date has already passed, the Add Employees window warns you that the added employees will show as past due right away. The warning doesn't stop you from adding employees, and adding employees doesn't change the cycle's due dates.
How to Send a Performance Review Back to the Employee for Self-Assessment Edits
You can send a submitted self-assessment back to the employee so the employee can edit it and resubmit. You can send a self-assessment back while the review is in Reviewer Assessment or Complete status, before the review is shared and before the cycle ends. Shared and Acknowledged reviews can't be sent back. The employee's earlier answers are kept.
To send a performance review back to the employee:
Go to Human Resources > Performance Reviews.
Find the employee in the cycle table and select View next to their name.
On the employee's review, select Revert to self-assessment.
Confirm in the window that opens.
What happens when you send a self-assessment back
Patriot shows the message "Sent back to [employee's first name] for self-assessment," and the review's status changes back to Employee Self-Assessment.
The employee's self-assessment reopens in the employee portal with their answers filled in, and the employee's Self-Assessment menu shows a To Do label again (or Past Due if the self-assessment due date has passed).
If the reviewer already submitted the reviewer assessment but hadn't shared it, Patriot unsubmits the reviewer assessment. The reviewer's answers are kept and reopen for the reviewer to edit, and admins can't see the reviewer's answers again until the reviewer resubmits. The Share Review option disappears until the reviewer resubmits.
If the reviewer only saved a draft, the reviewer's draft stays as is.
The review no longer counts as ready on the reviewer's Team Reviews page until the employee resubmits.
If the review was Complete (no reviewer), the review is no longer Complete, and the Reviewer dropdown becomes available again. When the employee resubmits with no reviewer, the review becomes Complete again.
Patriot doesn't email the employee when you send a review back, so let the employee know the self-assessment is ready to edit.
How to End or Reopen a Performance Review Cycle
Performance review cycles don't end automatically on the end date. An admin ends each cycle.
To end the active performance review cycle:
Go to Human Resources > Performance Reviews.
Select Manage cycle.
At the bottom of the Manage Cycle page, select End Cycle (next to Save Changes).
Select End Cycle again in the confirmation window.
Ending a performance review cycle locks all submissions and the cycle name. Any review that wasn't shared, acknowledged, or Complete shows an "Incomplete" label. A review for an employee with no reviewer who submitted before the cycle ended stays Complete, with no due date. After a cycle ends, you can start a new performance review cycle.
To reopen an ended performance review cycle:
Go to Human Resources > Performance Reviews.
Choose the ended cycle from the Select a cycle to view dropdown.
Select Manage cycle.
At the bottom of the Manage Cycle page, select Reopen cycle and confirm.
You can only reopen a cycle when no other cycle is active. Reopening a cycle turns submissions back on and emails employees who never submitted their self-assessment.
How to View Past Performance Review Cycles
To view a past performance review cycle, go to Human Resources > Performance Reviews and choose the cycle from the Select a cycle to view dropdown. Past cycles are read-only. Reviews for terminated and inactive employees stay available. To reuse a past cycle's questions in a new cycle, see "Use questions from a past performance review cycle" above.
Download a performance review as a PDF
You can download a performance review as a PDF once the review is Shared, Acknowledged, or Complete. The admin PDF includes all questions, including Reviewer & Admins questions, and keeps any text formatting employees and reviewers used in their answers. A PDF for a Complete review includes the employee's self-assessment answers and shows "No reviewer assigned" in place of reviewer answers.
To download one performance review as a PDF:
Go to Human Resources > Performance Reviews. For a past cycle, choose it from the Select a cycle to view dropdown.
Select View next to the employee's name, then select Download PDF. You can also select the PDF icon on the employee's row on the Performance Reviews overview page or the Manage Cycle page.
In your browser's print window, choose Save as PDF as the destination and save the file.
Download several performance reviews at once
You can download several performance reviews from the same cycle at once as one .zip file, with one PDF for each review. Bulk downloads work for active and ended cycles and include Shared, Acknowledged, and Complete reviews, including reviews for terminated or inactive employees. Each PDF has the same content as a single performance review PDF.
Go to Human Resources > Performance Reviews. For a past cycle, choose it from the Select a cycle to view dropdown.
Select Manage cycle.
Select Download reviews beside the Employees search box. The Download reviews link appears only when at least one review in the cycle is Shared, Acknowledged, or Complete.
In the Download Reviews window, choose the reviews to download. Every listed review is selected by default.
Use Select all to select or clear every listed review.
Use the Search employees box to find reviews by employee name. Reviews hidden by your search stay selected.
Reviews that aren't shared yet aren't listed, and the window tells you how many reviews can't be downloaded.
Select Download [N] reviews (.zip).
Patriot builds the .zip file in the background, so you can keep working while it builds. A banner on the Manage Cycle page shows when the .zip file is building and when it's ready. When the .zip file is ready, it downloads automatically if you're still on the page, and the banner includes a link to download it again.
Things to know about bulk performance review downloads
The .zip file is named "[Cycle name] - Reviews.zip." Each PDF inside is named "[Last name], [First name] - [Cycle name].pdf."
Your company can run one bulk download at a time. While a bulk download is building, the Download reviews link is unavailable for every admin and every cycle.
If the download fails, the banner shows "Couldn't download the reviews. Try again."
Performance Review Emails
Patriot sends performance review emails from [email protected] to people with completed employee portal access:
Self-assessment open: Sent to each employee when you publish the cycle.
Self-assessment ready for review: Sent to the reviewer when the employee submits.
Review ready to view: Sent to the employee when the review is shared.
Performance review reminder: Sent only when an admin sends a reminder from the Performance Reviews overview. Each reminder includes the cycle name, due date, and a link to the employee portal.
Patriot doesn't send performance review emails to admins.
For the employee's steps, see How Do I Complete and View My Performance Review in the Employee Portal. For the reviewer's steps, see How Do I Complete a Performance Review for My Team?
HR Software customers: Federal performance management resources in the HR Center
Available on: Patriot HR (HR add-on)
The HR Center has federal compliance references that complement performance management, covering topics from employee classification and recordkeeping to workplace protections. Log in to the HR Center first (Payroll > Human Resources > HR Center), then select a title below.
EAPs: An Introduction (Law)
Federal: OFCCP Reduces Federal Contractors’ Disability-Related Affirmative Action Requirements (Law Alert)
EAPs: Types of Referrals (Law)
Federal Jury Duty Leave (Law)