Coming soon! ETA week of October 5th, 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 manager review beside the self-assessment.
Performance Reviews in the HR software 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 manager review 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 shared 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 > Employee > 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.
One cycle at a time: Your company can have one active performance review cycle and one draft cycle at a time.
How to Start a Performance Review Cycle
Enter the Performance Review Cycle Details
Go to Human Resources > Performance Reviews.
Select Start new cycle.
Enter a Cycle Name. The cycle name can't be changed after you save the cycle, so choose a name you'll recognize later (for example, "2026 Annual Review").
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 Manager Review Due date.
Optional: Enter a Manager/Employee Discussion date to let everyone know when review conversations should happen. The discussion date is for reference only.
Performance review question types
Performance review questions come in two groups, and the difference between them is who answers each question. You add both groups 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 manager review, 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?"
Manager/Reviewer Questions: Only the reviewer answers Manager/Reviewer Questions. The employee doesn't see Manager/Reviewer Questions while writing a self-assessment. Use Manager/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 (step 5 below) controls whether the employee sees the reviewer's answer once the review is shared.
Add Performance Review Questions
Select Add Employee Question or Add Manager's Question.
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 Manager/Reviewer Questions, choose who can see the reviewer's answer in Visible to:
Reviewer & Admins (default): The employee never sees the answer, including in their shared review and PDF.
Employee, Reviewer & Admins: The employee sees the answer when the review is shared.
Use the up and down arrows to reorder questions within each group.
Performance review question limits:
Each group holds up to 10 questions.
Every question is required. Employees and reviewers must answer every question before they can submit.
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.
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 employee portal status on the Employee List. Payroll> Employees> Employee List. Employees who show Invite Sent – Pending, Invite Sent – Expired, or Not Sent can't complete a self-assessment until they finish setting up employee portal access. 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
On the Review & Publish step, check the cycle details, the number of questions, and the employees and reviewers.
Select Publish cycle.
When you publish a performance review cycle, Patriot immediately creates a review for each included employee and makes the cycle active.
An email will be sent to each included employee with portal access to let them know their performance self-assessment is open and ready for their input.
There's no confirmation screen before publishing, so check the details first.
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. Employees without a reviewer stay in this status even after they submit.
Manager Review: The employee submitted, and the reviewer is writing the manager review or has submitted it but not shared it yet.
Shared: The reviewer shared the final review with the employee.
Acknowledged: The employee acknowledged the shared review. Patriot records the date.
Use the search box, reviewer filter, and status filter to find specific employees.
To see an employee’s review, go to Human Resources > Performance Reviews and select View next to the employee’s name. You see submitted answers only, never drafts. Manager answers appear once the manager submits them.
Patriot doesn't send reminder emails for performance reviews. To follow up on past-due reviews, contact the employee or reviewer directly.
How to Make Changes to an Active Performance Review Cycle
After you publish the cycle, you can edit question wording and helper text, but you can't add, remove, or reorder questions, change answer types, or change visibility.To change an active performance review cycle:
Go to Human Resources > Performance Reviews and select Manage cycle. On the Manage Cycle page, you can:
Edit dates: Change any of the cycle dates.
Edit question wording: Change question text and helper text.
Add employees: Add an eligible employee to the cycle. Patriot creates a new review with the employee's default reviewer.
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 manager review in progress moves to the new reviewer. The previous reviewer loses access right away. Reviewer changes save automatically.
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 they can edit it and resubmit. You can only do this while the review is in Manager Review status, before the reviewer shares it and before the cycle ends. 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. The employee’s status must be Manager Review.
On the employee’s review, select Revert to self-assessment.
Confirm in the window that opens.
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 can then edit the self-assessment in the employee portal and submit it again.
Patriot doesn’t email the employee when you send a review back, so let the employee know it’s 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. Any review that wasn’t shared or acknowledged shows an “Incomplete” label. 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
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.
Download a performance review as a PDF
You can download a performance review as a PDF once the review is Shared or Acknowledged. The admin PDF includes all questions, including Reviewer & Admins questions.
To download a 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.
In your browser’s print window, choose Save as PDF as the destination and save the file.
Performance review emails
Patriot sends three 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 reviewer shares the review.
Patriot doesn't send performance review emails to admins.
For Performance Review help article for employees see, How do I complete my self-assessment and view my performance review?, and for managers see "How Do I Write a Performance Review for My Team?"