Organizations can now configure and manage their own SMTP server directly from the platform UI for all outbound emails.

What’s Included?

• Configure SMTP Directly from the UI: Admins can now set up: SMTP host, Port, Username and password, Authentication type, TLS/SSL encryption settings.

• Built-In SMTP Testing: Validate SMTP connectivity and credentials before enabling the configuration. Instant feedback helps identify authentication or connectivity issues early.

• One-Click Enablement: Once enabled, all outgoing emails for the account will be routed through the configured SMTP server automatically.

• Greater Control & Compliance:

1. Use your organization’s mail infrastructure.
2. Align with internal security and compliance policies.
3. Maintain sender reputation and email monitoring within your own systems.

• Flexible Management: Admins can update SMTP settings anytime or disable custom SMTP to switch back to the default email provider.

Where to Configure?

• Navigate to: Settings → Email Configuration
• Supported configurations include: TLS/SSL encryption, Custom SMTP ports, Authentication-based SMTP providers.

⚠️Important Notes:

Once enabled, all outgoing emails will be sent through the configured SMTP server.

Incorrect credentials or connectivity issues may impact email delivery.

We recommend testing the configuration before enabling it in production.

We’ve rolled out important improvements to the Admin "Add Peers" flow in review cycles to make the experience safer, more reliable, and better aligned with cycle rules.

What’s improved?

Admins can now add peers only after both required phases are completed for a reviewee:

• Peer Selection phase is closed for the reviewee.
• Peer Approval phase is closed for the reviewee’s manager.

If either phase is still open, the Add Peers option will remain disabled, along with a clear explanation in the UI.

Peer selection now also follows the cycle’s “Limit peers to participants” setting:

• When OFF: Admins can select any active employee in the account, excluding ineligible users such as the reviewee, existing peers, and direct reports.
• When ON: Admins can only select users already participating in the cycle (as reviewees or reviewers), while the same exclusions continue to apply.

These updates help ensure a more controlled, predictable, and seamless review administration experience.

We’ve introduced a new Automation Framework for Review Cycles that helps admins automate reviewee onboarding and downstream phase launches without repetitive manual setup.

Automation Management:

A dedicated Automations tab is now available within the Review Cycle Management screen. Admins can create, manage, enable, disable, and monitor automation workflows from a centralized location while also tracking the current status of each automation.

Add Reviewee Automation:

Admins can configure flexible Trigger → Filter → Action workflows to automatically add employees into a review cycle.

The framework includes an advanced query builder with support for nested AND/OR conditions across multiple employee attributes such as Employee ID, Department, Division, Business Unit, Location, Title, Level, Employment Type, Gender, Date of Joining, and Date of Exit.

Supported operators vary by field type and include:

• In / Not In for multiselect fields
• Numeric operators such as =, ≠, >, <, >=, <=, and Between
• Date-based operators including Before, After, Between, Last X Days/Months, and Exactly X Days/Months Ago

Admins can also preview filtered reviewees before saving the automation. Existing reviewees are automatically skipped to prevent duplicate additions.

Automation Execution:

Automations execute based on the configured trigger frequency in the account’s local timezone, typically during evening low-traffic hours.

On first enablement or after trigger updates, automations follow the next eligible execution window automatically.

Phase Launch Automation:

The new Phase Launch Automation allows one or multiple phases to be automatically launched whenever a new reviewee is added, either manually or through Add Reviewee Automation.

Admins can configure:

• Instant launches
• Specific date launches
• Relative launch timing based on days, weeks, or months

End timing can also be configured using global dates, fixed dates, relative timelines, and user-level overrides.

Multiple phases can be chained together under a single automation rule, with each phase functioning independently.

Notifications & Conflict Handling:

Phase launches support Slack, Email, MS Teams, and Silent Launch notification options with fully configurable notification content.

If a phase has already been launched for a user, the automation automatically relaunches it with updated timelines to ensure consistency.

Logs & Daily Digest:

A dedicated Logs tab provides complete automation run history, including employee ID, timestamp, execution status, and error details. CSV download support is also available from the centralized logs page.

Additionally, review cycle admins receive a daily digest email after each successful run whenever employees are added. The digest includes processed counts, success and failure summaries, and employee-level failure reasons for easier debugging and monitoring.

Duplication & Archival Support:

Duplicating a review cycle also duplicates its automations, while keeping duplicated automations disabled by default for safety. Archived review cycles automatically stop all automation executions.

Why This Matters:

This framework reduces repetitive manual setup for recurring review cycles, ensures employees are added dynamically through configurable filters, and automates downstream phase launches at scale.

With detailed logs, digest summaries, configurable execution windows, and instant staging execution support, admins now have better operational visibility and control over review cycle automation workflows.

We’re introducing Goal Digest Notifications, a new enhancement designed to improve visibility into goals that require follow-up and action.

With this release, goal owners, creators, managers, and admins can receive structured daily digest emails highlighting goals that have become Overdue, moved to At Risk, or are marked as Behind. Instead of tracking updates individually, all relevant goal updates are consolidated into a single scheduled digest for easier review and action.

Goals will continue appearing in future digests until corrective action is taken, such as updating the status, changing the due date, or completing the goal.

Recipient Experience:

• Goal Owners and Goal Creators receive goal status updates along with existing activity log updates, helping them stay informed about progress and changes.

• Managers and Admins receive status-only summaries focused on goals across their teams or organization, enabling better visibility into goals that may require intervention.

What’s Included in the Digest?

• Each digest email includes the goal name, current status, due date, progress details, last activity timestamp, and a direct link to access the goal quickly.

Configuration Details:

• At present, Goal Digest Notifications are managed through backend configuration and do not yet have a dedicated UI within Admin Settings.

By default:

• Notifications for Goal Owners are enabled for all accounts. Notification preference records are created only for accounts that explicitly require creator, manager, or admin notifications.

This enhancement is aimed at improving goal visibility, enabling timely follow-ups, and helping teams proactively address goals that may be drifting off track.

We’ve introduced support for “Not Applicable (N/A)” in performance reviews, allowing reviewers to mark rating questions as not relevant instead of leaving them blank or assigning arbitrary scores. This ensures more accurate and meaningful evaluations.

What’s New?

Review Form Enhancements:

• Rating questions can now include a “Not Applicable” option alongside numeric scores.
• Selecting N/A clears any existing score and records the response as Not Applicable.
• Seamless switching between N/A and numeric ratings.
• Customizable N/A label per question (default: N/A).
• Mandatory questions accept N/A as a valid response.

Admin & Review Cycle Configuration:

• New “Allow N/A” toggle available per question.
• Supported across: Question blocks, Competency blocks, Goal blocks.
• Customize the N/A label directly from the configuration panel.

Score Calculations & Aggregation:

• N/A responses are excluded from all averages (never treated as zero).
• Sections with only N/A responses display N/A instead of blank or zero.
• Mixed responses calculate averages using only numeric values.

Calibration Support:

• Calibration tables now support N/A selection.
• Calibrated N/A is tracked separately and does not overwrite original scores.
• Custom N/A label displayed in calibration views.
• Calibration CSVs now fully support N/A values.

PDF Reports:

• N/A is correctly reflected in theme-wise and overview tables.
• Excluded from all average calculations.
• Supported across competency and goal sections.

Slack Submissions:

• N/A option available in Slack review modals.
• Missing or N/A-only scores are displayed as N/A (not blank).

This update is focused on improving error visibility and delivering a more intuitive reviewee experience—helping admins identify and resolve issues faster.

Error Visibility Improvements:

We’ve introduced multiple layers of visibility, so no reviewee gets stuck in the process:

• Visual Cues: Error icons and badges now appear on the Reviewees tab and individual rows.
• Smart Filtering: Quickly isolate impacted accounts using the new “Errors” filter.
• Admin Overview: Review cycle cards now show real-time issue counts at a glance.

One-Click Error Resolution: Fix issues instantly without navigating across multiple pages.

• Resolve Now Action: Error banners inside the reviewee drawer allow quick fixes. Supported Fixes:

1. Custom attribute not assigned
2. Competencies not mapped
3. Manager not assigned
4. Custom reviewer not assigned
5. Peer reviewer not assigned

Redesigned Reviewee Drawer:

A cleaner, more organized workspace for managing individual reviewees:

• Simplified Access: Click on a reviewee row to open the drawer.
• Two-Tab Navigation: Easily switch between Overview and Reviews Received.
• Centralized Actions: Unified header with PDF downloads and expanded actions (Change Manager, Unsubmit, Remove, etc.).
• Enhanced Reviewer Cards: Improved UI with hover interactions and clear alerts for missing data.

Workflow Improvements:

Streamlined processes to save time and reduce friction:

• Manager Updates: Direct link to enable Automatic Manager Changes.
• Competency Management: Quick navigation to Employee Directory for mapping updates.
• Refined “Unsubmit” Logic: Clearer warnings to prevent accidental resets.

This update introduces Survey Archival, giving you better control over the survey lifecycle while ensuring cleaner workflows and preventing unintended participation in inactive surveys.

What’s New?

• Archive and unarchive surveys directly from the survey actions menu.
• Archived surveys are moved out of the active workflow.
• New tab-based view (Active & Archived) for improved organization.
• Easily access via the 3-dot menu next to the Create Survey button.

Archiving a Survey: When a survey is archived:

• It cannot be opened or edited.
• Participants cannot take the survey.
• Any in-progress responses are immediately stopped.
• All associated notifications and homepage actions are removed.

This ensures archived surveys are fully inactive and do not impact ongoing processes.

Unarchiving a Survey: When a survey is unarchived:

• It returns to its previous state (Draft / Scheduled / Live).

Additional behaviors:

For Live Surveys:

• Notifications are not automatically re-triggered.
• Manually send reminders from the Notifications tab.

For Scheduled Surveys:

• If the scheduled time has already passed → cannot resume automatically.

You can:

• Cancel the schedule.

• Manually relaunch the survey.

Important Notes:

• Archiving is enforced across all survey stages.
• In-progress responses are invalidated immediately upon archival.
• Prevents unintended data collection and ensures consistency.

This update improves survey reporting by strengthening anonymity protection in anonymous surveys while enabling complete visibility in identified surveys. The goal is to provide a more reliable and transparent reporting experience.

What’s Changed?

• Previously, a minimum threshold of 3 participants was required to display group-level data across all surveys. This restriction has now been removed for identified surveys.

• Identified surveys now show complete data visibility, even for smaller groups (e.g., managers, departments in PPT reports).
• Enables more comprehensive analysis without anonymity constraints.

Anonymous Surveys – Participation Tab:

• To ensure strict anonymity: Group-level charts (Manager, Department, Location, Tenure, etc.) are shown only when: At least 3 participants, and at least one response is submitted.
• For groups with fewer than 3 participants:

1. No charts are displayed.
2. No partial data, percentages, or indicators are shown.
3. A placeholder message is displayed: “Charts for groups are shown only when a minimum number of responses are received to protect anonymity.”

Identified Surveys – Insights Tab:

• All managers with at least one participant are now included.
• Managers with fewer than 3 participants are no longer filtered out.
• Ensures complete visibility in the Manager Participation graph.

We’re excited to introduce a new feature that allows admins to upload company logos directly from General Settings, making it easier to maintain consistent branding across the platform and reports.

What’s New?

• Upload Company Logos: Admins can now upload two types of logos from Account Settings → General Settings:

1. Product Logo (1:1 ratio)
2. 360 PDF Report Logo (2:1 ratio)

• Product Branding in the Platform: The Product Logo will appear at the top of the platform interface, enabling organizations to showcase their branding consistently across the product experience.

• 360 Review PDF Branding: The 360 PDF Report Logo will automatically be included in downloaded 360 Review PDFs, ensuring all reports reflect your organization’s branding.

• File Validation and Error Handling:

1. Supports PNG, JPG, and JPEG formats
2. Maximum file size of 1MB
3. Displays clear error messages for invalid, corrupted, or oversized files

• Multi-language Support: All upload validations and messages are supported in English, Spanish, and Arabic (RTL), providing a localized experience for global teams.

We’re excited to introduce the Team Dashboard — a unified space designed to give managers and admins real-time visibility into team performance, engagement, and development.

This dashboard brings together insights from reviews, goals, feedback, 1-on-1s, and IDPs, enabling leaders to identify gaps and take action from a single place.

What’s New?

• A Unified Team Performance Dashboard: Access all key performance and engagement insights in one place. Quickly understand how your team is performing, where engagement gaps exist, which employees may need attention.

• Flexible Views for Admins and Managers:

1. Admin View: Company-wide visibility across all employees
2. Manager View: Direct Reports, Indirect Reports, Entire Team

This allows managers to monitor both immediate and extended teams effectively.

• Team Effectiveness Analytics: Track key performance metrics, including Review Cycle Score, Goals Completion and Goals On Track, IDP Progress, Feedback Activity, 1-on-1 Completion. Compare team performance against company benchmarks to understand where your team stands.

• Employee Effectiveness Table: Get a detailed, employee-level view of performance across all configured metrics: Search, filter, sort, and export data easily, view last updated timestamps for transparency.

• Employee Attributes for Better Context: Analyze performance with additional employee details such as: Department, Tenure, Manager, Job Title, Location, Level.

• Export Team Insights: Download dashboard data as a CSV file for deeper analysis or sharing with stakeholders. The export reflects the selected team view.

• Customizable Configuration:

1. Effectiveness Columns: Reorder columns based on organizational priorities
2. Review Cycle Score: Configure a final review question to define how scores are calculated
3. Access Control: Enable or disable dashboard access for managers
4. Effectiveness Heatmap: Customize color ranges to visually highlight performance trends

• Nova AI Insights: The dashboard integrates Nova AI to generate meaningful insights for each employee based on available data. For every employee, AI highlights:

1. Strengths: consistent positive behaviors
2. Areas of Improvement: opportunities for growth
3. Notable Patterns: recurring feedback trends
4. Recommendations: suggested actions for managers

This helps managers move from data to actionable coaching insights.

Please refer to the attached help doc to learn more about the feature in detail: Team Performance Dashboard for Managers!