Managing Notes in Performance Pro

This article outlines the various ways notes are managed in Performance Pro’s Performance History section. Additionally, it mentions how to add notes in three different areas of the application.

Part I. Managing Notes in Performance History

The Notes tab resides within the Performance History section of the application. As is true of the entire Performance History section, the Notes tab facilitates performance documentation of an individual employee who is currently selected in the Employee Selector Tool. The Notes tab is always available to Administrators and Managers but can be turned on and off for employees. This setting can be found in System Setup>Company Settings>Appraisal Settings Tab>Hide and Show>View Performance History.

The Notes tab compiles all notes that are created in three different parts of the application. These three types are reflected in the above screenshot under the “Criteria” heading.

1. Log Notes – Notes that have been created here on the Notes tab are classified as “Log Notes”. Log Notes by default are private to the creator and any Administrators of the application. However, Log Notes can be shared if the Share Note feature is turned on. The Share Note setting can be found in System Setup>Company Settings>Appraisal Settings Tab>Advanced Features>Share Note. If the View ALL Notes setting is turned on in System Setup>Company Settings>Appraisal Settings> Hide and Show>View Performance History, the employee will be able to see all Log Notes on the Notes tab regardless of whether they were shared with them or not and the Share Note setting will be grayed out and not available. 
2. Goal Notes – Goals notes are those that are created on an individual goal inside of the Employee Goal Tool. This Note area is a great opportunity to document the outcomes of goal check-in meetings.
   
3. Routing Notes – When Performance Pro’s Routing feature is enabled, one of the options is to allow for Routing notes (see Routing in Performance Pro). If Routing Notes is enabled, when an appraisal is routed up for review, the reviewer has the option to enter a note along with the approval status. If a note is entered, a manager will see the note when the appraisal is routed back to them (see Responding to a Routed Item).

When looking at notes in the Performance History section, they can be filtered to display any or all the three types described above. To do so add or remove the checkmarks next to the note type under the “Criteria” section of the screen referenced earlier. Additionally, you can filter notes by a specific date range in order to target a specific appraisal or evaluation period. Make sure to click the “Find Notes” button after choosing a Date Range. To open a note, click on the blue “eye” icon.

Part II. The Notes History Report

Users with the Appraiser or Administrator role in Performance Pro can utilize the Notes History Report to compile notes on multiple employees and/or managers. Appraisers can only compile this information on their direct reports, while Administrators can report on all notes created by users.

To run the Notes History Report, navigate to Reports>Other>Notes History Report. As is the case with many reports in Performance Pro, the Notes History report can be viewed on the screen, formatted for printing, or downloaded and viewed as a spreadsheet. To run the Notes History report, follow these steps.

OPTION 1: Downloading the Notes History Report in Spreadsheet Form

1. On the Notes History Report page, click on the Export tab
2. Once on the Export tab, click on “Export To CSV”. The file will download and can then be opened in your native spreadsheet application.
3. Exporting to CSV will download all Notes History for each of your direct reports, no matter the time frame. To filter the data, so that you only see Notes History during a specified time period, use the next set of steps, Preparing/Viewing the Notes History Report.

OPTION 2: Preparing/Viewing the Notes History Report

The following will prepare the Notes History Report for viewing on screen. The properly formatted report can be printed or made into a .pdf at the end of the report preparation process.

1. Select whether the report should present all Notes History, or only Notes History from a selected date range. Click Next.
   
2. Select how the employee data should be filtered – by appraiser, department, division, location, position, or all. Click Next.
   
3. Select which employees should be included in the report using the right arrows to bring individuals into the “Selected” list. Click Next.
   
4. On the Group Sort screen, you can once again choose to sort by appraiser, department, division, location, and position – or none.
   
5. On the final report setup page, you can choose up to 8 column headings to be displayed in the report. By default, the headings will be Position, Note Type, Note Description, Appraiser, Note Date, Employee Name, Created by, and Note Title. Click Done to run the report.
   

Report Tips:

• After configuring the report, you can use the “Save Report” button at the bottom of the screen to save your report settings, which avoids having to go through the report setup in the future.
• While five options for configuring your report were outlined above, you can stop configuring the report on any of the five setup screens by clicking the “Done” button at the bottom of the page. This will immediately run the report.