A performance appraisal can be a turning point in an employee's career. It can either help the employee propel to new career heights or result in career regression for the employee. The outcome is entirely based on the employee's performance. Oftentimes, the word 'appraisal' itself can bring fear to the minds of employees. It is the responsibility of the managers and HR professionals to create a calm and comfortable environment to facilitate the appraisal so that employees can express themselves openly during the appraisal process.
With OrangeHRM, Managers and HR professionals can now help to create that calm and comfortable environment by allowing the user to personalize the header for each employee's appraisal. The user can create and store multiple headers that can be used in form design. Also, the user can select the header that they want to use when creating appraisals or appraisal cycles.
Go to Performance → Configuration → Appraisal → Templates. This will bring you to the following screen:
Pre-defined appraisal templates are now available in the system. These templates come with sample data, allowing HR teams to quickly launch appraisal cycles with minimal configuration while maintaining consistency across evaluations.
Step 1 – Click the "+" button, which is located at the top right-hand corner of the above screen. Upon clicking the "+" button, the "Add Appraisal Template" is activated.
Step 2 - Complete the following fields.
| Field | Description |
| Name | The user can enter a preferred name |
| Description | The user can provide a brief description |
| Final Rating type | The user selects the type of final rating for the appraisal.
|
| Is Default | When enabling this checkbox, the appraisal will become a default appraisal template. |
| Include Signature Section (PDF/DOCX) | When enabled, this section will include a space for signatures in the PDF/DOCX versions of the appraisal. |
| Include Attachments Section | When enabling this checkbox, the attachment section gets enabled for the appraisal template |
| Show section and rated item Weights on Appraisal | When enabled, this option will display the weights of each section and rated item on the appraisal. |
| Enable Appraisal Form Submission Validation | When enabled, the system will validate the form before submission to ensure completeness. |
Step 3 – The user can define the preferred content by using the allocated space in the "Add Appraisal Template" screen (refer to the image below). Click "Save" after making all the relevant changes.
Adding or Skipping the IDP Section in a Template
When configuring an appraisal template, you can now choose whether or not to include an Individual Development Plan (IDP) as a section. This lets you keep the IDP as part of the appraisal for teams that use development planning, or leave it out for simpler review cycles that do not need it.
Step 1 - Go to Performance > Configuration > Appraisal > Templates and open the template you want to edit, or click Add to create a new one.
Step 2 - In the template's Sections area, add the IDP section to include it, or leave it out to skip it.
- Click Save. Appraisals created from this template will include or exclude the IDP section based on your choice.
Note: If the IDP section is skipped, employees and evaluators will not see an IDP step in appraisals generated from this template.
[Screenshot: Appraisal template Sections showing the IDP section option]
Filtering Custom Competencies in a Template
When you add a Competencies section to an appraisal template, you can now filter and select specific custom competencies to include, instead of adding them all. This keeps each template focused on the competencies relevant to the role or review.
- Go to Performance > Configuration > Appraisal > Templates and open or create a template.
- Add a Competencies section.
- Use the filter to narrow the list, then select the custom competencies you want to include.
- Click Save.
[Screenshot: Competencies section of a template with the filter applied]