Cascading Objective Items

Process Overview

ePerformance provides administrators with the ability to cascade objectives from the Business Objective pages to individual performance documents. This process is helpful in doing mass insertion of objective items into the performance documents of individuals.

The number of documents affected depends upon where in the organizational hierarchy from which the item is cascaded. For example, cascading objectives from the CEO or Executive Vice President level could impact thousands of documents in a large organization.

To review the list of documents that will be updated before the system actually updates the database, administrators can run the cascading process in preview mode. If an administrator selects the Preview Cascade Items option on the Select Objectives page, the system generates a report but does not actually cascade the items down to the documents.

Once items are cascaded, the documents display the items that are aligned to the organizational pages and the objectives from which the items were cascaded.

Item Updates

When an administrator runs the confirmation process, the system stores the objective item details that were cascaded on the documents. For items that are cascaded down to other documents, ePerformance treats these items as mandatory and does not allow users (manager, employee or any participant) to delete items or update the fields that are cascaded down.

When modifications are made to the objectives and the pages are republished, the objective items are syndicated to the documents using the Syndication process which runs automatically during the Publication process.

If the status of the evaluation is Define Criteria or Track Progress, the system updates the item within the corresponding document. If the status of the evaluation is Evaluation in Progress, the system updates the item on each evaluation to which the item was cascaded.

There are two pages that the administrator needs to complete before they can run the process:

• Select Objectives:

  The administrator uses this page to select the objective page. They then choose the section (if more than one exists). Additionally they can indicate on this page whether or not to preview or confirm the process. Once an administrator enters the page information, the system displays the items from the page and section that was selected. The administrator can then select the items from this page that they want to cascade.

• Document Parameters:

  Before running the process, the administrator selects the ePerformance document parameters to which they want to cascade the items. The administrator selects the document type associated with the objective plan. The system automatically enters period begin and end dates from the period dates on the objective plan. The administrator, however, can overwrite these dates if they don't match the dates of the document. However, administrators can choose to not enter the period end date in order to select all documents started on or after begin date until the current date. The section name specifies the section of the documents where objectives items are cascaded. From here administrators can choose the level from which they want to cascade items downward.

  Note: This process does not work as well for organizations that use anniversary dates to drive performance evaluations.

When the administrator runs the process, the system selects all documents for employees using the ePerformance Document Parameters that the administrator entered. Assuming the administrator selected the Confirm Cascade Items option, the system cascades the items to the documents that have the status of Define Criteria, Track Progress, or Evaluation In Progress, which also contain the same content type as the objective section. The system generates a report that displays all employees in the selection method to which the items were successfully cascaded. The system also generates a list of all employees in the selection method to which the items can't be cascaded along with the reasons the cascade was not successful.