How You Enforce Maximum Goals for a Goal Plan

Your organization may want to set a maximum limit for performance goals that workers, managers, and HR specialists can add to specific goal plans. They may want workers to focus on their core performance goals.

When you define or edit a goal plan, specify the maximum number of goals that the goal plan can have in the Maximum Goals for This Goal Plan field. If you don’t specify any value, then there's no limit on the number of goals that a worker can have in a goal plan.

After you specify the maximum number of goals in a goal plan, you can also impose other restrictions using these additional settings:

• Enforce maximum goals: If selected, then managers and HR specialists can’t assign any goals when the goal plan has the maximum number of goals. If not selected, managers and HR specialists can override the maximum goal setting and assign goals.
• Allow private goals to exceed maximum goal limit: If selected and when private goals are enabled, employees can add private goals to the goal plan even when the goal plan has the maximum number of goals.
  Note: The Allow private goals to exceed maximum goal limit check box is disabled if your administrator hasn’t enabled private goals for your organization using Transaction Design Studio (TDS).

These additional settings apply only for new goal plans and not for existing goal plans. So, users won't see any error or warning message if you edit an existing goal plan and select either the Enforce maximum goals check box or the Allow private goals to exceed maximum goal limit check box.

Effect of Allow private goals to exceed maximum goal limit Setting

When a user performs some actions, such as Add or Copy, on a goal plan that has a maximum limit specified, the number of goals in the goal plan may exceed the limit. This table lists the results of actions performed on goals based on the Allow private goals to exceed maximum goal limit setting.

Action	Done By	Result when the Allow private goals to exceed maximum goal limit check box is selected	Result when the Allow private goals to exceed maximum goal limit check box is cleared
Add Copy	Worker	When private goals are enabled, the worker sees a warning message indicating that the goal added or copied will cause the count of the goals to exceed the specified limit. The goal is added as a private goal.	The worker sees an error message indicating that the goal plan has the maximum allowed goals.
Extend Move	Worker	The worker sees an error message indicating that the goal plan has the maximum allowed goals. The goal isn't extended or moved to the target goal plan.	The worker sees an error message indicating that the goal plan has the maximum allowed goals. The goal isn't extended or moved to the target goal plan.
Add colleague shared goal	Worker	When private goals are enabled, the worker sees a warning message indicating that addition of the shared goal will cause the count of the goals to exceed the specified limit. But the goal is added as a private goal.	The worker sees an error message indicating that the goal plan has the maximum allowed goals.

Effect of Enforce maximum goals Setting

This table lists the results of actions performed on goals based on the Enforce maximum goals setting.

Action	Done By	Result when the Enforce maximum goals check box is selected	Result when the Enforce maximum goals check box is cleared
Add organization goal Add manager shared goal Add HR shared goal	Worker	The worker sees an error message indicating that the goal plan has the maximum allowed goals.	No error message is displayed. The goals are added to the goal plan.
Add Copy Extend Move	Manager or HR specialist	The manager or HR specialist sees an error message indicating that the goal plan has the maximum allowed goals.	No error message is displayed. The goals are added to the goal plan.
Assign	Manager or HR specialist	The HR specialist sees an error message in the log file indicating that the specified goal plan limit has been reached. The administrator has access to a log file that lists the employees whose goal plans have met the maximum goals and therefore weren’t assigned the goal.	No error message is displayed. The goals are added to the goal plan.
Mass assignment of performance goals	HR specialist	The HR specialist sees an error message in the log file indicating that the specified goal plan limit has been reached. The administrator has access to a log file that lists the employees whose goal plans have met the maximum goals and therefore weren’t assigned the goal in the mass assignment.	No error message is displayed. The goals are added to the goal plan.