Performance graphs (admin)

Performance graphs are designed to give you insight into individual or group performance based on answers in performance reviews. These graphs are made of trends for an individual, a group or a set of selected employees where the answer to a specific review question is graphed over time. Select Performance Graphs in the left hand menu under Reviews within Company Info to view and create these graphs. Graphs that you have created will be shown with a high-level version, along with the graph name, question and an indicator for the number of trends in the graph.

To create a new graph, click on the empty Add Graph link. To begin, provide a name for the graph and select the question that has been used in your reviews that you want to graph. This is a numeric, rating scale or numeric calculation question that has been used in a previous review, but could also be a “connection” or group of questions. For simplicity, this article will focus on selection of a single question, though the process is the same when selecting a connection. Connections are discussed at the end of this article.

Next you will define the bucket size. The bucket size defines how responses are aggregated and viewed to create trends. PerformYard uses the review form’s due date to define its bucket size (aggregation period). For example, if you select “month” then all answers to the selected question in that month will be combined for the subject of the trend line. Your bucket size would typically associate with how often you are running employee reviews. Bucket size options include:

  • Day
  • Week
  • Month
  • Quarter
  • Year

Click Create Graph to initiate building the graph, and you will be prompted to select the subject for the first trend line. Here you can type a single employee’s name or a group name to add that person or group to the trend. If that is the only person/group you want in the trend line, click Create Trend. However, you can add multiple people or groups into a single trend line where their scores will be aggregated/averaged. PerformYard will find for the individual(s) in the trend each time the selected question was answered and graph that information over time based on the bucket size selected.

Once you have added the first trend, you’ll see the graph of that initial trend. The title and question included in the graph are listed at the top with an initial graph of the first trend. To the right of the graph there are a series of options along with a corresponding list of all trends in the graph with their selected color. These options include:

  • Bucket Size, where can update the view from the bucket size defined for the graph
  • Add New Trend, where you can add other trend lines to the graph
  • Edit Graph, where you can modify the graph’s name and bucket size, along with remove trends from the graph

Click Add New Trend on the right hand side to create a new trend line for the graph. This looks similar to the initial trend that you added previously. Again, here you can add a single employee, group or multiple employees. However, if you add multiple employees, the result will be a single trend line that combines all data for those employees into a single trend line.

Click Edit Graph to change the graph’s properties or remove trends. You can change the graph name or default bucket size. Additionally, click the X to the right of a specific trend to remove it from the graph. After making changes, click Update Graph to store your changes.

You can hover over the graph to view the specific data for a date point in the graph. The corresponding value will appear for any trend in the list on the right. In the example below, for the quarter starting April 2020, the "All Employees" average is 3.67, while Monica Green and Patricia Wolfe had scores of 3, and Ian Cowles had a score of 5.Beneath the graph is the detailed table listing of all data used to create the graph. This includes:

  • Subject – the employee that is the subject of a review that included the question graphed
  • Trend – the trend includes the subject employee’s review data (note: a trend with a group or multiple employee will list each person’s data as many times as the question was answered)
  • Due date – the due date for the form that included the graph’s question
  • Value – the numeric value that corresponds to the question’s answer. This is a hyperlink that goes directly to the review form.

You can export this data by clicking Download as CSV above the table.

About Connections

Connections allow you to bring together multiple different questions answered in a review into a single performance graph. Further, they also allow you to translate answers to multiple choice-type questions into numeric values that can be graphed.

Consider the following:

In your first quarterly review, you had a final question titled "Overall Rating" where employees were rated using a 5-option multiple choice question. On the next review, you evolved the form to include a numeric question called "Final Performance Rating" where employees were instead rated on a 1-5 numeric scale. Then finally you started using a different question called "Overall Calculated Rating" that was instead a numeric calculation question (based on a series of other ratings) that resulted in scores ranging from 1-5. However, for the purposes of viewing employee performance trends since that first quarterly review, you want to see these values on the same graph. You would create a connection including all of these questions.

Connections are created in Administration, where you’ll select Reviews on the left side and then Graph Settings. All of your existing connections will be listed. Click Create New Connection to build a new connection that can be used in a graph.

First, provide a name for the connection so you will be able to select this specific connection when building a new graph. Then begin to add the questions you want to include. These can be numeric, rating scale, numeric calculation or multiple choice type questions. All questions that are added will be included in graphs that are created. Click Create Connection to finalize your new connection.

Where you have added a multiple choice question, you will be prompted to add the corresponding numeric values to each option such that they can be graphed. If you do not add a corresponding value for any answer choice, that data point will not appear on a graph. Note that you can create a connection that only includes one question – for example using a connection to only provide values for answers to a multiple choice question.

Click Save Connection to finalize your updates. Click Back to Connections to return to the list.

You can click on the name of any existing connection in the list of all connections to edit or delete it. To edit, you may update the name, questions included or numeric values for multiple choice questions. After making any updates, click Save Connection. To return to the connection list, click Back to Connections. To remove a connection, click the appropriate delete link at the bottom of the page. Note that you cannot delete a connection that is currently used in a graph without first deleting the graph.

Once a connection has been created, you can select it when building a new performance graph. Note that connections will be indicated with an icon when searching for them as part of the new performance graph process.