Start Impromptu Assessments for Employees and Managers

BambooHR® Performance Management is accessible to BambooHR Pro customers. Admins and managers can initiate impromptu self and manager assessments for employees outside the regular review schedule if the employee is part of an active review cycle with assessments enabled. To start an impromptu assessment, navigate to the Assessments subtab on the employee's Performance tab and confirm the action. Only the employee receives an email notification for their self-assessment. If an assessment needs to be canceled, it will remove all associated data. Impromptu assessments will reflect in standard performance reports. For employees in multiple review cycles, the appropriate cycle must be selected when starting an assessment. Further information is available through provided links.

  • Oct 22, 2025
  • Knowledge

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Start Impromptu Assessments for Employees and Managers
Article Text
This feature is only included in the Pro and Elite Packages.

BambooHR® Performance Management is available for customers on BambooHR Pro. Click here to get an overview of the Pro plan or to schedule a demo.

Can employees and managers complete an assessment outside of a performance review schedule?

Purpose: To show you how admins and managers can start impromptu self and manager assessments for a specific employee.  

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Table of Contents

Overview

We understand that your company is complex and that you may need to schedule an assessment for an employee outside of your regular review schedule. 

As long as the employee is part of an active review cycle with assessments enabled, an admin or a manager can start an impromptu self assessment for them. Once started, the manager will also be able to complete an impromptu manager assessment for that employee.

Was the employee assigned a new manager after the closure of an assessment review period? An admin or new manager can start impromptu assessments from the employee's Assessments subtab. Click here for more information.

Start impromptu assessments

Navigate to the Assessments subtab on the employee's Performance tab. From there, click Start an Assessment.* You will then need to confirm that you would like to start the impromptu assessments for the employee.

*If you skip both assessments for an employee, Start an Assessment will be available on their Performance tab, even during an active review cycle.

If the employee is a part of multiple review cycles, you will need to skip ALL active assessments for each review cycle before the Start an Assessment option can appear.

Email notification

Only the employee will automatically receive an email notification inviting them to complete their impromptu self assessment.

Cancel impromptu assessments

Canceling impromptu self and manager assessments for an employee will remove all data associated with both. If you need to do so, click Cancel Impromptu Assessment on the Assessment subtab and confirm the cancelation. 

FAQ

Will performance reports reflect impromptu assessments?

There are three standard reports associated with assessments: 

  1. Employee Performance
  2. Company Performance
  3. Assessment Progress

Impromptu assessments will show up in each of these reports the same way your regularly scheduled assessments do.  

What reports will show the impromptu assessment for an employee who is in multiple review cycles?

When you start an impromptu assessment for an employee who is in multiple review cycles, you will need to select one of the review cycles before clicking Start Assessment.

Impromptu assessment results will fall under the selected review cycle in the Employee Performance, Company Performance, and Assessment Progress reports.

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