Create a 360° Review Cycle

The article outlines the process for creating a 360° review cycle in BambooHR Performance Management. It emphasizes the importance of gathering feedback from various sources, including peers, direct reports, and managers, to enhance employee development and organizational growth. The setup includes selecting employees, establishing feedback types such as peer and upward feedback, and configuring assessments. Key components include enabling feedback features, setting deadlines, and reviewing feedback status reports. The article also introduces the AI Summarized Feedback feature, which automates feedback analysis. Users are guided through each setup step, with links to additional resources for further assistance. This comprehensive approach aims to foster a culture of continuous improvement within teams.

Jul 8, 2026
Knowledge

Title

Article Text

How do I create a 360° review cycle?

Purpose: To help you understand how you can set up a 360-degree review cycle to gather feedback from multiple sources in BambooHR® Performance Management.

Table of Contents

Overview
Review cycle setup
Feedback Status report

Overview

A 360° review cycle in BambooHR will provide you with a comprehensive view of employee performance through feedback gathered from multiple perspectives at your company (peers, direct reports, and managers).

Managers and employees can gain a better understanding of their own strengths and areas for improvement. It is a valuable tool for companies looking to encourage growth and development within their teams. Here are some additional benefits of setting up a 360° review cycle:

Fosters employee development
Improves team collaboration
Drives organizational growth
Increases employee engagement
Provides a fair and balanced evaluation
Encourages informed decisions

A 360° review cycle will need to have all of the following components enabled:

Interested in learning more? We offer a course that covers the basics of setting up a review cycle in your BambooHR account: Getting Started with Performance Management.

Have additional questions about setting up a review cycle? Click here to review our answers to frequently asked questions (FAQ).

Review cycle setup

Navigate to Settings > Performance and then select Create a Review Cycle. Determine when the review cycle should start. The following sections of this help guide will show you how to set up a review cycle with the On Fixed Date option. If using By Hire Date, you will notice some slight differences in scheduling feedback and assessments.

If you want to duplicate a review cycle hover over the selected review cycle and click the page icon on the right. This will allow you to keep all of the custom questions/ratings you added and edit as you see fit.

Your selection will determine the settings for the rest of the review cycle setup. If you decide to switch from a fixed date to a hire date schedule (or vice versa) when setting up a review cycle OR after the review cycle has started, you will need to delete the existing review cycle and create a new one with the correct schedule.

Select employees (People)

Next, enter a name for the review cycle and determine who you would like to provide feedback and complete assessments as part of this performance review cycle. Choose either All Employees or Only Some Employees (applying additional filters). Please refer to the People section in "Performance Management in BambooHR" for more details.

Feedback

Feedback due dates: The employee has a "soft" deadline of 14 days from the date of the request for submitting feedback. If they have not provided feedback by the 13th day, they will receive another email notification at 7 AM (company time zone). After 14 days, the employee will no longer receive notifications about the request, but they will have a total of 30 days to complete the request.

If the request is still incomplete 30 days after the date of request, the inbox notification will expire in BambooHR, and the employee will no longer be able to submit feedback until their manager submits a new request.

Example: A manager sent a request to an employee on January 3. The employee has a "soft" deadline of January 17th to submit their feedback. If they have not submitted the feedback by January 16, they will receive another email notification and have until February 2 to complete the feedback.

Day of the first Feedback Reminder: The date selected here is when feedback requests will go out to managers and employees. Once the system sends feedback requests, the current date will change to the next feedback date. In the example above, the date is 05/31/2024. Once managers receive the email notification on 05/31/2024, that date will automatically change to next feedback date, which is Nov 30, 2024. (You can edit the new date if needed.)
How often should they repeat?: Determine how often you want to send feedback requests to managers and employees. Frequency options include every three months, four months, six months, and 12 months.
Future Feedback Dates: This setting shows you three upcoming feedback dates.
- If you make changes to the frequency, the system will change the upcoming feedback dates.

*By Hire Date option: Click here to view how scheduled reminders for feedback will look different when setting up a review cycle with the By Hire Date option.

Peer feedback

Peer feedback allows managers to request feedback from other employees on their direct reports. The direct report receiving feedback will not have access to any of the feedback given on them.

Within the Peer Feedback section, toggle on Include in Review Cycle and review the BambooHR standard questions that peers will need to answer when giving feedback on the direct report.

Examples of peer feedback

A team member who works with your direct report on your team
A colleague who worked with your direct report on a project outside of your team
Another manager worked with your direct report on a project

You also have the option to add custom questions and ratings. Peers will be able to view and answer those custom questions in their feedback request. To add a custom question, click +Write a Question.

To add a rating with the custom question, click +Add Rating. Default rating options are auto-populated with the flexibility rename, reorder, delete, and add (up to ten total).

To ensure meaningful feedback, you must include at least two rating options. A warning will be displayed if fewer than two options are present, and the form cannot be saved until this requirement is met.

Peer feedback has a limit of five questions:

If you keep the BambooHR standard questions, you can add up to three custom questions.
If you remove the BambooHR standard questions by clicking on the x, you can add up to five custom questions.

Upward feedback

Upward feedback allows employees (direct reports) to provide feedback on their manager's performance. The manager receiving feedback will not have access to any of the feedback given on them. Only the manager's manager and admins (as long as the upward feedback is not from their direct reports) can view the feedback.

Within the Upward Feedback section, toggle on Include in Review Cycle and review the BambooHR standard questions that direct reports will need to answer when giving feedback on the manager.

You also have the option to add custom questions and ratings (as shown above in Peer Feedback). Direct reports will be able to view and answer those custom questions in their feedback request. To add a custom question, click +Write a Question and to add a rating with the custom question, click +Add Rating. Similar to Peer Feedback, you can also customize or remove the ratings for each question.

Upward feedback has a limit of five questions:

If you keep the BambooHR standard questions, you can add up to three custom questions.
If you remove the BambooHR standard questions by clicking on the x, you can add up to five custom questions.

Impromptu feedback: Outside of a regular feedback review period, you can navigate to an employee profile and request impromptu feedback at any time. Keep in mind that you can only have 10 open requests at a time for the employee.

AI summarized feedback

The AI Summarized Feedback feature utilizes advanced AI technology to summarize peer and upward feedback automatically. It provides concise and actionable summaries, significantly reducing the manual work required for feedback analysis.

Under Settings > Performance, check the "Include Feedback Summaries" box to enable this feature on the Review Cycles tab.

Once enabled, an AI summary of the employee's feedback will show at the top of the Feedback section under the Performance tab. This AI feedback summary pulls in feedback from the last six months and requires a minimum of three feedback reviews from at least two standard feedback questions for each employee.

Assessments

Assessment due dates: An assessment review period remains open for 30 days. After 30 days, the system will partly close the review period, meaning employees and managers can still submit assessments, but they will not receive any further email notifications.

*By Hire Date option: Click here to view how the assessment schedule will look different when setting up a review cycle with the By Hire Date option.

Enabling self and manager assessments in a review cycle with peer and upward feedback will give you a complete picture of performance at your company. Only the manager listed in the Reports To field on the employee profile can fill out the manager assessment for their direct reports.

Assessments run independently of your feedback review schedule. Click here to view how to configure an assessment schedule and questions for those included in the review cycle.

*You have the option to exclude either assessments or peer and/or upward feedback from the review cycle, but the review cycle will no longer be a 360° review cycle that provides a comprehensive view of performance at your company.

Review and launch review cycle

The final step will show you an overview of the settings you have selected for the review cycle. This overview helps you to verify your feedback and assessment schedules and who is included in the review cycle. If you need to make edits to a specific step, click Change at the right for that step. Once you confirm all settings are accurate, click Launch 360 Review Cycle.

Feedback Status report

The Feedback Status report now includes managers receiving feedback in the Employee column, along with their direct reports listed in the Receiving Feedback From column.

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