This article provides Company Admin and Performance Administrators with instructions on how to add a summary section. This section enables managers, approvers, and employees to provide commentary throughout each phase and allows ratings to be entered during the self-scoring and manager scoring phases during the performance cycle.
đ | For more information on the summary section, see our article FAQ: Summary Section. |
How do I add a summary section?
1. Go to Administration > Performance and click Appraisal Setup.
2. Along the template title click the dropdown beside the Appraisal Settings button and select Appraisal Sections.
3. Click the Add New Section button.
This opens up a new drop-down allowing you to fill in the following information:
Module: The type of section that you want to add (in this example it is a Summary).
Title: This is the title that is displayed to all users.
Description: This should be a description of the Summary section that the user sees.
Section Visibility: An administrator can determine if the section is visible to the employees and managers. If the section is not visible to the employee but requires a rating, the employee cannot complete the Self Scoring Phase and the manager cannot rate until the employee has submitted â leaving the appraisal unable to progress. If you need the overall rating to be visible only to managers, keep the section visible and instead untick Employee can see manager score in Appraisal Settings.
Overall Rating Type: This allows administrators to select which overall rating type to be used. Please see the below overall rating type definition.
Auto-calculate: Calculates the average of the ratings from all other sections, and displays the rating (and converts if this rating system is different from the other sections). You can have the value appear as 2 decimal places for additional granularity. Auto-calculate produces a fixed calculated rating that managers and administrators cannot override. If you need managers to be able to adjust the final rating, you must select Auto-Select, which provides the calculated rating as a starting point but allows it to be changed, or Manual Rating.
The 2 decimal places option controls the granularity of the displayed value. Where the Summary Section uses a whole-number rating scale, the calculated score is mapped to the nearest rating level, so a calculated value such as 1.52 on a three-point scale will display as the rating level 2. If you need the underlying decimal value rather than the mapped rating level, report on it using the Appraisal Rating/Score report.
Changing the decimal place setting on an assigned appraisal requires the change to be saved first and then synchronised before it takes effect on existing appraisals.
Auto-Select: Provides the auto-calculated rating, but this can be overridden.
Manual Rating: the overall rating is not derived from other sections. The employee must select their own Summary rating during the Self Scoring Phase, and the manager must select theirs during the Manager Scoring Phase.
No Final Rating: No rating, just commentary
Rating System: If a rating is enabled this allows the system administrators to select which rating system to be used for the Summary Section. The rating system for the Summary Section cannot be changed once the appraisal template has been assigned to users
Once everything has been filled in, click on the Save button.
â ď¸ | Choose the Summary section's rating system carefully before assigning the template. Once appraisals have been assigned to users, the Rating System field for the Summary section is locked and cannot be changed â including by ELMO Support. |
How the auto-calculated overall rating is derived. When Auto-calculate or Auto-Select is used, the overall rating is produced in three steps:
Each section is scored. ELMO averages the item ratings within each section. If Section Item Weighting is enabled, a weighted average is used, so higher-weighted items have a greater impact on that section's score.
Section scores are converted to a common scale. If sections use different rating systems (for example, Goals on 1â5 and Competencies on 1â4), each section score is converted to the scale of the rating system selected for the Summary Section before being combined.
Section scores are combined using section weights. The converted section scores are combined according to the section weights configured in the appraisal, producing the final overall rating.
â ď¸ | Please refer to this article on how to create a rating system: Create and Manage Rating Systems |
4. The new summary section has now been created.
â ď¸ | Every appraisal must have a Summary Section as it displays the final rating, as well as allows an employee or manager to add in final comments. The managers, approvers and employees can provide comments in the planning, approval and scoring phases. |
Ratings and Comments Display Settings
1. Go to Administration > Performance and click "Appraisal Setup".
2. Along the template title click the "Appraisal Settings" button.
3. Scroll down to the Appraisal Settings section.
Employee can see manager score: When selected, the employee can see the overall final manager's rating once it has been entered during the Manager Scoring Phase. Unticking this hides the manager's score from the employee only â it does not hide the employee's own self-assessment score, and the manager's score remains visible to managers and administrators.
Overall Manager Rating Display: When the option 'After Appraisal is Finalised' is chosen, the overall manager's final rating will become visible only after the entire appraisal process is completed. On the other hand, if 'Manager Scoring Phase Finalised' is selected, the overall manager's final rating will be displayed after the manager submits the Manager Scoring Phase.
Final Manager Comment Display:
After comment is posted: the manager's comment will display after they save the comment.
Manager Scoring Phase Finalised: the manager's comment will be displayed after the manager submits the 'Manager scoring phase.
After Appraisal is Finalised: the manager's comment will be displayed after the appraisal status is marked as 'Complete'
The Summary section displays one comment field per appraisal phase, and each field is labelled automatically using the phase name in the format "Phase Name Final Comment" â for example "Planning Phase Final Comment" or "Manager Scoring Phase Final Comment". As the appraisal moves through its phases, comment fields accumulate so earlier phase comments remain visible alongside the current one. These labels are hard-coded and cannot be renamed; the only way to change a label is to rename the phase itself in the appraisal template.
Summary comments cannot be made mandatory for a specific phase. If a written final comment is essential, consider adding an approval step to the relevant phase so it can be checked before the appraisal progresses, or capture the response in a Question or Checkpoint section where it can be required.
We recommend to use only one Summary section per appraisal. Adding a second Summary section duplicates the comment fields and still only allows one set of overall ratings across both. If you need separate final ratings and commentary for different areas, use a Checkpoint or Question section instead.
â ď¸ | The sync function will go through all sections and sync data under Appraisal Settings to all related appraisals. Please refer to the article on how to sync an appraisal: Synchronise an Appraisal Template to Assigned Appraisals |