A review holds one full cycle: both assessments, the conversation that follows, and the outcome that gets recorded. A growth record holds one open review at a time — you can't start a second one for someone until the first has closed, so "which review am I looking at" is never an ambiguous question.
Starting one is entirely manual. There's no scheduling engine deciding when someone's due, and no visible nudge count pushing a manager toward it. The manager decides when a conversation is ready to happen, on purpose, rather than because a calendar said so.
Starting a review
From My Reports, Start a review walks through a short setup: who it's for, the track and level they're about to be assessed against (shown live — this part isn't the confidential part), a name for the review, and a conversation date. Nothing is enforced on that date; it's just what you're both aiming for.
Starting the review emails the employee that one has opened. That email names the level being assessed and nothing else, because nothing else has been written yet.
What starting locks in
The moment a review starts, it pins the framework version and level it's opened against. That version was frozen when it was published, so the wording can't shift under the review afterwards and re-versioning the track leaves it alone — see The framework. It's also when the employee's standing track and level assignment gets confirmed, so their record and this review agree on what they were assessed against.
While it's open
Both people write their own assessment independently and privately — see Assessments for the rating scale and why neither side can see the other's until both have submitted. Once both are in, Alignment opens: the reveal, the conversation, and the outcome. From there the two of you agree a plan together, and the review closes.
Moving the conversation date
The manager can move the date at any point while the review is open, from the Conversation date card on the person's record — set a new one and Move it. Any date is accepted, including one in the past, because a conversation that already happened on a different day should be recordable as it happened.
Moving it doesn't shorten the wait before a stalled review can be closed without alignment. That window has a floor of two weeks from the day the review opened, so the date can't be walked backwards to reach the exit early.
Closing
A review closes when the manager records its outcome. Closing makes it permanently read-only: the assessments, the alignment, the outcome, all frozen as they stood. It doesn't touch the person's plan, which is separate from their reviews. A closed review shows the candidates its assessments pointed to, so you can see what the next plan was drawn from.
When a review stalls
Sometimes one side just never submits. Once a review has been open two weeks — or is past its conversation date, whichever comes later — a manager can close without alignment instead of waiting indefinitely. Closing this way never exposes whatever draft the other side left unfinished — a stalled review is recorded honestly as closed without alignment, not quietly filled in as if the conversation happened.
Review history
Every closed review stays visible on the person's record, to them and their manager, permanently — showing both sides' assessments exactly as they were, against the expectation wording current when the review closed. A review from two years ago should still make sense to read today.