Best practice forum (Archived)

Appraisals: Is there any way of viewing the name of the assigned Appraiser/Manager's manager after an appraisal is activated?

 
Maurice Moore
Appraisals: Is there any way of viewing the name of the assigned Appraiser/Manager's manager after an appraisal is activated?
by Maurice Moore - Tuesday, 13 May 2014, 1:48 PM
 

We have a situation where the manager's manager changed after a learner's appraisal was activated. There seems to be no way an admin can look at an appraisal and see the name of the manager's manager at the time the appraisal was activated (or the appraisers name).

The Appraisal Status and Appraisal Detail reports don't provide the option for including the Manager's Manager or Appraisers name.

In a perfect world there would probably be some record of the change in a users Manager's manager in a log file but I can find nothing (we are using a shared cloud version of Totara). I have looked at the Reports/Logs for the user and their manager but there seems no record of changes to their assigned manager.

Is there any way of seeing the names of all the participants in an activated appraisal (or a closed one for that matter)?

 Version 2.5.12

 

Nathan Lewis
Re: Appraisals: Is there any way of viewing the name of the assigned Appraiser/Manager's manager after an appraisal is activated?
by Nathan Lewis - Tuesday, 13 May 2014, 3:48 PM
Group Totara

Hi Maurice.

I mentioned that this might be a problem during development, but we thought that it would be enough to either check the user's primary position or look at the user links next to answers within the appraisal. But if the manager (or team leader or appraiser) has been removed then you can't check the primary position, and if they haven't given any answers before being removed then you can't check there either.

I'm going to have a look at adding a block at the top of the appraisal with something like "Participants: Learner - XXX, Manager - YYY". I'll also have a look to see if the names can be added to the reports. I'm not sure how this will be prioritized. I'll have to talk to someone higher up. It's possible that it will have to wait to be included with the other changes to appraisals that are coming in Totara 2.7.

Just one last note: It is possible to find out this information from the database. You'd just need to find the user assignment record for that user in that assignment, and then the matching role assignment records. The data is still all there.

Nathan

Maurice Moore
Re: Appraisals: Is there any way of viewing the name of the assigned Appraiser/Manager's manager after an appraisal is activated?
by Maurice Moore - Tuesday, 13 May 2014, 8:24 PM
 

Thanks Nathan,

Being on shared cloud hosting system (Catalyst) we don't have direct access to the database of course. That's not an immediate issue as we plan on moving to dedicated system soon.

The solution you propose (ability to add a block to include names of learner, manager, manager's manager and appraiser) would work for us.

Cheers

Maurice

Nathan Lewis
Re: Appraisals: Is there any way of viewing the name of the assigned Appraiser/Manager's manager after an appraisal is activated?
by Nathan Lewis - Wednesday, 14 May 2014, 4:14 PM
Group Totara

Hi Maurice.

I was thinking of adding a bit of html at the top of the appraisal overview page (just below the title and next to the "Print" button), rather than a new "question" type that can be added into a page. This solution would mean that every appraisal displays the users involved and it wouldn't be configurable - it's just there. Do you think this is a sufficient solution? I can't think of any reason not to display that information (it's accessible via other means). I'll make sure that it is included at the top of every PDF snapshot as well.

Nathan

Maurice Moore
Re: Appraisals: Is there any way of viewing the name of the assigned Appraiser/Manager's manager after an appraisal is activated?
by Maurice Moore - Wednesday, 14 May 2014, 4:42 PM
 

Hi Nathan,

I can think of no reason for us.

One possible reason for not displaying the appraiser name would be when the appraiser assesses the responses anonymously (blind assessment).

That said, a user can currently see the name of their current appraiser in the My profile settings/positions/primary position - not necessarily the appraiser assigned when the appraisal was activated. So the scenario above (blind appraisal) would be possible in the existing system.

There doesn't appear to be any permissions settings that could prevent the an authenticated user or participant from seeing their appraisers details.

So, yes it would work for us!

Maurice

Nathan Lewis
Re: Appraisals: Is there any way of viewing the name of the assigned Appraiser/Manager's manager after an appraisal is activated?
by Nathan Lewis - Tuesday, 20 May 2014, 3:41 PM
Group Totara

Hi Maurice.

A patch for this was included in 2.6.1 and should be included in the next 2.5 release.

Nathan

Ciaran Irvine (Core Developer)
Re: Appraisals: Is there any way of viewing the name of the assigned Appraiser/Manager's manager after an appraisal is activated?
by Ciaran Irvine (Core Developer) - Wednesday, 28 May 2014, 8:35 PM
 

A fix for this was included in today's (29th May 2014) release of Totara 2.5.13.1