Targets now, achievement later, in one half
"In April the managers agree the targets with their teams. In September they score the achievement against them. One half-year, two separate exercises."
What is really being asked
He wants the target window and the achievement window to be two different windows on the same half. The system does this, and the only thing standing in the way is that the field which appears to control it does not.
The live rule is in the dates, not in a tick:
- A half is combined - targets and achievement entered together on one form - when its Target Window From is blank, or when it is equal to the Response Window From.
- A half is split - this client's case - when the Target Window From is earlier than the Response Window From.
That is the whole mechanism. Set the dates and the behaviour follows.
The checkbox to ignore
There is a visible Allow Target And Achievement Together checkbox. It is retired and read by nothing. Ticking it does not combine a half and clearing it does not split one. If a client's half is behaving the wrong way round, do not touch it; look at the two dates.
What you need in place first
- Evaluation Template with its metrics, bound to the positions. See different appraisal weightings for managers and the shop floor.
- Performance Target Entity - the population, and the evaluator chain.
- Evaluation Cycle - the cycle for the half, not yet activated. Decide this before you activate, because the setting is frozen onto the cycle when you do.
Do this
Open the cycle for the half on Evaluation Cycle and find the period line for the half you are configuring.
Set the two window starts apart. For a January-to-June half where targets are agreed in April and scored in September:
Target Window From 01-Apr-2026 Response Window From 01-Sep-2026 Because the target start is earlier than the response start, the half is split. There is no stored end date for the target window; it is taken as the day before the achievement window opens. So in this example targets can be entered from 1 April up to 31 August, and no later.
If the client wants the target window to close in May and stay closed through the summer, that cannot be done. The nearest thing is the achievement window opening earlier. Tell him rather than looking for a field.
Set the stage deadlines. The deadline for each step of the evaluator chain is typed as an offset in days from the window start, and the window's first day is day zero. A chain whose first step is due "within a week of the window opening" is seven days, counted from the opening day itself, not from the day after.
Activate the cycle. This freezes the evaluator chain and the window dates onto the cycle, which is what makes a later half safe to configure differently. Then Generate Sheets.
Enter the targets in April. Open Employee Goal. Only the target side is open. If somebody tries to enter achievement now, the screen refuses and says why: "This half keeps targets and achievement apart, so the appraisal is entered separately." That refusal is the proof the split took, so trigger it deliberately once.
In September, come back and enter the achievement. Nothing has to be switched on. The achievement side opens because the date has arrived. There is no action to take in between, and nobody has to remember anything - which is the point of configuring it rather than managing it.
If a window has to move after sheets exist, do not edit sheet by sheet. Change the date on the cycle and use the Apply Dates action on the toolbar, which pushes the new dates onto the generated sheets.
Know its one rule: it skips any sheet whose dates were changed by hand. That is deliberate - a date somebody set for a particular man survives a bulk move - but it means a bulk date change silently leaves those sheets behind. List them before you run it and fix them yourself afterwards.
The decision that cannot be undone later
A half configured as combined never opens achievement separately afterwards. There is no mid-half conversion: the form was generated as one exercise and it stays one exercise.
So if there is any chance the client will want targets and achievement apart, configure the half as split from the beginning. A split half can always be worked as though it were combined, by entering the achievement on the first day the achievement window opens. The reverse is not available. This is the single piece of advice on this page worth carrying into the first design workshop.
Where two clients differ
| Split half - this client | Combined half | |
|---|---|---|
| Target Window From | 01-Apr-2026 | Blank, or the same as the response start |
| Response Window From | 01-Sep-2026 | 01-Sep-2026 |
| When the target window closes | 31-Aug-2026, derived, not typed | Not applicable |
| What the appraiser sees in April | The target side only | Nothing yet |
| Can it be changed to the other later | Not to combined, and not needed | No |
| Typical use | A full half-year properly run | A first go-live half, or a historic upload |
A go-live half is often loaded combined on purpose, because the targets are being recorded after the fact. That is a legitimate choice. Make it a choice, not an accident.
How you prove it worked
- Generate sheets, then open Employee Goal in the target window and confirm the achievement fields are closed.
- Try to enter an achievement anyway and confirm you get the refusal quoted above. A screen that accepts it means the half is combined and your dates did not do what you thought.
- Check the derived target window close: the day before the achievement window opens. Confirm a target saved on that day is accepted and one the day after is not.
- Check one stage deadline against the window start plus the offset, counting the start day as day zero. A deadline a day out means somebody counted from the following day.
- After an Apply Dates run, open the sheets of anybody whose dates had been adjusted by hand and confirm - expect - that they were skipped. Fix them individually.
- Open Evaluation Tracker and confirm the half shows targets entered and achievement not yet due, rather than the whole half looking overdue.
What will go wrong
- The checkbox is ticked and nothing happens. It is retired. The dates are the mechanism.
- Target Window From is left blank because it looked optional, which silently makes the half combined. Then in September the achievement window will not open on its own and there is no way to split it.
- The target window is expected to close in May. There is no stored end for it; it runs up to the day before achievement opens. Set expectations at design time.
- Stage deadlines are counted from the day after the window opens, so every deadline is a day late and the dashboard's overdue counts argue with the client's own calendar.
- A window is moved after sheets exist and the sheets are edited one by one. Use Apply Dates, then handle the hand-dated sheets it skipped. Doing it by hand across five hundred men is how half of them get missed.