Table of Contents
Overview
If you try to trek a tricky mountain pass without a map, you're bound to encounter a few dead ends. ⛰️ Whether you’re navigating rugged landscapes or the fast-paced office, the same rule applies: reaching goals needs a clear strategy—that’s where OKR (Objectives and Key Results) strategies come in!
In other words, progress depends on clear objectives and key milestones, essential for solo work and team efforts alike. Meanwhile, proactively actively tracking these milestones keeps you steadily moving toward the finish line. 🏁
Indigo's Performance Management product has exactly what you need with its Objectives feature, which will help you:
🗺️ Map out goals: seamlessly translate performance reviews or campaign plans into actionable objectives, so everyone knows what they're aiming for.
🎯 Define key results: set up key results as concrete steps towards each objective, ensuring a clear path to success.
🔎 Track progress consistently: monitor progress with regular check-ins, made easier thanks to a comprehensive audit log recording all changes and achievements.
Continue reading to explore the Objectives Grid—your main screen to read up on and manage objectives—and the permissions you'll need to set up the feature. ⬇️
The Objectives Grid
For a complete view of your objectives, go to Performance Management and click the Objectives tab in the menu on the left. On the main screen, you’ll find a grid displaying all current objectives along with their statuses.
The grid lets you sort data by clicking the header of any column, and it includes a Refresh button, filtering options, and a search bar—all highlighted in the image below.
Starting from the left, the grid's columns are:
Code: a unique code that is automatically generated by Indigo to identify each objective. Clicking this will let you edit an objective if some conditions are met.
Created On: the objective's date of creation.
Assigned To: the employee working on this objective.
Name: the objective's name, as set by the creator.
Percentage Completed: a score that calculates the progress towards an objective's completion, determined by the extent to which its key results have been completed, whether fully or partially.
Status Description: an objective can have one of three statuses—Not Started, In Progress and Closed.
Start Date: the objective's intended date of commencement.
Due Date: the objective's set deadline.
Action column: any actions that can be carried out are shown here.
Delete Objective: deletes an objective that is not yet started, removing it from the grid.
Open Objective: this allows you to access the objective to read more about it, with buttons to let you start and monitor it, conclude any of its key results, and ultimately close the objective.
Grid Views
The grid has three views to choose from, in the form of tabs:
Personal: for objectives assigned to you.
My Team: for objectives assigned to anyone directly reporting to you (including yourself), as determined by the Organisation Chart.
All Objectives: here, users with the appropriate permissions can view all existing objectives across the tenant.
The image below displays employee Lita Ford's perspective of the My Team view, filtered by Due Date.
Subsidiary Grids
Lighter versions of the Objectives grid, showing similar data and offering the same functionality, are available across various sections of Performance Management:
In the Personal tab, you’ll see a grid displaying only the objectives assigned to you.
If you have the required permission, a blue + (Add) button will be available above the grid, allowing you to create an objective for yourself.
In both the Team and Employees tabs, you can view any displayed user's performance profile by clicking their > (View Employee Details) button at the end of their grid entry. Within each profile, the same Objectives grid described above shows only that employee’s assigned objectives.
Authorised users will also see the blue + (Add) button here, which allows them to create a new objective that will automatically be assigned to the employee being viewed.
Permission Setup
Several permissions affect more than just what you can see in the Objectives grid. Any of these permissions can be used to shape up permission sets, which can then be assigned to users to give them more privileges in Indigo. Consult the list below for information on all of the Performance Management permissions related to the Objectives feature.
Permission | Access Given |
HR_PM_Objectives | Lets the user perform create, read, update, and delete (CRUD) operations on objectives. |
HR_PM_Key_Results | Lets the user perform CRUD operations on key results. |
HR_PM_Check_Ins | Lets the user perform CRUD operations on check ins. |
HR_PM_Manage_Personal_Objectives | The user can update any aspect of their personal objectives. |
HR_PM_Start_Personal_Objectives | The user can start their personal objectives. |
HR_PM_Close_Personal_Objectives | The user can close their personal objectives. |
HR_PM_Archive_Personal_Objectives | The user can delete their personal objectives. |
HR_PM_Manage_Personal_Check_Ins | The user can check in their personal objectives. |
In general, users with the HR Administrator role will automatically have all of these permissions' privileges. However, for the sake of OKR integrity, they will still need HR_PM_Manage_Personal_Objectives/Execute granted to edit objectives assigned to them.
📋 Note: to ensure data consistency and fairness, the following rules are always in effect:
Started and closed objectives can't be deleted.
Key results can't be added to or removed from a started or closed objective.
An existing key result can only be edited as long as it has no check-ins.
💡 Tip: as with all of our features and particularly in Performance Management, employees' access to different parts of the module is determined at the company's discretion. For instance, a company's policy might allow only team managers or HR personnel to set objectives and update employees' key results. In contrast, another company might extend this privilege to the employees.
The distribution of permission sets doesn't follow a universal rule; it's OK if it varies across companies, as long as it aligns with your company policy and is clearly communicated by management.
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