Overview: A successful appraisal requires questions to enquire about the learner and find out the information you need to help and guide them in their role.
Note: Some companies choose to rename 'appraisals' to something that works better for their company. If Appraisals is part of your package and you are having trouble locating it on your system, please get in touch with us.
Start from: A new appraisal form.
Questions
- Select Step 2 - Questions to start adding questions and categories to your appraisal.
Note: In order to open the Questions section, previous parts of the form must already be completed. See Create appraisal forms for advice on how to complete Step 1 - Details before you continue.
It's worth considering in advance whether you wish to use categories, which group your questions into logical sections and can be rearranged to change the order they appear in the appraisal. It isn't possible to move questions between categories after they are created, so it makes sense to decide before you start adding questions to the appraisal.
The Uncategorised section can be used to add questions without creating a category for them. See Understand appraisal categories for more information.
- Select Add Question
either within a category or the Uncategorised section to add a new question.
- Use the Question name text field to enter a name for the question.
- Use the Question type dropdown list to select the type of response required.
- Text: These are free-type text boxes that allow the learner to enter a full answer.
- Select: These questions present predetermined answers for the learner to select from.
- Multiple choice: These work the same way as the Select question type, displaying predetermined answers for the learner to select from.
- File: These are where files can be uploaded for the reviewer or the learner to see.
- Rating: These are populated from the Company Rating Scale, which must be set before the question is created.
- Select Edit
to edit the content for a question. Each question type has different settings for its content. See below for more details on each question type.
- Drag
to reorder a question.
Note: The option to reorder or edit question details for newly created questions is only available after the Question name and Question type fields have been completed.
- Select Delete
to delete a question.
- You can select Add Question
as many times as required to add questions to each category, or the Uncategorised section. To learn more about using categories, see Understand appraisal categories.
- Use
and
to expand and close each category to make room as you work through the page.
Question formats
Questions used within the appraisal each have different formats. Select the correct format for the type of question you require from the Question type dropdown list, this will shape your appraisal. Once you have decided on the right question format, you can add more detailed content.
- Select Edit
on a question to open the content editor. This allows you to add text, images, videos, and live links to the question.
- Select the Enabled toggle to make the question visible in the appraisal.
Note: You can disable a question at any time by switching the toggle back to off. This will remove the question from the appraisal but won't delete it, so it can be enabled again in the future.
Each type of question has different content options:
Additional viewing options
After adding content you have the option to add additional text to support both the reviewer and the learner.
- Select the Manager response enabled toggle to allow a training manager to view the question.
- Select the Required for manager toggle if the training manager is required to respond to the question.
- Toggle Additional information mandatory for manager to choose whether the comment box should be mandatory. This appears for all question types apart from "text".
- Enter additional text for the training manager into the Training manager default text box.
Note: Text added here will appear on Mapal One for reviewers and training managers to see. This can be used for adding notes or prompts that can help reviewers and can be deleted when filling in their part of the form. If this additional comment box is set to mandatory (and sign-off settings are assigned), the appraisal cannot be submitted until that information has been completed.
- Select the Learner response enabled toggle to allow a learner to view the question.
- Select the Required for learner toggle if the learner is required to respond to the question.
- Enter additional text for the learner into the Learner default text box.
Note: Text added here will appear on Mapal One for learners to see. A reviewer can use this area to add prompts to help learners answer their questions. This text appears in grey and is deleted once learners start to enter their answer.
- Select Save when you have finished OR select Close to discard the changes and return to the Edit Appraisal page.
- Repeat this process until you have added all the text questions you require for your appraisal.
Categories can be used to streamline your appraisal and make it unique to your learner or company. See Understand appraisal categories for more information on how to incorporate the questions you have set into different categories.
If your appraisal includes an action plan in Step 1 - Details, see Understand action plan settings for information on how to set this up.