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Quick Summary: Administrators run assessments from Company > Assessments. You create an assessment with a name and an audience, build the flow each person goes through, launch it now or schedule it, follow progress for the self track and the manager track, send reminders, and end each track when you are done.

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Overview

An assessment in SkillsDB is a structured review of people’s skills. Each assessment has two tracks that run separately. The self track is the assessment employees take themselves: a flow of screens that can include survey questions, scored questions, and skill self-grading. The manager track is the assessment managers complete for their direct reports: grading each report’s career skills. You can launch the two tracks together or one at a time. Administrators manage the whole lifecycle from Company > Assessments. The list there shows every assessment in your organization with its status and the progress of each track. Opening an assessment shows its management page, where you edit its details and audience, build its flow, set its branding, launch or schedule it, and follow its progress. An assessment moves through four statuses: The audience of an assessment is dynamic. While an assessment is open, SkillsDB adds and removes people automatically as their organization details change, so you do not need to maintain the list by hand. To learn how the audience is chosen, see Assessment Population. This article covers the administrator’s view. Employees take assessments from Profile > Assessments (see Self Assessments), and managers grade their reports from Team > Assessments (see Manager Assessments).

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Prerequisites

Before you run an assessment, you need:
  • Permission level: Global Administrator. The Company section of the sidebar, including Company > Assessments, is available to administrators only.
  • Setup requirement: A grading scale configured in Company > Settings > Grading Scale. If no grading scale exists, the creation wizard shows “No Grading Scale Configured” and blocks creation until one is set up.
  • Setup requirement: Careers with skills assigned to the people you want to assess, if the assessment includes skill grading.

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Viewing All Assessments

Navigate to Company > Assessments to see the list of assessments. The table shows these columns: Use the Draft, Scheduled, In Progress, and Ended quick filters to narrow the list. You can select several at once, and results match any selected status. Select + in the filter row to filter by Name or Status, and use Find in view to search the visible rows. The number of assessments shown appears at the top of the page. A track reads Not launched until it starts, rather than “0 of 0”. An assessment built from questions only never launches a manager track, so its Manager column can read Not launched for the life of the assessment.

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Creating an Assessment

Creating an assessment takes two wizard steps — Basic Info and Population — and then opens the new assessment’s page, where you build its flow.
1

Start a new assessment

Navigate to Company > Assessments. Open the Actions menu and select Assessment under Add New, or press ⌘K (Mac) or Ctrl+K (Windows) and search for “Create assessment”. The New Assessment wizard opens on Basic Info.
2

Enter the basic information

Enter an Assessment Name (required, up to 100 characters) and an optional Description (up to 500 characters). Both are visible to all assigned users. Then answer When should manager grades be visible to their direct reports? by choosing After manager assessments are submitted (the default), When employee self-assessments are submitted, or Only after the assessment has been ended by an admin. Select Continue.
3

Choose the population

Choose All People or Select Groups and pick the groups to include. The step shows how many active people match. If no active people match, the button stays disabled and the page says “No active people match this population — adjust it to continue.” See Assessment Population for every audience option.
4

Save and configure

Select Save and configure. SkillsDB creates the assessment as a Draft and opens its management page, where you build the flow.
The assessment is created only when you leave the Population step, so abandoning the wizard part-way does not leave an empty draft behind. While you are still in the wizard, you can select a completed step in the step indicator to go back to it.

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Building the Assessment Flow

The flow is the sequence of screens a person goes through. Each track has its own flow. On the assessment’s page, the Self Assessment card shows the self track’s flow, and the Manager Assessment card shows the manager track’s flow. If the self flow has no steps yet, the card says “No steps yet” and offers Configure now. Once the flow has steps, the card shows Flow — [number] steps with an Edit flow button, or View flow after the track has launched. Building the manager flow is described in Manager Assessments.
1

Open the builder

On the Self Assessment card, select Configure now or Edit flow.
2

Edit the Cover Page

The Cover Page is always first. Select it to edit the introduction screen people see before they start, including its bullet points.
3

Add steps

Select Add step, then choose a step type in the Add a step dialog. The steps you add appear between the Cover Page and the Submission screen, which is always last. Drag a step, or use its move controls, to change the order.
4

Configure and save each step

Select a step to open its editor. Make your changes and select Save changes, or select Discard to drop them. Each editor saves its own step; there is no separate save for the whole build. If you try to leave with unsaved changes, SkillsDB asks Leave without saving?
5

Choose what people see after submitting

Under Post-submission, turn on Question results to show each scored question’s response after submitting, or Personal scorecard to show a proficiency scorecard. Each option is available only when the flow contains the step it reports on.
The self flow offers these step types: A flow needs at least one step between the Cover Page and Submission: the builder says “Add at least one step between the Cover Page and Submission.” When every career is already covered by a Self-Assessment step, the dialog does not offer another one. To check the flow as a specific person will see it, select Preview flow in the builder, or select Preview on the Self Assessment card and choose a person in the Preview as… dialog. The preview is read-only and nothing you do in it is recorded.
Note: A track’s build locks when that track launches. After launch, the builder opens read-only with the message “Build locked — This assessment has launched, so its build is read-only.”

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Setting Branding and Reviewing the Assessment Page

The assessment’s management page brings everything about one assessment together. Its cards are:
  • Basic Information — the created date, when each track started (or Not launched), and the manager grade visibility setting. Select the pencil icon to edit the name, description, and visibility.
  • Population — the audience scope, the number of eligible people, and each track’s audience. The Employees, Managers, and Direct Reports counts are links to the people list for that track. After a track launches, its row also shows “[done] of [assigned] complete” with a progress bar. Select the pencil icon to edit the population.
  • Assessment Branding — a logo and an accent color for the assessment’s screens. Select Upload logo (PNG, JPG, or SVG, up to 2 MB) or Replace logo. If you do not upload one, the SkillsDB logo is shown.
  • Self Assessment and Manager Assessment — one card per track, with its deadline, start date, launch email setting, flow, reminders, and reports.
While the assessment is in Draft or Scheduled, select Set deadline on a track card to give that track a deadline, or select the date to change or clear it. The deadline cannot be changed once the track has launched. The Launch email switch on each track card decides whether launching that track emails the people it reaches. The switch is fixed once the track launches. If your organization has turned off system emails in Company > Settings, the switch is locked and no launch email is sent.

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Launching or Scheduling an Assessment

When the flow is ready, launch the assessment from its page.
1

Open the launch dialog

On the assessment’s page, open the Actions menu. Under Launch, select Self, Manager, or Both.
2

Choose Launch Now or Schedule

For the self track, choose Launch Now or Schedule. To schedule, pick a Launch date. Scheduled launches fire at 12:00 PM Pacific on that date. Only the self track can be scheduled; the manager track and Both always launch immediately.
3

Confirm

Select Launch assessment, or Schedule launch for a scheduled launch. The dialog states how many people the track reaches and whether start emails are sent.
When a track launches, the people it reaches can open the assessment, and they receive a start email if that track’s Launch email is on. The assessment’s status changes to In Progress, and its details, population, and the launched track’s build become read-only. If you launch only the self track, start the manager track later. Select Start assessment on the Manager Assessment card, then confirm. A scheduled assessment shows a callout such as “Scheduled to launch in 2 days and 14 hours” with the date. The build stays editable until launch. To stop the launch, select Cancel schedule, then confirm in the Cancel this schedule? dialog. The assessment returns to Draft and can be scheduled again. To launch a scheduled assessment early, open the Actions menu and choose a track under Launch Now. SkillsDB refuses a launch that would reach nobody, and says why. For example, “This assessment has not been configured yet, so it cannot be launched or scheduled. Complete the build step first.”, or “No manager would receive the manager assessment, so it cannot be launched.”

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Monitoring Progress and Sending Reminders

While a track is In Progress, its card shows a Completed count with a progress bar, a Last nudge row, and these actions:
  • Nudge — sends a reminder email to everyone in that track who has not completed it. Confirm in the Send a reminder? dialog. The Last nudge row shows when the last reminder went out, or Never. Nudge is disabled while your organization’s system emails are off.
  • Status report — opens a report of who has and has not completed the track. After the track ends, the same button reads Completion report. See Analytics and Reporting.
  • Manager grades — on the Manager Assessment card, opens the matrix of grades managers have given.
To see answers to the flow’s questions, open the Actions menu and select Result under Navigate. The results page shows each question with every respondent’s answer. If the manager track has a flow, choose Employees or Managers to switch between them. Select the Responses count to see who has responded, and use Export in the Actions menu to download the results to Excel. To include or exclude individual people, select the Employees, Managers, or Direct Reports count on the Population card. The people list shows each person’s Inclusion Status. Turn the switch off to exclude a person from that track, or on to include them again. On the Direct Reports list, a report whose manager is excluded cannot be switched, and the switch shows “Manager excluded”.

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Ending an Assessment

Each track is ended separately. On a track card that is In Progress, select End, then select Confirm in the dialog. The dialog warns that assigned people will not be able to edit their response once the assessment is ended. When a track ends, its card shows the end date, and Status report becomes Completion report. When the assessment has ended, its status reads Ended in the list. If manager grades are set to become visible Only after the assessment has been ended by an admin, employees see their manager’s grades from this point.

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Common Questions

Only partly. Once either track has launched, the name, description, manager grade visibility, and population are locked, and SkillsDB refuses changes. Each track’s build locks when that track launches, so you can still edit the manager flow if only the self track has launched. Deadlines can be set only before a track launches.
No. Only the self track can be scheduled. The manager track, and Both, always launch immediately. If you schedule the self track, start the manager track later from its card with Start assessment.
The audience is dynamic. While the assessment is open, SkillsDB adds people who come to match the population and removes people who no longer match. A person added while the self track is running receives the self-assessment invitation email, unless an administrator has excluded them. See Assessment Population.
SkillsDB refuses a launch that would reach nobody. The most common reasons are a self flow with no steps between the Cover Page and Submission, a population that matches no active people, or a manager track that no manager would receive because of the population, manager exclusions, or the careers chosen in the manager flow. The error message names the cause.
Nudge sends a reminder email, so it is disabled while your organization’s system emails are turned off in Company > Settings. It appears only while a track is in progress and not everyone has completed it.
Yes. Select Preview on the Self Assessment card, or Preview flow in the builder, and choose a person in the Preview as… dialog. The preview shows the real flow as that person would see it, and nothing you do in it is saved.

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Related Articles

Assessment Population

Choose who receives an assessment

Manager Assessments

Build the manager flow and grade direct reports

Self Assessments

What employees see when they take an assessment

Questions

Create the reusable questions used in assessment steps

Analytics and Reporting

Read assessment status and completion reports

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Need Help?

If you run into any issues or have questions, reach out to your organization’s SkillsDB administrator or contact SkillsDB Support.