Calibration

Calibration lets managers collectively adjust employee ratings across multiple topics in a shared workspace. Topics can be generated from performance review sections, Objective Periods, or Objective Categories — making calibration useful for both review cycles and objective-based evaluation. Sessions contain topics (rating dimensions), employees to rate, and participants who do the rating. Calibrators can change ratings; observers have read-only access. Finished sessions freeze all edits and display the final state with full audit history.

Permission Set

To access calibration features, an admin must assign the Flair Advanced Development Manager permission set to the relevant users. This permission set grants full access to calibration objects (Calibration Session, Topic, Participant, Employee Topic, and Update) as well as tab visibility for the Calibration Session tab in Salesforce.

Without this permission set, users will not be able to create or manage calibration sessions, topics, or participant assignments.

Quick Setup Checklist

1. Create a Calibration Session — link to a feedback cycle
2. Generate Topics from the cycle (or create manual topics)
3. Review the Employee Matrix and adjust assignments
4. Add Participants (calibrators and observers)
5. Start Calibration — transitions to In Progress, snapshots initial rates
6. Calibrators rate employees in the Hub workspace
7. Finish the session to lock results

Session Lifecycle

Three states: Setup → In Progress → Finished.

State	What's Allowed
Setup	Create and edit topics, manage employee assignments, add and remove participants
In Progress	Calibrators rate employees in the Hub; setup configuration is read-only; rating history accessible
Finished	Everything is read-only; results matrix shows final ratings with full audit history

Creating a Calibration Session

1. In the flair HR app in Salesforce, navigate to Calibration Sessions
2. Click New to create a new session

Generating Topics

Click the Generate Topics button on the session record to open the generation modal. The modal lets you choose which source to generate topics from and configure generation options.

Calibration Sources

Source	What It Generates
Performance Review	Topics from feedback cycle sections; employees from cycle participants; initial rates from manager review answers. Also allows generating topics from the Objective Period linked to the performance review
Objective Period	Either single topic linked to the period; either one topic per category within an objective period; employees from matching objective assignees; no automatic initial rates

Generation Options

• Skip sections without rating questions — only generates topics for sections that contain at least one rating-type question
• Generate topics for objectives — controls how objective-based topics are created:
  • None — no objective topics
  • Generate topic for objective period — creates a single topic for the entire period
  • Generate topics per objective category — creates separate topics for each objective category (e.g., Technical, Leadership) instead of a single period topic
• Add employees' managers as calibrators — direct managers of affected employees will be added as calibrators

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If the session already has topics, you must remove existing topics before generating new ones. Merge or replace is only possible by editing the calibration custom objects directly in Salesforce.

Managing Topics

The Topics step displays a table with the following columns: Topic Name, Type and Employees count.

• Click + Add Topic to create a custom (manual) topic
• Click the × button on a row to remove a topic

Once your topics are ready, proceed to the next step — Setup Employees.

Setup Employees

The Employee Matrix is a grid with employees as rows and topics as columns, using checkboxes to indicate assignments.

• Assign or unassign an employee to a topic by toggling the checkbox in the corresponding cell
• Click + Add Employees to search for employees not yet in the calibration and add them to the session

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New employees added via + Add Employees are assigned to all topics by default. Uncheck specific topics in the matrix afterwards.

Once employee assignments are ready, proceed to the next step — Setup Calibrators.

Setup Calibrators

Participant Roles

Role	Permissions
Calibrator	Can view and update employee ratings during calibration
Observer	Can view ratings but cannot make changes

Managing Calibrators

• Click + Add Calibrator to search and add — defaults to Calibrator role
• Change a participant's type via the row action menu (Change to Calibrator / Change to Observer)
• Remove a participant with the × button
• If "Add employees' managers as participants" was checked during generation, managers already appear as Calibrators

Starting Calibration

Clicking Start Calibration triggers the following:

• Session transitions from Setup to In Progress
• Initial rates are snapshotted for each employee-topic record
• Setup wizard becomes read-only

Rate Snapshot Rules

Topic Source	Initial Rate
Performance Review Section	Taken from the manager review answer of the last ordered RATING question in the section
Objective Period / Category	Left empty — calibrators provide ratings during calibration
Manual	Left empty — calibrators provide ratings during calibration

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Once calibration is started, you cannot go back to Setup to modify topics, employee assignments, or participants.

Calibration in the Hub

The session list page shows two tabs: In Progress and All. Each card displays the session name, linked cycle, state, topic count, and employee count.

Calibration Workspace

The workspace displays a grid with employees as rows and topics as columns.

Calibrators see rating dropdowns populated with calibration options, color-coded by value. A note popover is available on each cell for optional notes. A floating save bar shows the pending change count.

Observers see read-only badges with no dropdowns or save bar.

If another calibrator changed the same cell, a warning icon appears. Reload to fetch the latest values and re-rate.

Rating History

Click a cell to open the side panel.

The panel shows the employee name and topic, the current rating, and a full audit trail (who changed the rating, when, what the previous and new values were, and any notes).

Roles & Permissions

Role	In Progress	Finished
Calibrator	Can view and change ratings	Read-only
Observer	Read-only	Read-only

Access is strictly invitation-based. Only users with a Participant record can see a session in the Hub. There is no admin or HR override for Hub access.

Salesforce Objects Reference

Calibration data is stored in the following custom objects. These can be viewed and edited directly in Salesforce for advanced configuration or troubleshooting.

Object	Purpose
Calibration_Session__c	Top-level container for a calibration round
Calibration_Topic__c	A rating dimension within a session (e.g., a review section, objective category, or manual topic)
Calibration_Employee_Topic__c	One employee inside one topic — stores initial and final rates
Calibration_Participant__c	A user invited to participate as Calibrator or Observer
Calibration_Update__c	Audit record capturing a single rating change

Known Limitations

• For Performance Review Section topics, the initial rate is taken from the manager review answer of the last ordered RATING question in the section. If no RATING question exists or the manager has not answered, the initial rate is empty.
• Objective-based topics do not receive automatic initial rates. They provide employee population and topic structure only — calibrators assign ratings during calibration.
• Finalized rates are stored only on calibration records and are not written back to performance review records.