Supervisor FAQ

1. Criteria are defined by the supervisor to be approved by the supervisor.
2. The supervisor completes the evaluation and submits it for approval.
3. The approver approves the performance evaluation.
4. The supervisor shares the evaluation with the employee.
5. The employee acknowledges the evaluation.

Detailed step-by-step instructions for the probationary performance evaluation process can be found here.

1. Criteria are defined by the supervisor and/or the employee, to be approved by the supervisor. All functions and goals that an employee will be evaluated on for the current performance cycle must be defined during this step. Criteria cannot be added or edited once the Define Criteria step has been completed.
2. The supervisor approves the criteria. To allow for updates to the criteria throughout the performance cycle, the supervisor should wait to approve the Define Criteria step until the end of the performance cycle.
3. (optional) The supervisor and/or the employee can nominate additional staff participants to the evaluation process. One reason for nominating someone could be in the case of dual supervision.
4. (recommended) The employee completes a self-evaluation.
5. The supervisor completes the manager evaluation and shares it with their employee.
6. The employee acknowledges the evaluation.
7. The supervisor submits the evaluation for approval.
8. The approver approves the performance evaluation. 

Detailed step-by-step instructions for the annual performance evaluation process can be found here.

1. Go to https://ucpath.universityofcalifornia.edu
2. Log in with their CruzID and gold password
3. In the left navigation panel, click on ‘Performance Workcenter’
4. Under the ‘Manager Self Service’ section, click on ‘Teams Current Performance Docs’
5. Click on the relevant performance evaluation

1. Go to https://ucpath.universityofcalifornia.edu
2. Log in with their CruzID and gold password
3. In the left navigation panel, click on ‘Performance Workcenter’
4. Under the ‘Manager Self Service’ section, click on ‘Teams Historic Performance Docs’
5. Click on the relevant performance evaluation

appraisals.ucsc.edu automatically sent an email with a PDF copy of the completed evaluation. Please search your email for a message coming from appraisals@ucsc.edu to find that document. If you cannot find that email, either due to a change in supervision, or the email has been deleted, you can submit an Employee Request for Access to Personnel File for a copy of an evaluation record.

There are two reasons why this may be:

Performance evaluations are by default assigned to supervisors based on the Reports To field in an employee’s position record. If your position number is not the one given in the employee’s Reports To field, the evaluation will not be assigned to you. If this is the case, you would want to reach out to your SHR Operations Timekeeper to have your employee’s Reports To field updated. You will also want to reach out to your Divisional Administrator to have them transfer the employee’s performance evaluation to you.

Another possibility is that the evaluation hasn’t been created. Please note, annual performance evaluations are created automatically only for Career and Partial Year Career employees. If you have a Contract employee that you wish to complete an annual performance evaluation, you will need to reach out to your Divisional Administratorto ask them to create that evaluation.

If the previous supervisor did not complete their evaluation of the employee, you can reach out to your divisional ePerformance administrator to have the evaluation transferred to you. 

If the previous supervisor did complete their evaluation of the employee, you would want to reach out to your Employee Relations Analyst to request a copy of that past evaluation. Please note: You should not transfer an evaluation that has already been completed to a new supervisor, as it will appear in ePerformance as though the new supervisor provided that evaluation. 

UCPath will log you out after ~20 minutes of inactivity. If you have multiple tabs open to UCPath, each tab is running its own timer. If any browser tab open to UCPath is left untouched for ~20 minutes, it will log you out of all tabs (even if you are actively working in another UCPath tab). We recommend closing any UCPath browser tabs you aren’t actively using to avoid an unwanted logout.

Please note, the Performance Workcenter automatically opens you into a new tab on your browser, creating the perfect scenario for you to be logged out while you are working.

Once you complete a step in ePerformance, a ‘Reopen’ link becomes available to reopen the most recently completed step. Where the ‘Reopen’ link appears differs depending on the step:

To reopen the Define Criteria step: Click the ‘Define Criteria’ step in the Performance Process bar and click the ‘Reopen’ link that appears below. Please note, this ‘Reopen’ link will only be available if the mostly recent action taken in the evaluation was the approval of the Define Criteria step. If the employee starts their self evaluation, or if you start the manager evaluation, this ‘Reopen’ link will not be available. For this reason, we recommend that supervisors wait to approve the Define Criteria step until toward the end of the performance cycle, when they are sure the criteria are finalized and are ready for the employee to start their self evaluation.

To reopen an employee’s self evaluation: Click on the ‘Review Self Evaluation’ link in the Performance Process bar, and then click ‘View Self Evaluation’. This will open a new tab on your browser. In that new tab, a ‘Reopen’ link will display directly above the Functions and Goals tabs. Please note, if the manager evaluation has already been shared with the employee, you will need to first reopen the manager evaluation (See below).

To reopen the manager evaluation: Go into the ‘Complete Manager Evaluation’ step and click the ‘Reopen’ link directly above the Functions and Goals tabs. Please note, you will not have this reopen option if you have already submitted the evaluation for approval. If you have submitted the evaluation for approval and need to make changes to the evaluation, you will need to reach out to your Employee Relations Analyst to have them reopen the evaluation for you.

There is no specific character or word limit.

Yes. There are three ways to share criteria from one evaluation to another:

‘Copy from My Documents’ allows you to copy criteria from your own evaluation to one of your direct report’s evaluation.

‘Copy from my Teams Documents’ allows you to copy criteria from another evaluation amongst your direct reports to the current evaluation you are working on.

The ‘Copy to Other Documents’ button (looks like two sheets of paper) next to each criteria in a performance evaluation allows you to copy that criteria from the current evaluation to one or more evaluations amongst your direct reports.

Make sure when you are entering search criteria for copying from your team's documents, that you indicate evaluation period dates.

No. Nothing will automatically populate, so you will need to add them in manually.

Employees can see criteria that the supervisor has saved in the Define Criteria step, but they can't see the supervisor's evaluation of them until the evaluation is shared with them.

To learn more about ePerformance, Staff HR offers three resources:

Sign up for a class:

Employee Relations offers instructor led courses on ePerformance. You can register for the first course, ‘ePerformance Part 1: Defining Criteria and Goal Setting’ through the UC Learning Center. Additional courses on how to complete a performance evaluation will be offered toward the end of the annual performance cycle.

VIew Training Presentations:

The full ePerformance Tool Trainings and step by step instructions can also be found here. 

View Step-by-Step Instructions and Workflow:

• Probationary performance evaluation process can be found here.
• Annual performance evaluation process can be found here.

Contact your Employee Relations Analyst with any further questions you have about ePerformance.

In this case, it would be any goals you may have set for the employee in February when they came on.

Defer to your Employee Relations Analyst for accurate feedback and to notify them of any possible action needed from them. In this scenario, if the employee started in February, their probationary period would end pretty close to the end of the FY annual performance cycle. Therefore, the supervisor would only need to complete the Probationary Evaluation for their employee and the Employee Relations Analyst would delete the Annual Evaluation.

Yes. A supervisor can add an attachment at the ‘Complete Manager Evaluation’ step. There is an option to upload attachments located at the bottom of the page.

If you are seeing something saying the evaluation is not yet complete, or if you are being told your evaluation is not yet complete, go into the evaluation and verify there are no outstanding steps for you to take. 

1. If this is a probationary performance evaluation, once the evaluation has been approved, you still need to share it with your employee, and the employee needs to acknowledge it. For more detailed instructions on probationary performance evaluations, click here.
2. If this is an annual performance evaluation, once you submit it for approval, it will need to be approved before the evaluation is considered complete. For more detailed instructions on annual performance evaluations, click here.

If you still have questions about the status of your evaluation, you can reach out to your Employee Relations Analyst for additional assistance. 

The Probationary Evaluation is where a supervisor should give feedback on the employee’s job duties and performance. The employee will just acknowledge them. There is no Goals tab in a probationary performance evaluation, and the employee does not complete a self evaluation.

During the Define Criteria step, you would be entering the job description content on the Functions tab, and goals for your employee for the current performance cycle on the Goals tab. You will not be entering your evaluation of the employee at this time. Once you approve the Define Criteria step, you will be able to rate and evaluate your employee on those criteria in the Complete Manager Evaluation step.

Both the supervisor and the employee have the ability to add and save criteria during the Define Criteria step. Toward the end of the performance cycle, once they have reviewed all content in the Define Criteria step, the supervisor would click the ‘Approve’ button.

Functions should reflect duties as they are related to the job description. For example, these can include specific projects/assignments, responsibility for certain departmental operations or programs, ongoing work groups or committee participation, etc.  It is not necessary to copy the entire job description duties into the Job Functions section; a summary of projects/assignments is sufficient.

Goals are used to identify development that sustains, improves and builds performance, and enables the employee to contribute to strategic organizational objectives and foster employee growth. This section should be used to identify goals, objectives, and career development activities and should be completed in collaboration with the employee. Stretch goals can be used to define and motivate performance which is Exceptional or Consistently Exceeds. 

The goals to enter in an annual performance evaluation would be the goals you would have set for the employee at the beginning of the current performance cycle. For example, if completing a 2020-2021 performance evaluation, you would enter the goals set for the employee at the start of the 2020-2021 performance period. The goals for the 2021-2022 performance period won't be entered until you start the Define Criteria step for the 2021-2022 performance evaluation.

UC Santa Cruz offers the Gartner Campus Access Program, which provides extensive resources, including Ignition Guide to Developing an Employee Through a Stretch Assignment. This guide includes tools which will help you:

• Determine the appropriate stretch assignment for your employee,
• Ensure the employee has the support necessary to succeed, and
• Evaluate the next steps in development for your employee.

To access Gartner resources follow the instructions here

Yes. During the Define Criteria step, employees are able to add items to the evaluation, and edit existing items. All functions and goals that an employee will be evaluated on for the current performance cycle must be defined during this step. Criteria cannot be added or edited once the Define Criteria step has been completed. 

When an employee adds a new item to an evaluation, their name will display at the bottom of that item following the words “Created By”.

When an employee edits an existing item in an evaluation, their name will display at the bottom of that item following the words “Last Modified By”.

Employees are able to delete items that they themselves added to the evaluation, but cannot delete items added by their supervisor.

It is up to the supervisor whether or not they would like their employee to add or edit items to the performance evaluation. When starting a performance evaluation, the supervisor should clearly communicate with their employee their expectations around employee involvement during the Define Criteria step.

No. Once the Define Criteria step has been completed (note the green

checkmark next to the step in the Performance Process bar), criteria may no

longer be updated or edited. Under limited circumstances the supervisor is

able to reopen the Define Criteria step. See “I accidentally completed a

step but need to go back. How can I go back a step?” on the Supervisor FAQ

for more information.

In this case, it would be any goals you may have set for the employee in February when they came on.

Employees can see criteria that the supervisor has saved in the Define Criteria step, but they can't see the supervisor's evaluation of them until the evaluation is shared with them.

Goals for the upcoming performance cycle would be entered in the evaluation created for that performance cycle. For example, the goals for the 21-22 performance cycle would be entered in the 21-22 performance performance evaluation, once that evaluation is created.

Only the supervisor that created the Performance Note can see that Performance Note.

Only the employee that created the Performance Note can see that Performance Note.

Generally speaking, performance notes may be disclosable. The CA Information Practices Act (IPA) provides broad access rights to inquire and be notified as to whether the agency maintains a record and is permitted to inspect any personal information where it is maintained by reference to an identifying particular (name, EID, etc.). Moreover, there is special recognition regarding supervisor's information compiled for purposes of determining suitability, eligibility, or qualifications for employment, advancement, renewal of appointment or promotion. As a best practice, supervisors should use the notes to generate their evaluation and, after the evaluation is finalized, delete their notes out of ePerformance.

No. Performance notes remain with the supervisor that created them.

Yes. When you search for a performance note, on that search page when results are displayed, you can select one or more notes by checking a checkbox. When you do, a yellow ‘Delete’ button becomes available. We recommend deleting performance notes once the performance period in question has passed, and the relevant performance evaluation is completed.

No. At this time, there is no purge process in place for performance notes. If you do not want performance notes to persist, you would want to go in and delete them after you’ve completed the relevant performance evaluation.

No. However, completion is highly encouraged as it is an opportunity for employees to provide their supervisors with any information they think is pertinent to their performance over the last year. This is also a chance to reflect on whether certain goals and objectives were met over the performance period as well as how supervisors can help the employees be more successful in their jobs for the coming year.

The employee cannot start their self evaluation until the Define Criteria step has been approved by the supervisor.

Please note, once your employee starts working on their self evaluation, you will lose the ability to go back and edit the criteria. Make sure that all criteria on all tabs (Functions and Goals) are correct and complete before clicking the Approve button.

Please note, there is no notification sent to the employee when the Define Criteria have been approved, so you will need to reach out to your employee to let them know you are ready for them to complete their self evaluation.

Please note, the employee Self Evaluation should be completed before the Complete Manager Evaluation step. If the Complete Manager Evaluation step happens first, it will lock the employee out of their self evaluation. If you complete your manager evaluation before the employee has the opportunity to complete their self evaluation, you are able to reopen the self evaluation by taking the following steps:

1. Click the ‘Reopen’ link directly above the Functions and Goals tabs of the Complete Manager Evaluation step.
2. In the Performance Process bar, click on ‘Review Self Evaluation’ and then click on ‘View Self Evaluation’.
3. Click the ‘Reopen’ link directly above the Functions and Goals tabs of the employee’s self evaluation.

In the Performance Process panel, select ‘Nominate Participants’ and then click the ‘Add Nominees’ link. Next, in the main panel of the page click the ‘Add Peer’ link. Search for the UCSC staff employee you would like to nominate, check the checkbox next to their name and click ‘Ok’. Click the yellow ‘Save’ button in the upper right corner of the page to save your work.

Please note: nominating a participant does not automatically invite the participant to give feedback on the employee’s performance. Once a nomination has been saved, the supervisor needs to review, and then either accept or reject the nomination. If the supervisor accepts the nomination, they should click the ‘Submit Nominations’ button in the upper right corner to send the invitation to the nominated participant. If the supervisor wishes to reject the nomination, they should click the trashcan icon to the right of their name to remove them from the list of nominations.

Managers and supervisors may contact their Employee Relations Analyst if they would like to discuss how to manage the selection of a participant in the evaluation process. Alternatively, they may take this discussion to their unit if they are looking to build in a consistent approach across their unit.

Generally, an employee evaluation serves as a review of performance feedback that has been given to the employee during the evaluation period. Please contact your Employee Relations Analyst if you receive new information from a participant if you have questions about if/how to address in the evaluation.

The participant can complete their evaluation any time before the manager completes their evaluation of the employee. There is no ordering relationship between the participant evaluation and the self evaluation.

If you have not yet submitted the evaluation for approval, you can reopen the evaluation yourself and make any corrections necessary. To do this, go into the evaluation, and directly above the Functions and Goals tab, there should be a ‘Reopen’ link.

If the evaluation has already been submitted for approval, or if it has been completed, you will want to contact your Divisional Administrator to have them reopen the evaluation for you.

If the most recently completed step is the Define Criteria step, and if no one has taken any additional action in the evaluation, you can click on the Define Criteria step in the Performance Process bar and then click the ‘Reopen’ link that displays below.

Please note: If the employee has started working on their self evaluation, or if you have started working on the manager evaluation, this ‘Reopen’ option will not be available. For this reason, we recommend that supervisors wait to approve the Define Criteria step until toward the end of the performance cycle, when they are sure the criteria are finalized and are ready for the employee to start their self evaluation.

If the previous supervisor did not complete their evaluation of the employee, you can reach out to your divisional ePerformance administrator to have the evaluation transferred to you. 

If the previous supervisor did complete their evaluation of the employee, you would want to reach out to your Employee Relations Analyst to request a copy of that past evaluation. Please note: You should not transfer an evaluation that has already been completed to a new supervisor, as it will appear in ePerformance as though the new supervisor provided that evaluation. 

Contract and Per Diem employees do not by default require an annual performance evaluation. As a result, evaluations for these populations aren’t created by default. If you need an annual evaluation for a Contract or Per Diem employee, work with your Divisional Administrator.

Yes. you can submit an Employee Request for Access to Personnel File for a copy of an evaluation record.

Defer to your Employee Relations Analyst for accurate feedback and to notify them of any possible action needed from them. In this scenario, if the employee started in February, their probationary period would end pretty close to the end of the FY annual performance cycle. Therefore, the supervisor would only need to complete the Probationary Evaluation for their employee and the Employee Relations Analyst would delete the Annual Evaluation.

Goals for the upcoming performance cycle would be entered in the evaluation created for that performance cycle. For example, the goals for the 21-22 performance cycle would be entered in the 21-22 performance performance evaluation, once that evaluation is created.

1. Go to https://ucpath.universityofcalifornia.edu
2. Log in with their CruzID and gold password
3. In the left navigation panel, click on ‘Performance Workcenter’
4. Under the ‘Manager Self Service’ section, click on ‘Teams Current Performance Docs’
5. Click on the relevant performance evaluation

1. Go to https://ucpath.universityofcalifornia.edu
2. Log in with their CruzID and gold password
3. In the left navigation panel, click on ‘Performance Workcenter’
4. Under the ‘Manager Self Service’ section, click on ‘Teams Historic Performance Docs’
5. Click on the relevant performance evaluation

1. Go to https://ucpath.universityofcalifornia.edu
2. Log in with their CruzID and gold password
3. In the left navigation panel, click on Performance Workcenter
4. Under the Manager Self Service section, click ‘Approve Perform/Develop Docs’
5. In the Document Type field, enter ‘SCCANNUL’ for annual performance evaluations, or ‘SCPROB’ for probationary performance evaluations, and click ‘Search’

Please note: If there's a rating that's less than a 3 reach out to your Employee Relations Analyst and let them know. Do NOT approve the low scoring evaluation without first consulting with the ER Analyst.

appraisals.ucsc.edu automatically sent an email with a PDF copy of the completed evaluation. Please search your email for a message coming from appraisals@ucsc.edu to find that document. If you cannot find that email, either due to a change in supervision, or the email has been deleted, you can submit an Employee Request for Access to Personnel File for a copy of an evaluation record.

Once you complete a step in ePerformance, a "Reopen" link becomes available to reopen the most recently completed step. Where the "Reopen" link appears differs depending on the step:

To reopen the Define Criteria step: Click the ‘Define Criteria’ step in the Performance Process bar and click the ‘Reopen’ link that appears below. Please note, this ‘Reopen’ link will only be available if the mostly recent action taken in the evaluation was the approval of the Define Criteria step. If the employee starts their self evaluation, or if you start the manager evaluation, this ‘Reopen’ link will not be available. For this reason, we recommend that supervisors wait to approve the Define Criteria step until toward the end of the performance cycle, when they are sure the criteria are finalized and are ready for the employee to start their self evaluation.

To reopen an employee’s self evaluation: Click on the ‘Review Self Evaluation’ link in the Performance Process bar, and then click ‘View Self Evaluation’. This will open a new tab on your browser. In that new tab, a ‘Reopen’ link will display directly above the Functions and Goals tabs. Please note, if the manager evaluation has already been shared with the employee, you will need to first reopen the manager evaluation (See below).

To reopen the manager evaluation: Go into the ‘Complete Manager Evaluation’ step and click the ‘Reopen’ link directly above the Functions and Goals tabs. Please note, you will not have this reopen option if you have already submitted the evaluation for approval. If you have submitted the evaluation for approval and need to make changes to the evaluation, you will need to reach out to your Employee Relations Analyst to have them reopen the evaluation for you.

You can’t. Performance notes remain with the supervisor that created them.

In the Performance Workcenter, under Employee Self Service there is a link called ‘Employees Performance Notes’.

When you search for a performance note, on that search page when results are displayed, you can select one or more notes by checking a checkbox. When you do, a yellow ‘Delete’ button becomes available. We recommend deleting performance notes once the performance period in question has passed, and the relevant performance evaluation is completed.

Goals for the upcoming performance cycle would be entered in the evaluation created for that performance cycle. For example, the goals for the 21-22 performance cycle would be entered in the 21-22 performance performance evaluation, once that evaluation is created.

There are three ways to share criteria from one evaluation to another:

‘Copy from My Documents’ allows you to copy criteria from your own evaluation to one of your direct report’s evaluation.

‘Copy from my Teams Documents’ allows you to copy criteria from another evaluation amongst your direct reports to the current evaluation you are working on.

The ‘Copy to Other Documents’ button (looks like two sheets of paper) next to each criteria in a performance evaluation allows you to copy that criteria from the current evaluation to one or more evaluations amongst your direct reports.

If the most recently completed step is the Define Criteria step, and if no one has taken any additional action in the evaluation, you can click on the Define Criteria step in the Performance Process bar and then click the ‘Reopen’ link that displays below.

Please note: If the employee has started working on their self evaluation, or if you have started working on the manager evaluation, this ‘Reopen’ option will not be available. For this reason, we recommend that supervisors wait to approve the Define Criteria step until toward the end of the performance cycle, when they are sure the criteria are finalized and are ready for the employee to start their self evaluation.

A supervisor can add an attachment at the ‘Complete Manager Evaluation’ step. There is an option to upload attachments located at the bottom of the page.

Contract and Per Diem employees do not by default require an annual performance evaluation. As a result, evaluations for these populations aren’t created by default. If you need an annual evaluation for a Contract or Per Diem employee, work with your Divisional Administrator.

To learn more about ePerformance, Staff HR offers three resources:

Sign up for a class:

Employee Relations offers instructor led courses on ePerformance. You can register for the first course, ‘ePerformance Part 1: Defining Criteria and Goal Setting’ through the UC Learning Center. Additional courses on how to complete a performance evaluation will be offered toward the end of the annual performance cycle.

VIew Training Presentations:

The full ePerformance Tool Trainings and step by step instructions can also be found here. 

View Step-by-Step Instructions and Workflow:

• Probationary performance evaluation process can be found here.
• Annual performance evaluation process can be found here.

Contact your Employee Relations Analyst with any further questions you have about ePerformance.