Updating employee and segment data with a retroactive effect

By default, all changes made on employee records will reflect accordingly from the next survey round. For example, when an employee moves to a new team, their historical scores will remain in the old team (where it was collected at the time), and from the next round onwards, their current scores and any new survey data will contribute to the new team.

Backdating retroactively withdraws an employee's historical scores and comments from one segment, while moving them to another segment.

This article will cover:

• Background and considerations
• Backdating an individual employee
• Backdating a group of employees or a segment
• Backdating through a data import
• Troubleshooting incorrectly uploaded data

Background and considerations

For the sake of keeping your employee data accurate, it is recommended that it always reflects reality, with regards to current team set up as well as historical set up. It is not recommended to backdate employees and teams to something that never was. The recommendation is to only backdate an employee if they were actually part of that team at the time.  

The typical uses for this feature are:

• A new manager had already started managing the selected employees before a survey went out
• Assigning a manager to a specific team who mistakenly had no manager assigned
• Two areas have merged together, and there is a need for a consolidated view of survey responses

General considerations

Scenario: new manager taking over a team

It is generally not recommended to backdate historical results to the start of time when a new manager takes over a team. This is because:

• The feedback may not be relevant or actionable to the new manager.
• The new manager's current efforts would not be reflected correctly, if old scores are included.
• It could contain sensitive information that was intended for the previous reporting lines. Consider whether providing access to historical data aligns with your employee expectations, based on what you've communicated on how you will handle survey results.

Optional workarounds:

• If the old manager is still employed, you can share their dashboard with the new manager using the sharable dashboard feature, or add them as a segment manager of the old manager's segment (see Giving access to segment data by adding segment managers). These solutions are good workarounds in providing access without backdating, if the segment of the old manager doesn't have new employees contributing new survey data into their dashboard.
• Download PowerPoint presentation from the old manager's dashboard which contains a summary of scores, topics, actions, etc.
• If the new manager also needs the old comments, they can export the comments from the old manager's dashboard.

Backdating an individual employee

To backdate an individual employee, you must first decide which attribute you need to backdate for them. 

1. Go to Administration > Employees
2. Search for and open the employee record of the employee whose attribute value you need to backdate
3. Find the attribute field that you need to backdate
4. Click the small clock icon above that field
5. Either choose a custom date (for example, before a specific round) or the start of time
6. Save changes

Once the backdating is done, the list of surveyed employees on the backdated segment can be checked on its dashboard, to verify that the user has been retroactively moved there. 

Backdating a group of employees or a segment

A segment can either be backdated during the process of making a change on that segment, or even with employees that are already in it, to further the amount of historical data within the segment. 

How to backdate a group of employees 

1. Go to Administration > Employees
2. Using the left side filters, find the segment you wish to update (this can also be multiple options at the same time)
3. Select all employees 
4. Click the Edit button to open the bulk edit page
5. Tick the field that needs to be backdated
6. (Optional) If you need to change the segment value, click the drop down list and select a segment option
7. Click the small clock icon next to that field to open backdating options
8. Choose from when this change should be valid from
9. Save your changes

Once the backdating is done, the list of surveyed employees on the affected segment can be checked on its dashboard, to verify that the user has been retroactively moved there. 

Backdating through an employee data upload

It is also possible to backdate via an employee data upload. The system will backdate all information that the file contains, so if not all information should be backdated, ensure to only keep the columns and employees that do need backdating.

1. Go to Administration > Employees
2. Click on the Import option
3. Before importing your file, tick the Set valid from box to set a retrospective date from when your changes should be valid from

As with updating employees manually, be mindful about the validity date, it should be before a specific survey for the data to be valid for that survey round. 

Troubleshooting incorrectly uploaded data

Imagine that an Excel file was uploaded, containing a number of employees who were reporting to the wrong manager on the file. There were two survey rounds that went out before the mistake was spotted.

Quick solution: Backdating the affected employee records to reflect the correct manager from the day the Excel file was uploaded, or to a date before the two survey rounds went out will place their survey results into the correct segments.

• Try to establish the exact date the data was uploaded incorrectly. If it's a small change that can be easily rectified from the employee page using the filters and backdate option, the Backdating a group of employees or a segment option is advisable. Backdate the change to the exact date the error was uploaded into Peakon.
• For larger issues, it's best to backdate via an Excel file upload. Where possible, isolate the data to only include the data that needs changing on the file i.e. removing unnecessary columns and rows. The employee ID or email address, first and last names, and the column/s containing the attribute values that need backdating should suffice.