---
title: "Add performance activity participants manually"
slug: "add-performance-activity-participants-manually"
tags: ["Totara Perform", "How-to", "Manager"]
updated: 2025-07-22T10:52:18Z
published: 2025-07-22T11:18:53Z
canonical: "totara.help/add-performance-activity-participants-manually"
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://totara.help/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Add performance activity participants manually

After setting up performance activities, you may add assign an activity to [audiences](/19/docs/assign-a-performance-activity-to-an-audience) or [organisations and positions](/19/docs/assign-a-performance-activity-to-an-organisation-or-position). However, Peer, Mentor, Reviewer and External respondents are manually populated relationships. This means that for each subject instance of the activity these relationships need to be manually selected. The activity creator can set who should perform that manual population (per instance), i.e. be the 'selector' by following these steps:

1. Go to *Quick access* *> Activity management.*
2. Click the name of the activity you wish to manually set participants for.
3. Open the **General** tab of the activity.
4. Under the **Selection of participants** setting choose the selector from the following users:
  - The subject themselves
  - Manager
  - Manager's Manager
  - Appraiser
5. Click **Save changes** when you are done.

## More information

The Manager, Manager's Manager and Appraiser relationships are all automatically derived from what is set on the user's job assignment.

The user(s) acting as selector(s) will receive a notification that they need to perform this selection. Once a manually populated relationship has been invoked in the activity (by adding them as a participant on at least one section), that selection will have to take place to enable it to proceed. It's possible that multiple 'selectors' are identified for a particular manually populated relationship (for example because multiple users fulfil the role of 'manager') however only one of those users needs to make a selection for the activity to proceed.

Regardless of whether manual relationships are being used in the the activity, the **Selection of participants** setting will always appear on the **General** tab. This setting can simply be ignored if you do not require relationships to be set manually.

## **Example**

As an illustration of how this setting can be used let's look at an example where you want to create an activity in which a subject's peers should participate. Using the **Selection of participants** setting on the **General** tab you can decide who the most appropriate person is to select these participants (since 'peer' is not a formally represented relationship in Totara). You can decide if the subject should choose the peers they want to participant themselves, or if the subject's manager should select the peers to ensure impartiality.

The relationship pairing set up in the particular subject instance (e.g. who is selected as the subject's peers) does not persist outside of that instance. So if you wanted to have the same participants next time (i.e. the same people considered to be the subject's peers), they would need to be reselected for that instance.

## Next steps

- [Add external participants](/19/docs/add-external-participants-to-a-performance-activity)
- [Activate a performance activity](/19/docs/activate-a-performance-activity)

![Course badge](https://cdn.document360.io/a007399b-031e-436b-999a-528240e16f58/Images/Documentation/course-badge_appraisals-in-totara-perform(3).svg?sv=2026-02-06&spr=https&st=2026-11-01T15%3A56%3A35Z&se=2026-11-01T16%3A56%3A35Z&sr=c&sp=r&sig=kAz1g35wRDE01xK4pWEaRNi2xp%2BfTzMQlCzP1kYVY7s%3D)

Get involved in the conversation about [Performance management](https://totara.community/container/type/workspace/workspace.php?id=546) in the Totara Community.

Why not visit the [Totara Academy](https://totara.community/totara/catalog/?cfp_multiselect_typetype_90594%5b%5d=Course&cfp_multiselect_typetype_90594%5b%5d=Program&catalog_fts=Totara%20Perform&orderbykey=score&itemstyle=narrow) for our latest course dedicated to [Totara Perform](https://totara.community/mod/page/view.php?id=24572)

Join the [Totara Community](https://totara.community/) for more resources to help you get the most out of Totara.

© Copyright 2026 Totara Learning Solutions. All rights reserved.