Changes to personnel

When using Totara Perform and performance activities you may need to deal with a personnel change, such as a change in manager or a new hire.

The subject(s) of an activity are determined by assignment to an activity. The responding participants are determined based on the subject/participant relationships at the time a subject instance is generated.

When a user's manager changes while the user has open performance activities, the performance activity header will be updated to show both the current and former managers' names. Once a performance activity is closed, any further changes to the user's manager will not be reflected. The closed activity will always show the manager at the time of closure, ensuring historical accuracy.

Performance activities are designed to protect sensitive information by displaying it only to the appropriate users. However, when users change roles or relationships with other users, it’s possible that information may be shared with new users through a performance activity. For example, a manager might be able to see new performance activity responses of their former team members after they change teams. Always verify that your processes are set up to protect Totara users' data. This includes how long you keep user data, what happens when users or job assignments change, whether the information included is potentially sensitive, and other data privacy considerations.

Managing participant changes

In the case of repeating activities, or if the activity creation window is open, the cron subject instance creation task runs repeatedly. Each time a subject instance is generated, participant instances are also created for the activity relationships associated with that subject.

Participants may also be added manually. Participant instances that are added manually are relevant for that single subject instance only. They have to be selected every time a subject instance is generated, even if it is a repeating activity. You can see more about manually adding participants on the Manually managing performance activity availability page.

Dynamic participant instance creation and closure

In Totara Perform there are two settings that control the creation and closure of participant instances, both of which can be enabled via Configure features:

Enable role change participant instance creation: At the next cron run a participant instance will be created for any user in an activity relationship where that user does not already have an activity instance. For example, ActivityA for SubjectZ has a participant, Manager1. When the activity is activated, participant instances are created for SubjectZ and Manager1. After this, SubjectZ's manager changes to Manager2. At the next cron run a participant instance is created for Manager2.
Enable role change participant instance closure: The participant instances for any user that has left an activity relationship will be closed if that participant instance has not been started, i.e. has the state of 'not started'. If that participant instance is in progress or complete, it will not be closed, unless other settings (e.g. close on complete) are set. For example, ActivityA for SubjectZ has a participant, Manager1. When the activity is activated, participant instances are created for SubjectZ and Manager1. After this, SubjectZ's manager changes to Manager2. At the next cron run the participant instance is closed for Manager1, if Manager1 has not started the activity.

These settings enable the participants in an activity to change as the users acting in the activity relationships change. These settings do not impact on the subject of the activity.

Note that these global settings can also be overridden for individual performance activities. To do this, go to the Assignments tab, enable Override global settings, then use the toggles to enable or disable the settings as required.

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