OKR Hub
1. What it is
OKR Hub lets your organization set objectives and measure them with key results, quarter by quarter. Objectives cascade from company level through department and team down to individual, and progress rolls up automatically so leadership can see alignment at a glance.
- Enablement: OKR Hub requires a license. An admin enables it from Admin → Apps → All Apps; it is off by default.
- What it is not: OKR Hub is not where individual performance reviews happen. Reviews, competency ratings, and appraisal cycles live in Performance Management. OKR Hub tracks strategic objectives and their measurable key results; the two apps connect through an optional integration.
2. Standing it up
- Go to Admin → Apps → All Apps → OKR Hub and enable the app.
- Go to OKR Hub → Setup → OKR Hub Settings (open to admins and OKR Hub app admins) and configure:
- Fiscal Year Start Month — objectives are planned by fiscal quarter. Set this if your fiscal year does not start in January (the default); every quarter boundary follows it.
- Traffic Light Thresholds — Yellow From (default 70%) and Green At or Above (default 80%). Progress below the yellow threshold shows red.
- Key-Result Progress Format — Percentage (default), Decimal, or Grade. It changes only how progress is shown on key-result lists and pages; objectives, reports, the dashboard and emails always show a percentage.
- Decide whether objectives need approval before activation. Under Approval Workflow, toggle approval on for each level independently: Company, Department, Team, Individual. All four are off by default — objectives activate immediately.
- Admins: open Setup → Feature Toggles and review the nine feature toggles: Quarterly Planning, Objective Templates, Objective Scoring, Progress Update Forms, Automated Check-ins & Reminders, Objective Confidence Rating, Advanced Analytics, Export Reports, and AI Insights. All are on by default. Turn off any you do not want your users to see.
- If you use the Performance Management app, turn on Enable OKR Integration at the bottom of OKR Hub Settings to align objectives with Performance Management goals.
- To confirm setup, ask someone to create and activate one objective with a key result. The objective should appear on their My Work → My Dashboard, and the key result should accept a progress update.
Silent-until-configured pairing: the Performance Management integration is off by default. Without it, the Strategy tab (shown to managers when Performance Management is enabled) offers only its Performance Management overview page — Goal Alignments, Key Result Mappings and Integration Analytics appear once the integration is on.
3. How it fits together
Objectives and key results
An objective is a qualitative goal — “Improve customer retention.” Each objective has one or more key results: measurable targets that prove whether the objective is being met — “Reduce monthly churn from 8% to 4%.” By default, progress on the objective is calculated automatically from its key results.
Objectives sit at one of four levels: Company, Department, Team, or Individual. Anyone can create a department, team, or individual objective. Only an admin, an OKR Hub app admin or HR can create a company-level objective.
An active objective can cascade down: a manager or anyone with direct reports who can edit it uses Cascade to create a child objective one level down, for themselves or one of their direct reports (an admin can pick anyone). The child starts as a draft with the parent’s quarter and dates, and its progress rolls up to the parent.
Example: a company objective “Improve customer retention” (Q3 2026) might cascade to a department objective “Reduce support response time” owned by the Support lead, which in turn has a key result “Average first-response time under 2 hours” with a target value of 2 and the unit set to Hours.
Scoring
OKR Hub uses a 0.0–1.0 scoring scale. Objectives come in two types — Committed and Stretch — and each is graded on a different curve:
- Committed: below 0.7 is Did Not Deliver; 0.7 up to 1.0 is Delivered; exactly 1.0 is Delivered Fully.
- Stretch: below 0.3 is Significant Miss; 0.3 up to 0.7 is On Target (the typical outcome for a stretch goal); 0.7 up to 1.0 is Exceeded; exactly 1.0 is Perfect.
An objective can only be scored after it is marked complete. Once scored, it can no longer be edited or reopened.
Check-ins
A check-in is a periodic status update on an objective. The owner records a progress summary, a confidence level (On track, At risk, or Off track), blockers, and next-period priorities.
The person who reviews a check-in is the author’s manager — the nearest active manager above them on the reporting line. An admin, an OKR Hub app admin or HR can also review any check-in. The reviewer can leave written feedback and later edit it. Until a check-in is reviewed, its author can edit it — and, once it is completed, delete it.
While check-in generation is on, check-ins are created automatically for each owner of an active objective on the business’s cadence: Weekly (default), Biweekly, or Monthly. Reminders go out on the Reminder Day (default: Thursday), in the morning UTC; there is no time-of-day setting.
Initiatives
An initiative is a supporting project or workstream linked to one or more key results. Initiatives track their own progress, priority, and status independently. They are under Insights → Initiatives & Projects (or My Work → Initiatives & Projects for people without the Insights tab).
Performance Management integration
When the integration is on, objectives can align to Performance Management goals through two mechanisms:
- Goal alignments — link an objective to a goal with an alignment score, contribution percentage, and optional rationale. With Require Alignment Rationale on (the default), a Supports or Contributes To alignment at or above the Ask for a rationale from (%) contribution (default 10%) needs a written rationale.
- Key result mappings — map a key result directly to a goal. When Performance Management’s real-time updates are also on, the goal’s progress updates the key result automatically.
The Insights → Strategic Cascade page shows the chain from company objectives down: Objectives → Key Results → Goals. Managers, admins, OKR Hub app admins and HR can open it.
OKR visibility
By default, all objectives are visible company-wide (the OKR-industry standard for alignment). An admin or OKR Hub app admin can restrict visibility to Managers (of their own team) — each person sees their own objectives plus their direct reports’ — or Specific people, the chosen groups, who see everything while everyone else sees their own plus their direct reports’. The setting is Who can view employees’ OKRs? in OKR Hub Settings. Admins, OKR Hub app admins, and HR always see all objectives regardless of the setting.
Following an objective
Anyone who can see an objective can Follow it. Followers are notified when the objective or its key results are edited, completed or cancelled. Progress people log is not sent as a notice.
4. Running it
Creating an objective
- Go to My Work → New Objective.
- Enter a title (up to 200 characters) and description (up to 2,000 characters).
- Choose the level, quarter, and date range. The quarter defaults to the current fiscal quarter.
- Optionally select a parent objective to cascade from, or start from a template.
- Save. The objective starts in Draft status.
- When ready, click Activate. If approval is required for this level, submit it for approval first. It shows Awaiting approval, and the owner’s manager gets an “Objective awaiting your approval” notice and can Approve or Reject it from the objective’s page or the Team → Approve Objectives page. An admin, an OKR Hub app admin or HR can also approve it (from My Work → Approve Objectives when they have no team), and they are who approves an objective whose owner has no manager. Once it shows Approved, the owner activates it; an objective Sent back for changes shows the reason and can be edited and submitted again.
While an objective waits for approval, its owner can click Withdraw from approval on its page: it goes back to draft and nobody is asked to approve it until it is submitted again. If an admin turns approval off for a level, the objectives already waiting at that level go back to draft so their owners can activate them.
Anyone can own their own objective. An admin can assign an objective to anyone in the organization; anyone with direct reports can assign one to a direct report.
Tracking progress on key results
- Open a key result and click Update Progress.
- Enter the new value and a comment (at least 10 characters). The progress bar recalculates automatically.
- For decrease goals (such as reducing churn), progress climbs as the value falls toward the target.
Reaching the target does not auto-complete the key result. The owner must use Mark Complete explicitly.
Managers and anyone with direct reports can use Team → Bulk Update Progress to update several key results at once. Update Progress and Bulk Update Progress need the Progress Update Forms toggle on.
Completing, reopening and cancelling
Mark Complete closes an objective, and a completed objective cannot be edited. Until it is scored, and while its end date has not passed, the people who can edit it can use Reopen to make it active again. A cancelled objective can be brought back with Reactivate only by an admin, and only until its end date.
Quarter planning
The Quarter Planning Wizard (under Team, for managers and anyone with direct reports, when the Quarterly Planning toggle is on) lists objectives from a selected quarter. Select the objectives to roll over, and OKR Hub clones them — with their key results — into the next quarter in draft status, resetting progress to zero.
Approving objectives
The Approve Objectives page has two tabs: Waiting for approval, with bulk approve and reject, and Decided by me, which lists the objectives you approved or rejected in the last 90 days. The page needs the Quarterly Planning toggle on; the Approve button on an objective’s own page always works.
Reviewing check-ins
Managers and anyone with direct reports follow their team from the Team tab — Team Objectives and Team Key Results list the team’s work — and review check-ins from Team → Team Check-ins. A badge shows how many check-ins are waiting for your review; a check-in that waits on someone else’s review says whose. Click a check-in to read it and leave feedback.
Scoring a completed objective
- Open a completed objective and click Score Objective. Its owner, someone above the owner on the reporting line, or an admin can score it, when the Objective Scoring toggle is on.
- Enter a final score (0.0–1.0) and scoring notes. Optionally score each key result individually.
- Save. The objective and its key results are now locked from further edits.
5. Settings
Settings are split across two pages: Setup → OKR Hub Settings (admins and OKR Hub app admins) and Setup → Feature Toggles (admins only).
OKR Hub Settings (Setup → OKR Hub Settings)
| Setting | Default | What it changes |
|---|---|---|
| Enable OKR Agent | On | Whether Ask AI answers OKR Hub questions and offers its confirmed changes (update key-result progress, activate or complete an objective) |
| Who can view employees’ OKRs? | Everyone with access to the app | Restricts OKR visibility to managers (of their own team) or specific people, or leaves it company-wide |
| Who can view OKR reports? | Managers and above | Who can open the Executive Summary, Team Performance and Quarterly Review reports and their exports; admins, OKR Hub app admins and HR always can |
| Default Cascade View | Tree View | Whether the Strategic Cascade page opens in tree or list layout |
| Key-Result Progress Format | Percentage | How progress is shown on key-result lists and pages — Percentage, Decimal, or Grade. Objectives, reports, the dashboard and emails always show a percentage |
| Progress Calculation | Average of key results | The default for new objectives: every key result except cancelled ones counts equally, or Manual Entry. Existing objectives keep their own setting |
| Traffic light — Yellow From | 70% | Progress at or above this value (but below green) shows yellow (Needs attention); below it shows red |
| Traffic light — Green At or Above | 80% | Progress at or above this value shows green |
| Fiscal Year Start Month | January | Shifts all quarter boundaries to align with your fiscal calendar |
| Require Alignment Rationale | On | Whether a Supports or Contributes To alignment to a Performance Management goal needs a written rationale |
| Ask for a rationale from (%) | 10% | With rationale required, alignments at or above this contribution need one; smaller alignments are not refused |
| Approval Workflow (per level) | Off (all four levels) | Whether objectives at Company / Department / Team / Individual level need approval before activation. Turning a level off sends the objectives waiting at that level back to draft |
| Generate Check-ins & Check-in Reminders | On | Creates each owner’s check-in on the cadence and reminds them to complete it. Off stops both check-in creation and check-in reminders; the digest and the other alerts are separate |
| Check-in Frequency | Weekly | How often check-ins are due — Weekly, Bi-weekly, or Monthly |
| Reminder Day | Thursday | The weekday check-in reminders go out (in the morning UTC) |
| Notify on Objective Updates | On | Tells an objective’s owner and followers when someone else edits it |
| Notify on Key Result Updates | On | Tells a key result’s owners, its objective’s owner and followers when its details are edited or cancelled (completions are announced under Celebrate Milestones). Logged progress does not send a notice |
| Notify People Directly | On | @mentions, a manager’s review of your check-in, a score on your objective, and a check-in submitted for the reviewer to review. Stays on even if the update notices are off |
| Alert At-Risk OKRs | On | A weekly alert (Wednesdays) to the owners of at-risk objectives and to the owners and co-owners of at-risk key results |
| Celebrate Milestones | On | Celebration notifications when objectives or key results are completed |
| Quarter End Reminders | On | Reminders 30, 14, 7, 3 and 1 days before the fiscal quarter ends, to objective owners and to anyone who owns or co-owns an open key result on that quarter’s objectives |
| Overdue Key Result Alerts | On | A daily alert for key results past their target date, to the key result’s owner and co-owners and its objective’s owner |
| Weekly OKR Digest | On | A weekly summary, in-app and by email, to everyone who owns an active objective or owns or co-owns an open key result. People with no email address get it in-app |
| Weekly Digest Day | Monday | The weekday the digest is sent (in the morning UTC) |
| Enable OKR Integration | Off | Whether OKR Hub connects to Performance Management for goal alignments and key-result mappings |
Feature Toggles (Setup → Feature Toggles, admins only)
This entry opens the admin page also titled OKR Hub Settings. Its nine toggles show or hide entire feature areas. All are on by default.
| Toggle | What it controls |
|---|---|
| Quarterly Planning | The Quarter Planning Wizard and the Approve Objectives page. With approvals required and this off, approvers act from each objective’s own page |
| Objective Templates | The template library for creating objectives from templates |
| Objective Scoring | The ability to score completed objectives |
| Progress Update Forms | The Update Progress dialog, its edit view, Bulk Update Progress and the phone quick-update. Key results can still be edited directly when it is off |
| Automated Check-ins & Reminders | Check-in creation and every OKR reminder: check-in reminders, the weekly digest, and the at-risk, overdue and quarter-end alerts. Off stops all of them |
| Objective Confidence Rating | The confidence rating on an objective. Check-ins collect their own confidence level regardless |
| Advanced Analytics | The Analytics & Insights page |
| Export Reports | Exports of objectives, the Strategic Cascade, check-ins, analytics, and the PDF, CSV and Excel report downloads |
| AI Insights | The AI Assistant on the objective pages: suggest key results, score OKR quality, check SMART criteria, predict achievement, and suggest improvements. It does not switch off Ask AI’s OKR agent, which has its own Enable OKR Agent switch in OKR Hub Settings |
6. More help
- OKR Hub FAQ — specific setup and operating questions
- Ask AI — the assistant answers questions about OKR Hub from these articles.