FAQ, Training and Step-by-Step Job Aids

The portal is a collection tool, not the evaluation itself. Your actual evaluation form — the document unique to each employee and their role — lives outside the portal, and the conversation about it happens face to face. The portal’s job is to confirm the work occurred and hold the record in one place: an overall rating with comments, discussion of the universal student success competency, and the uploaded evaluation form.

Supportive Professional Staff (SPS) and Regular (status/certified) Civil Service employees, plus the supervisors who evaluate them. Probationary Civil Service employees follow a separate evaluation sequence and are not covered here. If you are unsure whether an employee is in scope, contact HRS.

Evaluation documents are created at go-live on August 5. Self-evaluations are due August 31. Supervisor evaluations are due October 31. The system sends reminders 21, 14, and 7 days before each deadline.

It is not there by design. Inside the module you will find only the universal “Contribute to student success” competency and the overall rating and comment fields. Your competencies, performance factors, goals, and narrative — the substance of the review — live on the evaluation form, which may be completed outside the module and uploaded as an attachment, if deemed necessary.

No. The evaluation tool is no longer sent out. Supervisors are responsible for getting or building their evaluation form using the template section on the HRS resource page. The resources on the template page can help you build a form from scratch, get a new one, or select from an existing template in your department catalog. Templates generally hold for the full cycle and can be reused year over year. View available templates and the builder guide.

No. The template builder is fully self-service. The supervisor owns the decision; employee input is encouraged. The recommended range is 5 to 10 competencies from the NIU Competency Library. “Supporting Student Success” is added to every template automatically and does not count toward that range.

Engage the employee first. Changing what someone is evaluated on should never be a surprise, so have the conversation now, invite their feedback, and apply the change to the next evaluation cycle. The template you set at the start of a cycle is the evaluation standard for that year; the annual conversation is the natural place to agree on updated competencies and expectations going forward.

Delegation hands your evaluation tasks — not your accountability — to another employee. It is a two-sided setup:

1. Under Employee Self Service, open the Delegation tile, then Create Delegation Request. Select the delegate and submit; they receive an email link.
2. The delegate approves the request under Employee Self Service › Approvals.
3. The delegate must log out and log back in — access appears only after a fresh login. This is the step people miss.
4. The delegate then finds the work under Manager Self Service › Team Performance › Team Documents › Delegated Documents tab.

The usual rules still apply on delegated documents: the employee’s self-evaluation comes first, and attachments are visible to the employee on upload. Private Performance Notes never transfer. For full instructions on creating and changing delegations, see: niu.edu/hrs/departments-managers/manager-self-service.shtml

1. Open the document under Team Performance › Team Documents.
2. Select Re-Open Manager Evaluation from the ⋮ (three-dot) menu at the top right.
3. The employee’s self-evaluation returns to In Progress. Their earlier entries carry forward; they update and press Complete again.
4. Once they complete, your step unlocks. Finish your evaluation, Share, meet, and close out the review.

Human Resource Services is the first stop for any portal question: 815-753-6000, humanresources@niu.edu, or 102 Lowden Hall. Your HR Partner handles day-to-day supervisor and department support. Step-by-step knowledge base articles live in FreshService, and templates, the competency library, and reference materials are on the resource page.