1. What is a Primary Goal Plan?
Primary Goal Plan featured was introduced in release 20A. It is a goal plan that is not restricted by any review period and available to all workers. Whenever we create any goal plan, we have to associate a review period with it but with primary goal plans we do not need to attach any review period. In addition, we do not need to assign any eligibility with the primary goal plan. As soon as a primary goal plan is set active, it becomes available to all workers. Please also remember we can have only one primary goal plan.
In this article we will see how to enable Primary Goal Plan and use it
2. Prerequisite to enable Primary Goal Plan?
Primary goal plan is available only if you are using responsive pages, so to use it first make sure following two profile options are set to YES. To enable profile option search for the task Manage Administrator Profile Values
| Profile Option Code | Profile Display Name | Profile Level | Profile Value |
| HCM_RESPONSIVE_PAGES_ENABLED | Mobile-Responsive HCM Pages Enabled | Site | Y |
| HRG_GOALS_RESPONSIVE_ENABLED | Mobile-Responsive Goals Pages Enabled | Site | Y |
Please also note that Primary Goal Plan will appear only if you are not using Goal Plan Set feature. You can check it through profile option once again. Ensure that Goal Plan Sets Enabled profile option is set to No.
| Profile Option Code | Profile Display Name | Profile Level | Profile Value |
| HRG_USE_GOAL_PLAN_SET | Goal Plan Sets Enabled | Site | No |
3. How to Create a Primary Goal Plan?
Now once all these profile options are in place, you can enable Primary Goal Plan. For the same, navigate to My Client Group » Goal Plans » And you will see your blank Primary Goal Plan top of the page.
Click on the +Add button inside Primary Plan section to create Primary Goal Plan. You need to provide following information.
- Goal Plan Name – Name of the primary goal plan name (AP Primary Goal Plan)
- Status – Active
- Review Period – Review period of a primary goal plan is always set to All, which means this goal plan is available to all review periods.
- Description – Optionally enter description
- Allow Updates to Goals by – This is the normal option you see for any other goal plans too.
- Performance Document Types – You can make primary goal plan appear in performance document too.
- Goal Weights – You can choose to enable weight for goals and also choose if sum of goals should be 100 or not.
Once you enter all these details click on Save button. As we said earlier, you can have only one Primary Goal Plan. Therefore, once you click on Save, there will not be any option to create one more Primary Goal Plan, you can only edit the existing plan.
Please also note following points related to Primary Goal Plan.
- Primary goal pan is a worker goal plan.
- By default, it allows HR specialists, managers, and workers are allowed to update it but you can change it.
- Weights are enabled by default but Enforce sum of goal weights to 100% is not enabled but you can change the default setup.
- You do not need to associate any eligibility profile
- You do not assign goals to a primary goal plan. It is done by workers.
4. How to use Primary Goal Plan?
We have enabled Primary Goal Plan, we have configured it, and now let us see how to use it.
4.1. Worker using Primary Goal Plan
Lets login through a workers account and navigate to Me » Career and Performance » Goals
Worker will see Primary Goal Plan we configured earlier AP Primary Goal Plan against every review period. Since there is no need to assign any eligibility profile with primary goal plan there was no need to run any process and primary goal plan is available to all workers instantly.
Worker can click on +Add button to assign any goal. Creation of any goal inside the primary goal plan is very much same as we do for any other goal plan.
4.1.1. Here is the catch
See, just because Primary Goal Plan is available to all review periods that does not mean that goal we create inside a primary goal plan will be available to all review periods. Primary Goal Plan has its different instance/copy in each review period.
To understand it better, lets first select the review period Annual Review Period – 2021 and then select Goal Plan – AP Primary Goal Plan.
Now add this goal “Gain four new clients for my business by the end of this quarter” as shown below. You will also notice that start date and end of the goal is automatically set as per the review period start date and end date.
Click on Save and Close and you will see your goal inside Primary Goal Plan as shown in the image below.
Now change the review period to Annual Review – 2020 and Goal Plan remains AP Primary Goal Plan. You will notice that the goal we created earlier is not available.
4.2. Manager using Primary Goal Plan
We have see how Primary Goal Plan works for a worker, lets now login through a managers account and see its behavior. Navigate to My Team » My Team » Select Worker (James Smith) » Goals
Here manager can see goals assigned to employee
He decides to add a new goal “Reduce overtime in the department from 150 hours per month to 50 hours per month” in the AP Primary Goal Plan under review period Annual Review – 2021.
This manager also has Executive Manager role so he creates an organization goal. Manager navigates to Me » Career and Performance » Goals and selects Primary Goal plan (AP Primary Goal Plan under review period Annual review – 2021), clicks on the + Add button.
4.3. HR using Primary Goal Plan
Lets login through HR account who is also a worker and working in the same department where manager published organization goal under review period – Annual review – 2021
HR Navigates to Me » Career and Performance » Goals and changes the review period to Annual review – 2021. He expands the section Goal Shared with Me and sees Organization Goal shared by executive manager. (Please note organization goal appears under Goals Shared with Me only if you fall under same organization and select correct review period under which Organization goal is shared.)
HR decides to add this Organization goal. He clicks on the check box against goal name and then clicks on the button Add as My Goal. This will ask HR user to select Goal Plan name under which this goal should be assigned. As shown in the image below this option appears below Add Goals To section. HR decides to select Primary Goal Plan that is AP Primary Goal Plan.
So what we saw is that we can also add shared goals or the organization goals to Primary Goal Plan.
4.3.1. Inactive Primary Goal Plan
Lets assume HR decides to inactive the Primary Goal Plan by navigating to My Client Group » Goals » Goal Plans
HR will do this just by changing the Status from Active to Inactive. If a Primary Goal Plan is inactivated this is what happens :-
- Workers and managers can’t see the primary goal plan.
- Administrators can still view the primary goal plan and edit it.
- Batch processes continue to process primary goal plans.
You can see in the screenshot below that if a plan is inactivated, workers cannot see it.
5. Impact of using Primary Goal Plan
- If Primary Goal Plan is being used then performance goals added in a Talent Review meeting are automatically added to the primary goal plan of the selected review period.
- If the primary goal plan is associated with the document type used for the performance template and if no primary goal plan is associated with the review period of the performance document, then when the administrator creates a responsive performance document, a primary goal plan is created for that review period.
- Goals in the Performance template of the performance document are added to the primary goal plan.
- If the primary goal plan is associated with the document type used for the performance template, then when goals are copied from a performance document, they are added to the primary goal plan.
6. More about Primary Goal Plan
If you have any question regarding primary goal plan, please post them here – Oracle fusion question and answer forum
