Goals let you set measurable targets for people, teams or the whole company, split them into periods, cascade them into sub-goals and track their progress in one list. Customers often call them objectives, OKRs or key results. In Factorial, every one of these is simply a goal.

This article explains the building blocks of a goal so the rest of the goals articles make sense.

Before you start

• Your company plan must include Goals. If Goals does not appear under Performance in the sidebar, the plan does not include it.
• To see goals, you need the See key results permission in Settings > Permissions > Goals. The permission scope decides whose goals you can see. See Goals permissions.

Step by step

Open goals

1. In the sidebar, go to Performance > Goals.
2. The goals list opens on the Goals view. The cards above the list show how your own goals are going. Click a card to open your goals side panel.
3. Click any goal to open its detail page.

Rules and behavior

What a goal is

• A goal has a Name, an optional Description, an audience (Assign to), a Goal period, an optional Target frequency, and a way to measure progress (Type of metric).
• There is one kind of object: the goal. There are no separate "key results" or "goal containers". A goal that is broken down into smaller goals is a parent goal, and the smaller goals are its sub-goals.
   

Types of metric

• If the Start value is higher than the Target value, the goal measures a decrease. For example, reduce churn from 10% to 5%.

Who a goal is for

• Assign to accepts Employees, Team, Legal entity, Role or Whole company.
• If a goal is assigned to exactly one hand-picked person, the goal is an Individual goal.
• If a goal is assigned to several people, a team, a legal entity, a role or the whole company, the goal is a Collective goal. Everyone in the audience shares the same goal and the same progress.
• If you want each person in a group to have their own copy of a goal, use the Create an individual goal for each person option when you create the goal.
• If someone joins or leaves a team, legal entity or role used as a goal's audience, the goal's members update automatically.

Periods and frequency

• The Goal period is a year, a half-year, a quarter, a month or a custom date range.
• The Target frequency splits the goal into periods: Yearly, Half-yearly, Quarterly or Monthly. For example, a yearly goal with a Quarterly frequency has four periods, Q1 to Q4, each with its own target, progress and status.
• If the goal period is a custom date range, the goal has no target frequency and is tracked as a single period.

Progress and status

• Progress is a percentage: (current value − start value) ÷ (target value − start value) × 100. For example, a goal from 0 to 20 clients with 15 clients reached is at 75%.
• Progress never goes below 0% and can go above 100% when a goal is overachieved.
• Each goal and each period has one status: Not started, On track, Achieved or Missed.
• If progress is 100% or more, then the status is Achieved.
• If the end date has passed and progress is under 100%, then the status is Missed.
• If progress is above 0% and the end date has not passed, then the status is On track.
• If progress is 0% and the end date has not passed, then the status is Not started.

Cascading goals

• Cascading goals (parent goals, sub-goals and Based on sub-goals) are available on the Enterprise plan.
• A goal can have one Parent goal and many Sub-goals. Goals can be nested up to 5 levels deep.
• If a parent goal uses Based on sub-goals, its progress is calculated from its sub-goals automatically, and its sub-goals must share its period and frequency.

Weights

• A manager or admin can weight an employee's individual goals so that goals in the same period and frequency add up to 100%. See Review and weight an employee's goals.

Who can see a goal

• If at least one person in a goal's audience is inside your See key results scope, then you can see the goal.
• If you created a goal, then you can always see it.
• There is no Public setting on goals. Visibility depends only on the audience and on permissions.

Troubleshooting

• Symptom: "I don't see Goals under Performance." → Cause: The company plan does not include Goals, or you don't have See key results. → Fix: Ask an admin to check the plan and your permission group in Settings > Permissions > Goals.
• Symptom: "I can see my goals but not my team's goals." → Cause: Your See key results scope covers only yourself. → Fix: Ask an admin to extend the scope, for example to direct and indirect reportees.
• Symptom: "My old objectives and key results look different." → Cause: Old goals were converted to the new goals experience. → Fix: See What changed in the new goals experience.

FAQ

1. Are goals and OKRs the same thing in Factorial?
Yes. Factorial uses the word "goal" for objectives, OKRs and key results. On the Enterprise plan, you can model an objective with key results: create a parent goal measured Based on sub-goals and add one sub-goal per key result.

2. Can a goal belong to a team instead of a person?
Yes. In Assign to, choose Team, Legal entity, Role or Whole company. Everyone in that audience shares the goal.

3. Can I give everyone in a team their own version of the same goal?
Yes. When you create the goal, select Create an individual goal for each person. Factorial creates one individual goal per person in the background and emails you when it's done.

4. Do goals have a "Needs attention" or "At risk" status?
No. The statuses are Not started, On track, Achieved and Missed.

5. Can employees create their own goals?
Yes, if their permission group has Create key results with the scope For themselves.