OKR service is available from the Premium and Enterprise plans of Zoho People.

OKR Settings in Zoho People allows organizations to enable and configure the OKR framework for goal planning, alignment, and progress tracking across employees and teams.

Using OKR Settings, you can:

• Configure OKR quarter cycles based on your financial year or calendar year
• Customize OKR progress statuses
• Enable location-based OKRs (This feature is enabled on demand for your organizational account)
• Define permissions for adding objectives and key results
• Configure approval workflows for objectives, alignments, and key result check-ins
• Control who can assign key results
• Assign exclusive OKR administrators with full access to OKR settings and data
• Set up automation, notifications, templates, and workflow actions for OKRs

These settings help organizations align goals, track measurable progress, improve accountability, and manage OKRs effectively across departments, locations, and teams.

Enable OKR

1. Navigate to Settings > OKR.
   
2. In the Getting Started page, select the start month of your organization Calendar year or your can select preferred OKR start month.
   
   
   
3. Click Next.
   
4. If necessary, enable module administrators to select any user with an admin role as an OKR administrator. OKR administrators will have full access to OKR data and settings, while other administrators will not have administrative permissions and will be switched to the selected role for the OKR service.
   
   
   
5. Click Set Up OKR.

OKR Configuration

General

1. Navigate to Settings > OKR > Configuration > General tab.
   
   
   

2. Choose the OKR start month based on your organization’s financial year or calendar year to ensure effective tracking and evaluation of organizational goals. OKR tracking for your organization will follow a 3-month quarter cycle based on the selected start month, as shown in the following screen.

   

   For example:
   
   
   

3. Customize OKR progress statuses based on your organization’s preferences. The OKR status is determined by deviations in check-in progress values.

   For instance, if the expected progress for a quarter is 60% and the actual check-in progress is 40%, the OKR can be automatically marked as “Needs Attention” based on the configured deviation range.

   
   

4. Enable location based OKR to define and track OKR for specific work location of your organization.
   
   

   This feature is enabled on demand for your organizational account.
   
   
   

Objectives

1. Navigate to Settings > OKR > Configuration > Objectives.
2. In the Access Permission section, set the required permissions for who can add objectives:
   
1. Employees (Self): Can add objectives only for themselves.
   
2. Reporting Manager: Can add objectives for themselves and their direct reportees.
   
3. Department Head: Can add objectives for themselves, and their department.
   
4. Location Administrator: Can add objectives for their assigned work location. For details on location admin permissions, please refer to Location Admin.
   
   
   
3. Enable Approvals:
   
1. Trigger approval when adding an objective: When enabled and configured, approval will be triggered whenever an employee attempts to add an objective.
   
2. Trigger approval when aligning an objective: When enabled and configured, approval will be triggered whenever an employee attempts to align an objective with a department, location, or organization-level objective.
   To configure approval workflow, refer to Approvals - Overview & Use Cases
   
   

Key Results

Key results are measurable outcomes that indicate progress toward an objective. They break the objective into specific, actionable steps.  You can set approvals for checking in key results, and set permissions on who can assign key results to employees.

Trigger approval when checking in key results: Enable this option to trigger the approval workflow when an employee checks in a key result.

To configure approval workflow, refer to Approvals - Overview & Use Cases

Permissions: You can allow employees to assign key results that are added by them to their reportees or all employees in the organization.

OKR Administrators

Select any admin role users as OKR administrators who will have full access to OKR data and settings. Other administrators will not have administrative permissions and they will be switched to selected Zoho People roles.

To set OKR administrators:

1. Navigate to Settings > OKR > Permissions, and enable Module Administrators.
   
   
   
2. In the OKR Service Administrators field, select any admin-role users as OKR administrators. They will have full access to the OKR service in Zoho People.
3. In Role for other administrators, select the role to which the other administrators should be switched.
   

Automation 

Automation in OKRs enables you to set up workflows that trigger actions such as email alerts, checklists and tasks, webhooks, and custom functions. You can also create and manage email and letter templates, as well as view detailed workflow logs for better tracking and control. Learn more.

Permissions

To set OKR module administrators, navigate to Settings > OKR > Permissions.

Enable OKR module administrators, to set any admin role users as OKR administrators who will have full access to OKR data and settings. 

All other administrators, except OKR administrators, will be moved to the selected role's permission for the OKR service.

OKR-Based Performance Appraisal

To evaluate employees based on their OKR performance, enable the OKR–Performance integration and include OKR as an evaluation parameter when creating an appraisal cycle.

Steps:

1. Enable the OKR–Performance integration from Settings > Performance > Integration. Learn more.
2. Create appraisal cycle and include OKR as an evaluation parameter. Run Appraisal Cycle.

Note:

Only the OKRs that fall within the appraisal cycle's evaluation period will be displayed on the review page and considered for evaluation.

Learn more: 

Workflow Automation

 - Email Alerts

- Checklist and Tasks

- Webhooks

- Custom Functions
Templates: 

- Email Templates

- Letter Templates

Workflow Logs