Review Cycles
Create a cycle, set cadence, add participants with default reviewers, and move it through the draft → active → finalized → archived lifecycle.
Why It Matters
A review cycle is the unit your auditor thinks in: one named period (“H1 2026”), one question set, one register of who was reviewed by whom. SOC 2 Type II tests operation against your stated policy — if your policy says annual reviews and a cycle gets skipped, that’s a control exception. Kit makes the cadence explicit on every cycle and hard-gates each lifecycle transition, so the register you hand the auditor is complete by construction rather than by diligence.
The lifecycle is deliberately strict: a draft cycle can be reshaped freely, an active cycle accepts review writing, and a finalized cycle is frozen evidence that can never be edited or deleted. Every state change is a button with its blockers listed next to it — nothing transitions silently.
Creating a Cycle
Go to Performance > Review cycles and press New cycle. A cycle needs:
| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| Name | e.g. “H1 2026” — this exact string is snapshotted into every evidence record |
| Review template | Must be a published template; drafts don’t qualify |
| Cadence | Annual, Semi-annual, Quarterly, or Ad hoc — a policy label, not a scheduler |
| Period start / end | The review period being assessed; the end must follow the start |
| Due date | Drives reviewer reminder emails (nudge, then last call) |
| Include self-reviews | On by default — each participant reviews themselves |
| Include peer reviews | Off by default — enables adding named peer reviewers per participant |
Note
Cadence is a label that documents your policy on the evidence — Kit does not auto-create the next cycle. Put “quarterly” in your review policy only if you will actually run four cycles a year; a Type II auditor checks the register against the stated cadence.
Adding Participants
On the cycle page, press Add participant and pick a team member. Each participant gets an optional Role expectations field — a short statement of the responsibilities this review measures against. Fill it in: auditors look for “assessment against documented role expectations,” and this text is snapshotted verbatim into the participant’s evidence record.
When a participant is added, Kit assigns their default reviewers automatically:
- Manager — pulled from the Managers map (one report→manager edge per person). Map managers before building cycles and every participant arrives pre-wired.
- Self-review — added when the cycle includes self-reviews; it’s the same review form, written by the participant about themselves.
- Peers — never automatic. If the cycle includes peer reviews, add named peer reviewers per participant from the cycle page. Peers are named, not anonymous — the evidence trail requires knowing who said what.
Participants can join a draft or active cycle (late joiners mid-cycle are fine), but a finalized or archived cycle refuses new rows. A reviewer can’t be assigned to review themselves except through the self-review role, and every reviewer must belong to your account.
Activation
Activating is what opens review writing — and it freezes the template’s question set into the cycle, so later template edits can’t drift under reviewers mid-cycle. Press Activate on the cycle page. If the cycle isn’t ready, the button is replaced by a blocker list (“Before this cycle can go live”):
| Blocker | Fix |
|---|---|
| The review template isn’t published yet | Publish the template in Performance > Templates |
| The review template has no questions | Add at least one question, then publish |
| Add at least one participant | Add the people being reviewed |
| Every participant needs at least one reviewer | Map their manager, enable self-review, or add a peer |
After activation, reviewers are notified and each assignment appears in their My reviews queue. Made a mistake? Back to draft reverts an active cycle — but only while no review has been submitted, so nobody’s work disappears behind a closed gate.
Finalize and Archive
When every assigned review is submitted, press Finalize… to reach the confirmation screen. Finalization is a hard block on unsubmitted reviews: Kit lists exactly who still owes what (“Ana still owes a review of Ben”), and you either chase the reviewer or remove the assignment — the evidence never silently omits an expected reviewer. Confirming mints one immutable evaluation record per participant in a single transaction and freezes the cycle; see SOC 2 Evidence and Exports.
Warning
Finalizing cannot be undone. Reviews become read-only, and the cycle can no longer be deleted — a finalized cycle holds evidence, so its endpoint is Archived (hidden from the working list, register still available), never deletion. Only cycles with no evidence records can be deleted at all.
Cycle Lifecycle at a Glance
| Status | Reviews editable | Participants changeable | Can delete | Exits to |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Draft | — (not open yet) | Yes | Yes | Active |
| Active | Yes | Yes (late joiners) | Yes | Draft (if nothing submitted) or Finalized |
| Finalized | No | No | No | Archived |
| Archived | No | No | No | — |
Quick Checklist
- Map every report to a manager in Performance > Managers
- Create the cycle with a period and a due date
- Add all current employees as participants — auditors sample from the full population
- Fill in role expectations per participant
- Activate, then watch progress on the cycle page and the evaluation register
Next Steps
- Templates and Questions — build the question set before your first cycle
- Writing Reviews — what reviewers see once the cycle is live