Certain Skills Base licenses allow customers to define fixed assessment dates on a per-team (including sub-teams) basis, which override the default rolling assessment due date system that is defined for the entire oganization via Admin > Settings > Assessments > Assessment Interval.
Muliple dates can be defined for each assessment type, so that customers can define specific fixed times of the year when assessments should be completed.
Due dates inherit through the team hierarchy, however once a date is set for a child team it will override any and all dates set by any of its parent.
Administering dates
To view due dates for a team, either right click the team in the Teams Directory or click the "Actions" drop down menu on the team's dashboard and select "Assessment due dates".
From the Assessment Due Dates screen you are able to view, edit and delete due dates that are set for the team. If no due dates are currently defined for the team, the team will inherit dates from it parents, or the system. A message will be shows describing which dates currently apply and from where they are being inherited from.
You can add a new due date for the team by clicking "Add a due date". Once at least one due date is defined for the team, it will stop inheriting due dates from any source, and the due dates defined will be inherited by all of the team's sub-teams (unless any of them define their own due dates).
Rules applied when setting dates
Skills Base will apply three rules in calculating due dates for people:
- When setting fixed assessment dates for a team (at the time the date is applied)
- When moving teams
- When moving people between teams
- After completing an assessment
Rule 1: Last completion date
If there was a previous assessment completed, Skills Base checks when that last assessment was completed and then bases the next due date on that. So say for example on 1st June 2020 a team was configured with a self-assessment due date of 1st July, and a person in that team (or one of its sub-teams) had last completed a self-assessment on 1st May 2019. The person's next self-assessment will be calculated to have been due on 1st July 2019, showing them as overdue by 11 months.
Rule 2: Assessment never completed
Where an assessment has never been completed by a person, Skills Base uses the persons account creation date instead. Continuing the above example, if the person's account was created on 1st June 2019 and they did not complete any self-assessments since their as account was created, Skills Base will calculate their self-assessment due date as 1st July 2019, showing them as overdue by 11 months.
Rule 3: Assessment already completed within 7 days of the due date (ie: "Fixed assessment date completion buffer")
Any assessment completed within 7 days prior to a due date will satisfy that due date. If an assessment is completed more than 7 days before a due date it will not satisfy the due date and the assessment will become due again on the due date. This 7 day period is known as the "Fixed assessment date completion buffer". The intention is to allow people the ability to complete assessments early, before the due date, without being prompted again on the due date. Note that the default buffer (7 days) can be changed by the Skills Base Support Team (by customer request) to any number of days. For example if the buffer was changed to 30 days, an assessment completed up to 30 days prior to the due date will satisfy the due date.