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Self reviews give employees space to reflect on their own impact, growth, and goals. Employees can complete the review in the Windmill platform or through Windy in Slack.

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How self reviews work

Employees answer the questions configured for the cycle. In Slack, the conversation is interactive. Windy asks follow-up questions for clarity or depth. In the Windmill platform, employees can answer, edit, and submit the same review directly.

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Complete a self review

When the self review stage opens, employees can use either method:
  • Windmill platform — Open the review task, answer each question, and submit the review.
  • Slack — Reply to Windy’s personalized message and open the linked context report. Windy provides context and asks follow-up questions to make responses specific and actionable.
Progress is saved automatically and stays synchronized between both methods. The context report is a private, cited summary of your key contributions and feedback from the review period. Open it from the link in Slack or from the review in the Windmill Dashboard, and export it as Markdown or PDF. Only you can see it.

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After completion

Once complete, the self review is uploaded into Windmill and becomes part of the employee’s review packet—visible to their manager when drafting the manager review. Employees can edit their responses in the Windmill Dashboard up until the deadline.

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Configuring self reviews

When creating a performance review cycle, you configure the questions for self reviews—the prompts Windy will guide employees through. Self reviews support the same seven question types as all other review types:
  • Written responses — Text
  • Choice responses — Single Select, Multi-Select, and Yes/No
  • Scored responses — Scale, eNPS, and Rating

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Creating questions

You configure questions directly in the cycle creation wizard when setting up the self review stage. Example self review questions:
  • Describe the impact or outcomes from the last 6 months you believe have had the greatest impact on your team.
  • What would you consider your clearest areas of improvement or growth opportunities to drive stronger outcomes in the future?
  • How do you want to grow next quarter? Any specific steps or resources you’re thinking about to get there?

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Best practices for questions

  • Keep it conversational — Write questions as if you’re asking them in person
  • Focus on specifics — Ask for examples, projects, or outcomes
  • Limit to 3-5 questions — Windy will follow up naturally based on responses
  • Ask constructive questions — You want team members to improve, so try to ask questions that lead to constructive responses
Windy is trained to ask follow-up questions if responses are vague, so you don’t need to include every possible follow-up in your question set.

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Scheduling and participants

When configuring the self review stage:
  • Schedule — Set when the self review stage opens and when it’s due
  • Who participates — Optionally filter to a subset of employees for this stage (or use the cycle-level filter)

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Editing responses

Employees can edit their responses in the Windmill Dashboard until the deadline, regardless of where they started the review. Windy also sends a link to the review. To edit:
  1. Go to Performance Reviews
  2. Find the active cycle
  3. Click into the self review
  4. Make changes and save

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FAQs

Yes. Employees can edit their responses in the Windmill Dashboard until the deadline, regardless of where they completed the review.This allows employees to:
  • Refine answers after reflecting further
  • Add examples they remembered later
  • Adjust phrasing for clarity
When collecting feedback, Windy is trained to ask for more specific, constructive input. If responses are vague, Windy follows up with prompts focused on work products and outcomes rather than personalities.For example, during a self review, Windy might ask:
  • “What project or outcome are you referring to?”
  • “Can you share a specific example of your impact on that project?”
  • “What specific steps did you take to achieve that result?”
By encouraging feedback focused on work products and concrete outcomes, Windmill ensures that self reviews are more actionable and grounded in reality.
Yes. When creating a cycle, you configure the questions for self reviews. These are the prompts Windy uses to guide the conversation in Slack. Self reviews support Text, Single Select, Multi-Select, Yes/No, Scale, eNPS, and Rating questions.Questions are fully customizable to match your company’s review process.Learn more in Cycles.
Yes. If you’ve added your leveling framework (or other rubrics, job descriptions, or competency matrices) to Company Knowledge, Windy uses it as context while drafting and refining self review answers in Slack.This means follow-up questions and suggested phrasing reflect the expectations for the employee’s level. The framework isn’t injected verbatim into the review as explicit criteria—to make level expectations show up explicitly, also reference them in the self review questions you configure on the cycle.
If a deadline passes and a self review is still not submitted:
  • The status changes to overdue in the tracking views
  • Cycle admins can see who’s behind in the All Todos view
  • The employee can still submit after the deadline
Windmill sends automated reminders before and on the deadline to minimize late submissions.