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Upward reviews give direct reports a structured way to share feedback about their manager. Employees can complete the review in the Windmill platform or through Windy in Slack.

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How upward reviews work

When the upward 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 guides the employee through each question and asks follow-up questions.
Progress is saved automatically and stays synchronized between both methods.

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Example questions

Example upward feedback questions:
  • How does your manager support your growth?
  • What could they do more (or less) of?
  • How effectively do they communicate and prioritize?
The interactive conversation ensures feedback is constructive and grounded in concrete examples rather than vague generalizations.

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Your context report

Before your upward feedback conversation opens, Windy prepares a private context report on the work you and your manager did together during the review period. It’s a memory jog, not an assessment — it doesn’t rate your manager or suggest what to write. Windy links to the report in the Slack message that opens your feedback conversation. You can also open it from the review in the Windmill Dashboard and export it as Markdown or PDF. The report opens with where your work overlapped, then covers the recurring ways your manager worked with you, with cited examples. If you shared little recorded work, the report stays short rather than filling space. The context report is visible only to you. It draws only on sources you can already access, so it never surfaces anything outside your permissions. Your manager never sees it, and it isn’t part of their review packet.

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Privacy and visibility

Upward feedback is not visible to the manager being reviewed. It goes to the manager’s manager and to cycle admins, so employees can share honest feedback. Once complete, upward feedback is uploaded into the review packet. If the manager being reviewed has direct reports of their own, their manager uses this upward feedback when drafting that manager’s performance review. For the full picture of who sees what, see Who sees what.

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Configuring upward reviews

When creating a performance review cycle, you configure the questions for upward feedback—the prompts Windy will guide employees through. Upward 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 upward feedback stage. Example upward feedback questions:
  • How does your manager support your growth?
  • What could they do more (or less) of?
  • How effectively do they communicate and prioritize?

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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, behaviors, or outcomes
  • Limit to 3-5 questions — Windy will follow up naturally based on 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 upward feedback stage:
  • Schedule — Set when the upward feedback 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)
Note: Only employees with a manager are prompted to give upward feedback. The feedback goes to their manager’s manager and to cycle admins.

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Editing responses

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

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FAQs

Upward feedback is not visible to the manager being reviewed. It goes to the manager’s manager and to cycle admins, so employees can share honest feedback without concern.Employees do not see upward feedback for their own manager—it’s used exclusively for leadership and development conversations. See Who sees what for the full breakdown.
Yes. Employees can edit their responses in the Windmill Dashboard, regardless of where they completed the review.This lets employees:
  • Refine answers after reflecting further
  • Add examples they remembered later
  • Adjust phrasing for clarity
When collecting upward feedback, Windy is trained to ask for more specific, constructive input. If responses are vague, Windy follows up with prompts focused on behaviors and outcomes rather than personalities.For example, during upward feedback, Windy might ask:
  • “Can you share a specific example of when your manager supported your growth?”
  • “What specific actions could they take to improve in that area?”
  • “How has this impacted your work or development?”
By encouraging feedback focused on specific behaviors and concrete examples, Windmill ensures that upward feedback is more actionable and constructive.
Yes. When creating a cycle, you configure the questions for upward feedback. These are the prompts Windy uses to guide the conversation in Slack. Upward 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.
If a deadline passes and upward feedback 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.