Creating objectives

Flowtly Editorial Team4 min

Objectives are created from Performance → Objectives. Click Add objective in the top-right corner of the page to open the creation form.

Fields

Title

A short, descriptive name for the objective — for example, "Increase customer retention to 90%" or "Launch new onboarding flow". Keep it specific enough that the owner and their team know what success looks like.

Owner

The employee who is accountable for this objective. Only one owner is assigned per objective. The owner can always see and update their own objectives; their manager and HR managers can also view and edit them.

Level

Level controls the scope of the objective and determines who can see it:

  • Individual — a personal goal assigned to one employee. Visible to the owner, their manager, and HR managers.
  • Department — a goal owned by a team or department. Visible to all members of that department, their managers, and HR managers.
  • Company — an organisation-wide goal. Visible to every user in the workspace.

Choosing the right level keeps sensitive personal targets private while making company-wide priorities transparent to all.

Unit

The unit sets how Key Results under this objective will be measured by default:

  • Percent (%) — progress expressed as a percentage, useful for rates, completion ratios, or growth targets.
  • Number — a plain numeric count, for example number of deals closed or features shipped.
  • Money — a currency amount, useful for revenue or cost objectives.

Individual Key Results can override this unit if needed.

Period

The start and end dates that define the timeframe for this objective. Flowtly uses the period to organise objectives by year in the Year selector on the Objectives page, and to show which objectives are current, upcoming, or past.

Align to a parent objective

Optionally link this objective to a higher-level objective to create a cascade. For example, a department objective can be aligned to a company objective, and an individual objective can be aligned to a department objective. This lets leadership track consolidated progress across the whole hierarchy from a single company-level goal.

Only objectives of a higher or equal level can be selected as a parent. An individual objective can be aligned to a department or company objective; a department objective can be aligned to a company objective.

Tags

Free-form tags for filtering and organising objectives. You can tag by strategic theme ("growth", "quality"), by team, or by review cycle. Tags appear as filters on the Objectives page.

Create more

Tick Create more before saving to keep the form open after the objective is created — useful when adding several objectives in a row.

After saving

Once created, the objective appears on the Objectives page in the appropriate scope tab (Organization, Team, or Mine). You can immediately start adding Key Results to it. Until at least one Key Result is added, the objective has no measurable progress.

To edit an existing objective, click on its card to open the detail view, then select Edit.

Example use cases

  • A manager creates an Individual objective for each direct report at the start of a review period, setting the owner, a clear title, and a money or percent unit depending on the employee's role.
  • An HR manager creates a Company-level objective aligned to the annual strategy and then asks department heads to create Department objectives aligned to it.
  • A department head tags all team objectives with the current quarter ("Q3-2026") to make them easy to filter later.

Connection map

Refers toPart of
Documented hereDocumented elsewhere
audit-log records person. second-factor held by person. person works under agreement. work-schedule assigned to person. benefit-assignment held by person. employee-profile describes person. employee-document filed against person. responsibility assigned to person. performance-target set for person. meeting held with person. holiday-request submitted by person. leave-entitlement held by person. project staffed by person. project-rate rates person. booking books person.recordsheld byworks underassigned toheld bydescribesfiled againstassigned toset forheld withsubmitted byheld bystaffed byratesbooksAAudit trail — The record of who did what and when. It is how a user action is investigated after the fact, and what compliance is demonstrated from.Audit trailPPerson — An employee. The central record the rest of the workforce data hangs off — profile, documents, leave, benefits, rates.PersonSSecond factor — The extra proof of identity asked for at sign-in on top of the password — a six-digit code from an authenticator app, changing every 30 seconds.Second factorAAgreement — The document formalizing the terms between the organisation and one employee or contractor. It is the foundation of the employees module: whether someone has an active agreement decides whether they appear in the other modules at all.AgreementWWork schedule — The working days, hours and breaks assigned to an employee, from the week the assignment starts. It is what the Work Time calendar draws.Work scheduleEEmployee benefit — One benefit granted to one person for a date range. A person can hold several at once.Employee benefitEEmployee profile — The detailed record for one person: contact details, job role, department, employment history.Employee profileEEmployee document — A file attached to a person — a contract, a review, anything filed against them.Employee documentRResponsibility — An area of ownership assigned to a person.ResponsibilityPPerformance target — An objective set for a person and measured against.Performance targetMMeeting — A recorded one-to-one or review between people.MeetingHHoliday request — An employee's request for time off, submitted for approval. Approving it is what turns it into leave the rest of the system counts.Holiday requestEEntitlement — How much leave a person has for the leave year. A request draws it down; the balance is what remains.EntitlementPProject — The core organizational unit for a business initiative, client engagement or internal work. Everything tracked — time, cost, invoicing, profitability — hangs off one.ProjectMMember rate — A team member's billing or cost rate on a project. Rates are per member, so the same person can cost differently on two projects.Member rateBBooking — One person committed to one role for a stretch of weeks, at a percentage of their time. A booking is a plan, not a record of work done.Booking