Trakstar has been a very easy to use and interactive performance software. As a regular user (non-manager), I find it comprehensive enough to track all my goals and tasks but simple enough to update on an ongoing basis. My favorite aspect is the notes feature, which lets me add notes to my goals at any time, so that when I do my review at the end of the year I already have notes to reference. I can also share my notes with my manager, so she can see my progress.

very user friendly, lots of features, interactive feedback - can take notes on tasks at any time that can be shared with managers, can keep track of progress on goals in real time

sometimes while updating notes/goals the appraisal doesn't update immediately, but after logging out and back in again everything was correct

Our rep just provided us the second part of our training via webinar; we asked for "Goals & Notes" to be given last June and finally the "Scoring" given today as we wrap up the performance period. I am VERY pleased with our rep's professionalism, and knowledge about the Trakstar program. The way he guided us through the webinar was wonderful. Many employees and managers have expressed trepidation about the upcoming sequence of events, but our rep broke it down very easily and methodically. Our rep has a very good quality about his delivery of information, his voice, and ease of going through the screens as he proceeds, making the learner feel more confident. I already received the videos he created -- within minutes after completion of the training -- so I'm able to share with the employees and managers who could not attend today's webinar. Thank you! I wish Trakstar would create a "Quick Start Guide for Administrators" as they have for both managers and employees, and then load it on the Support Articles page, but for the meantime I am very pleased to have access to the Support pages, tutorials, videos, etc. and can email Support whenever I have need. I'm grateful about that, too. If you allow me one more "wish list" item would be the ability to change an employee's job title easily throughout the year -- as long as it does not represent a promotion that would affect change of goals, etc. When we've had a change of management, the new manager will come in and request change of titles (not duties, etc.) of his/her direct reports. This need is likely common among certain industries and such a change would be a huge improvement. Thank you for asking for our feedback. Thank you to our rep, for making Trakstar look easy to use to our employees!

There ought to be a Quick Guide for Administrators; too often I've searched the support pages and did not find precisely what I've wanted, so had to email and did not have direct phone access because we don't pay for that added service. We're three hours apart from each other so there've been a few times that I was not able to get answers as immediately as I would have liked (in an ideal world). LOL.

We originally selected Trakstar because it was affordable and the demo given to us was good overall. Though this product does the basics, it is still extremely outdated and lacks a lot of intuition. The reports are all saved as PDF's or you can export excel documents. The excel docs are a major mess for the most part and will leave you with hours more work editing them. Once you get everyone's assessment, you have to load the PDF into the employee's folder so that they can see their grade. Though the rating dashboard is decent, viewing your individualized grading metrics afterwards is nowhere near as user-friendly. The product lacks many simple features that we're just forgotten during its build. You cannot update your grading scale without going into EVERY SINGLE COMPETENCY manually and changing your grading scale (ie. going from a 5-point grading scale to a 4-point grading scale, etc.). Basically, there is no way to mass-edit a lot of things in the system. I hope you have someone on your team that has days worth of time to manage this system. The 360-review capabilities are even more difficult. As an admin of your organization system, you can't send out 360 reviews unless you log in as that specific manager's manager. Yes, you will have to continuously click links to log in as another user in order to edit (or even view) that person's appraisal. We've also had a lot of issues with grading schemes not working properly and various bugs popping up frequently, impacting our entire review cycle. The support team is VERY small and leads to long response times which gets crazy in the middle of your review cycle. The new UI is pretty, but the UX still lacks a lot of intuition. Unfortunately, Trakstar is a lot of form over function at this point. They need to hire a good UI/UX guy and a senior engineer to fix some things and then I would maybe suggest using it.

Affordable, decent design (UI, not UX)

Difficult UX, can't pull many of the reports you would need, doesn't give you many meaningful insights at all, lots of bugs, slow response by support (they have a very small team), almost every process is manual and takes a LONG time to make changes in the system due to this issue

Personally, I love Trakstar considering my several involvement as the lead HR Manager responsible for PMS. It was an easy sell to the Senior Management Team because it ticked all need boxes we had identified. The customization and integration process was a breeze, the account officer took a lot of the burden off us. Then transitioning the employees went smoothly, including the training. Our account officer worked so well with us and was willing to conduct trainings as early as 5am Eastern, considering the time difference between the US and our country offices in West Africa and Europe. She really appreciated her flexibility. As an administrator, I can tell you how effortless it is to assist employees, resolves issues, monitor the process, review reports and all required responsibilities. As a employee and a user, my appraisal was effortless. The reviews we have received from employees have been great, my manager is soo pleased with the system and feedback from the [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN] "I have never enjoyed appraisals as much as I am right now with Trakstar".

The flexibility of Trakstar to mirror the organization's current performance appraisal process was what sold us. We were able to adapt the software to fit our needs and the ease of use is absolutely great.

I honestly find it difficult to identity what I like least about this software. Compared to the previous software we used for Performance Appraisal, Trakstar is absolutely wonderful. It met all our software needs; the pricing was very reasonable, and the transition was effortless. From the sales agent to the account officer, we have had an awesome experience.

See my review - it focused on competencies, so as an organization looking to be more progressive, we were ready to use it.

Focus on competencies - which many other cheap - to - affordable products don't offer.

You can't customize the appraisal process. It's either the formal appraisal (with ratings) or a 'goal setting' function. So, it won't work for orgs like mine who tend to do a mid-year 'check-in' as opposed to the full appraisal process. Customer service is slow, email only really, and not always helpful in giving you a complete solution. They also do not do 360s which is something we've begun to do at my org. Also, if you are not focusing on competencies, as an org--which I'm certain MANY are not, I'm not at all sure how you would use this tool.

Have had a wonderful experience with Trakstar; it gives the employees the access they need through out the year to work towards their goals and development. Managers are able to work more efficiently and put accountability in the hands of the employee.

The efficiency of the workflow and the way we can customize it to our needs.

I would like to see a better org chart!

The employees complain about performance management; but not about trakstar. I always separate the two. They like trakstar. I do a training called "Tips for Better Appraisals" and integrate the use of trakstar into it and how easy it is to ensure that you will get an excellent review if you utilize the great features availble in trakstar such as the notes and goal tracking.

Ease of use; customer service. The set-up is extremely easy; changing forms is easy.

Extra cost for the added features - succession planning

So far, this software has been endlessly customizable for how we want to use it to give our employees their semi-annual reviews. Trakstar's support team provided me, as an administrator, with a very good basis for how to use the system and they've been very responsive with all the questions I've had as we've utilized the software more and more. As we've been using it, we've changed how we originally thought we would use it for employees, and so far every single thing we've wanted to use it for it has been able to do either with changes I can make on the back end, or with changes the support team has been happy to help me do. Our employees appreciate a consistent review form to work from and they really like the goals section as a reminder of what their own personal goals and objectives are for what will take them to the next level as a member of our team.

It makes it easy to document our performance and for the managers to update information. It flows easily between multiple offices.

It is simple and easy to use. Just by following the boxes or typing in information it will easily flow to the next area.

The software itself is fine, it is probably just the questions we have programmed to use. Some of the questions I feel could easily be made into just a check box instead of needing an explanation.

Overall, it did a good job at what it was supposed to do.

I loved that it can be customizable for feedback and performance review. It was straightforward on rating and writing comments on performance.

There was some slight hiccups with compatibility with my browser.

Trakstar is an excellent idea. It allows employees and managers equal time in the appraisal process, which has been lacking in employee appraisal since the beginning of time. As a manager it is quite helpful for an employee to weigh in on their performance. Too often we have no idea how the employee sees their performance until we are having 'the talk'. Trakstar could be a little more user friendly, it is not always intuitive in the way it works and can be cumbersome for the administrator when trying to fix mistakes that managers make. It would be an excellent addition if the manager were not allowed to Archive for agencies that still rely on paper for the employees personnel files. we use the 'archive' button to indicate that the signed appraisal has been received in HR to signal that the process is complete. It would also be helpful if we could set up an agency wide appraisal two level system where the employee first gets a 6 month New Employee appraisal, and when archived Trakstar would auto generate the next appraisal in the Annual mode, instead of the 'new employee' mode again. The last thing I can think of now, is the period of time our annual appraisals encompass. Right now the auto generated Annual appraisals have a date parameter based on the employees date of hire, and that is good for some. However, we use a fixed date system based on our fiscal year, and each time a new appraisal is generated i have to go into Trakstar and 'fix' the dates to our parameters. Thanks for this excellent product; with just a couple of tweaks, it could be FANTASTIC! (for us)

I manage a team with some shared goals as well as individual goals. Trakstar allows me to work with my employee to track their progress throughout the year. This allows for more shared accountability among the employees and me as their manager. It has helped me to keep not only my staff on track with their goals, but it keeps me on track with my own performance goals. Trakstar is unique and a valuable tool to any company wanting to provide meaningful performance goals while seeing positive results.

I really like how you can both individualize performance goals AND cascade collective goals per employee. This makes for a very convenient system when you have group goals and individual goals for your staff. Trakstar also gives a sense of accountability to employees to update notes on their progress towards performance goals. The monthly reminders to enter notes are wonderful!

The support videos for using Trakstar are good, but I wish their were slides and non-video aids to help through tutorials as you learn to use Trakstar.

Apart from the 'cons' noted above, the product is extremely well thought out, well researched, well supported and user friendly and I would definitely recommend it.

TrakStar mirrored our existing paper-based Performance Review process so was easy to 'sell' to our staff when it was first installed. The improvements over the years have made it even more user-friendly. Support is fantastic, and even though we are half-way around the world Glenn makes sure he answers my queries as promptly as he can - sometimes within an hour! Administratively, I really like the fact the system is so adaptable and easy to modify to meet the changing needs of our reviews. The reporting facility is also a bonus - I can report 'delinquents' to senior management and provide real-time information very quickly. The Promantek team listen to critiques and act on popular suggestions to make the system a better product.

There aren't many cons, I have enquired about having a page to list non-rateable items such as future aspirations, training needs, and barriers to improvement, and have been told these are on the development plan for future upgrades. Also our staff have said that the 1-5 rating system feels too restrictive, and that a 1-8 or 1-10 system may be more flexible. Personally I think 1-10 is too much, and a 1-7 rating system feels about right. I haven't enquired about this with Promantek so don't know if it can (or will) be changed or not.

We were using the canned performance review process that our payroll company provided and were extremely unhappy with it's lack of flexibility. Trakstar gave us options that did not exist with our payroll vendor. We decided to go with Trakstar even though we were paying for the service with our payroll provider.

Ease of use as an administrator. The ability to be the "user" and see what they see.

Have not yet stumbled upon anything that we do not like.

Excellent! The ability to customize goals, factors and ratings is designed well.

-The software program is very "user friendly." Our employees were able to "go live" with minimal training. -I decided to go with this performance management tool because of the unique ability to tailor it to our position-specific needs. It provides a common structure yet allows the competency design-differentiation necessary in each of our four distinctly different business units. -We have adopted this system at both exempt and non-exempt levels. -The program is not intimidating to those employees with little computer experience. Going live with TrackStar has actually helped some of our mature managers gain computer skills. -TrackStar technical support has never failed to respond when we needed them. -I researched and priced several other popular computer-based performance appraisal products, and undoubtedly, TrackStar is the most economical. We saved thousands of dollars going with TrackStar and are very happy with the system.

On occasion, the system has been slow due to heavy traffic. Lately we haven't had this problem. I think upgrades for capacity are managed pretty well now.

We are just implementing Trakstar now so I have limited hands on experience with the product aside from uploading our users and having an initial 'play' in the system while we develop job descriptions and template plans etc. So far I am really enjoying the library of competencies which will help us develop our plans. I also am finding the set up of the email alerts etc. Being able to set up a template for a particular position is invaluable in our business but obviously the need to tailor is important and driven off coaching conversations. Trakstar is allowing us both the structure and the freedom to tailor which is great. If there could be the ability to tailor for each employee reminders for the managers that would be great. For example if we have an employee who requires fortnightly catch ups then being able to set up a reminder for that compared to his/her peer in the same 'position' but who needs only quarterly catch ups.

Trakstar continues to be an impressive system. Not only is it very simple and logical (and I could write a review just on that), but Customer Service is quick with resolutions. I wanted to get more information when I downloaded reports from the Appraisal Screen and Lauren in Customer Service helped me understand the process right away, and then even offered to just quickly put something together on her end which met my needs. In the span of 30 seconds, she had updated a report with additional fields showing scoring which helped greatly. This is the kind of Customer Service that we all want with so many things... 1) phone is answered quickly, 2) Reps show genuine interest in understanding your situation, 3) They look to explain how you can fix this yourself so you better understand the system, and then offer to take care of it for you to make it easier for you at that moment. As a company we are still learning many things about Trakstar, but so far we are impressed with the product, implementation, and ease of use.

With the company size @ about 250 employees, Trakstar is a great tool to help in the performance management process. The versatility allows for the set up of multiple processes and variations in the various job roles in our organization.

It's quick clicks and video help library

Would like to have more interface with HRIS system

Trakstar helps me stay organized with all of my 200+ reviews that are due throughout the year. It is very user-friendly for all skill levels.

Wow! Not sure where to begin.....From training all the way to day-to-day usage, our experience has been smooth & seamless. Our trainer, Kalley Anderson was awesome! She was very knowledgeable of the product, she delivered the information in a simplistic manner, and equipped my manager and I with all we needed to use this product with finesse on a daily basis. In the few instances where I've needed to contact your support team, their response time was an issue and even then a quick email to Kalley gave me the urgent answer I needed quicker than your support team could provide it. Overall, I love this product and your staff has been amazing!!! Note.....customer service rating above should have been 4 stars due to delayed wait times from your support team/help desk but I scored you 5-stars because Kalley stood in the gap for your support team and made it happen!!!

Ease of having an electronic system. Very user friendly for Management. We are able to track outstanding appraisals and make sure they are being presented in a timely manner.

The process of building out the appraisals took awhile. Trakstar provided great material to help. Once appraisals were build, the process from there went very smooth.

I really enjoy the tracking and review process, however I wish that TrakStar was easier to use on a daily basis from a logistical standpoint.

The product that results from the manager's review is great information. Reviews are summarized in a uniform fashion across employees. Attributes reviewed appear to be very customizable.

The platform is extremely unintuitive. It's difficult to find your own reviews and reviews are not categorized by year or any other identifiable way. There also does not appear to be a way to request an ad hoc review within the software, so our team has to send an email to the administrator to being a review. Employees should be able to request a review within the software.

I moved from a "normal" user to an administrative user and Trakstar has been amazing! It is very simple to explain to new hires, and with the videos and documentation available, navigating through the site is a breeze.

I actually like the majority of the features. I think that others being able to leave comments on your work is very helpful come review time; it makes what you are saying to your performance stronger. Another thing I like is how you can group topics together and write a reflection, but then not post it until you're ready to - very convenient!

When I wrote my first reflection, I had a little trouble in posting a reflection when I only wanted to take a note. Once I figured out how to do it correctly, it was no problem. If there were more detailed instructions on the difference between the two, that would be helpful.

Trakstar has allowed us to automate our annual performance appraisal process which was previously manually executed. It provides us with enormous flexibility to continually custom-design our metrics to match the culture and dynamics of our diverse workforce. Trakstar has proven itself to be user friendly software for our Employees as well as for the "Trakstar Managers" who are responsible for creating appraisals of their employees. The home page dashboard is intuitively designed and navigation throughout the functions is self-explanatory. Trakstar has improved our on-time delivery of performance reviews which has resulted in a positive impact to on-time merit pay increases. That has been a notable employee satisfier. As our employees master our current appraisal format we look forward to enhancing the appraisal experience by adding additional features such as the Multi-Rater function. We know ongoing enhancements and adjustments will occur seamlessly based on the prompt and responsive customer service we have become accustomed to from the Trakstar Support team and in particular, from Renee Kunce.

Overall, the program does what it is intended to do. It is a good review tracking software. Administrators should have access to far more information without having to login as users. Would be much easier if we could see actual reviews from administrator screens. Approves should be able to make very minor changes to reviews without kicking them back to prior level of reviewer (i.e. shouldn't have to send a review back to fix a simple typo).