Pipelines can be configured to reflect your organization’s approach to succession planning. Administrators can customize how readiness is represented and determine the minimum job match employees must meet to contribute to bench strength. These settings affect the scores users see while working with pipelines.
Access pipelines administration
When Pipelines is installed in your site, users with the the Features administration permission can go to Admin > Pipelines. This is different from the Manage pipelines permission:
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Manage pipelines gives users access to view and manage succession pipelines under Talent > Pipelines.
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Features administration gives administrators access to configure Pipelines under Admin > Pipelines.
If you can work with pipelines but don’t see Pipelines under Admin, your permission set may not include Features administration.
Configure readiness levels
Readiness levels describe how prepared a potential successor is to move into a role. You can customize the readiness scale to reflect the terminology and process used by your organization. For each readiness level, you can configure its:
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Name
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Description
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Colour
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Inclusion in bench strength
You can also add, remove, and reorder readiness levels. The customized levels are available when users update readiness from Pipeline details.
Decide which readiness levels contribute to bench strength
Readiness isn’t only descriptive. It can determine whether someone contributes to a job’s bench strength. For example, your organization may want employees marked Ready now, Ready soon, or Ready later to contribute to bench strength.
Employees marked Not interested or Unavailable may still be relevant to the pipeline’s history but shouldn’t necessarily be treated as available succession coverage.
For each readiness level, choose whether employees assigned to it are included in bench-strength calculations. People who don’t yet have a readiness level are included by default if they otherwise qualify for the job. See How bench strength is calculated for a complete explanation of how readiness affects the score.
Set the minimum job match
The minimum match score determines how closely someone must match a job before they can contribute to bench strength. Set the minimum match as a percentage from 0–100%.
People whose job match falls below the configured percentage don’t contribute to the job’s bench-strength score. This value also sets the default minimum-match filter shown on Pipeline details.
Understand the calculation setting and display filter
The minimum match configured under Admin > Pipelines and the minimum match filter on Pipeline details serve different purposes:
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The value in Admin > Pipelines determines who can contribute to bench strength.
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The filter on Pipeline details determines which people are currently displayed.
Changing the Pipeline details filter doesn’t change the organization’s calculation setting. This lets users explore a pipeline using different match thresholds without inadvertently changing how bench strength is calculated.
Prepare pipelines for succession planning
Before relying on bench strength and succession risk, you should:
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Set a minimum job match that reflects your organization’s definition of a qualifying successor.
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Review the readiness scale and decide which levels should contribute to bench strength.
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Ensure users responsible for succession planning understand when to update employee readiness.
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Assess the criticality of the jobs you want included in succession-risk analysis.
Jobs without an assigned criticality remain Undefined for succession risk, even if they have a strong bench.