# What are cascaded goals?

Cascaded goals are goals a supervisor creates and passes down to their employees. Typical examples are department or company goals that should feed into the employees' target agreements.

Cascaded goals require a supervisor–employee relationship. When you create one, you decide whether the goal cascades to **all employees** (direct and indirect) or only to **direct reports**. Direct reports are everyone who has you listed as their supervisor.

The progress of a cascaded goal is tracked on the supervisor's original goal. Employees can see the progress but can't change it.

## Create a cascaded goal as a supervisor

1. In the sidebar, click **Objectives** and open the edition you want.
2. In the list, click **show** on your own target agreement.

 ![Selecting a target agreement in the overview](/attachments/ziele/was-sind-kaskadierte-ziele/uebersicht-anzeigen.png)

3. Click the pencil icon in the top right to edit the target agreement.

 ![Clicking the pencil icon to edit](/attachments/ziele/was-sind-kaskadierte-ziele/detailansicht-bearbeiten.png)

4. Scroll to the intermediate goal you want. In the goal card you'll find the **Cascading Goal** row. In the dropdown next to "cascade to", choose **all employees** or **direct reports**.

 ![Cascading option in the goal card](/attachments/ziele/was-sind-kaskadierte-ziele/kaskadierung-dropdown.png)

5. Click **Save**.

The goal is now released for cascading. In the target agreement's detail view you can recognize cascaded goals by the group icon next to the goal title.

 ![Group icon on cascaded goals](/attachments/ziele/was-sind-kaskadierte-ziele/gruppen-symbol.png)

:::info
To undo the cascading, set the dropdown to "no one" and save the target agreement.

:::

## Add a cascaded goal to an employee

For a cascaded goal to appear in an employee's target agreement, it has to be linked there. This can happen manually or automatically.

### Link manually

1. Open the employee's target agreement and click the pencil icon to edit.
2. Scroll down to the **Cascaded objectives** section. Click **Pick cascaded objectives**.

 ![Pick cascaded objectives](/attachments/ziele/was-sind-kaskadierte-ziele/kaskadierte-ziele-auswaehlen.png)

3. The dialog shows the cascaded goals available from your supervisors. Select the goals you want with the checkboxes and click **Select objectives**.

 ![Pick cascaded objectives dialog](/attachments/ziele/was-sind-kaskadierte-ziele/kaskadierte-ziele-dialog.png)

4. The cascaded goals now appear in the **Cascaded objectives** section. You can adjust the weighting per goal.
5. Click **Save**.

In the employee's detail view, cascaded goals appear under the **Cascaded objectives** heading. The link icon next to the title shows that the goal comes from a higher-level target agreement.

 ![Cascaded goal on the employee with a link icon](/attachments/ziele/was-sind-kaskadierte-ziele/mitarbeiter-kaskadiertes-ziel.png)

### Force cascading

Instead of linking each employee goal individually, supervisors (or HR) can force cascading for all affected employees at once.

1. Open the supervisor's target agreement (detail view).
2. In the top right, click the **Force cascade objectives** icon (arrow icon).

 ![The Force cascade objectives button](/attachments/ziele/was-sind-kaskadierte-ziele/kaskadierung-erzwingen.png)

3. Confirm in the dialog that appears.

Every intermediate goal released for cascading is automatically added to the target agreements of the affected employees. Target agreements that are already sealed or locked for changes are skipped and keep their signed state.

:::info
The Force cascade objectives function is only visible when at least one intermediate goal is released for cascading.

:::

## Important notes

* Cascaded goals can only be completed by the supervisor. Progress is measured on the original goal.
* The weighting of a cascaded goal can be adjusted individually on the employee's side.
* A cascaded link can be removed again when editing the employee's target agreement: open the edit form and remove the goal from the "Cascaded objectives" section.