# Anytime feedback

> Give a colleague feedback outside a review round, named or confidential, and how reported feedback is handled

Anytime feedback is a note about a colleague that nobody asked for, given whenever you like.

## How it works

Each note is about one person and goes to them, to them and their manager, or to their manager
only. It is named or confidential: a confidential note hides your name from its readers, but
SquadBear stores who wrote it. The manager who reads a note is the person's line manager when it
was sent, and only while they still manage the person. A note cannot be edited once sent.

## Give feedback

1. Go to **Performance → Feedback** and choose **Give feedback**, or start from a colleague's
   profile. It opens its own page, and **Cancel** leaves it.
2. Under **About**, search for the colleague, then write **Your feedback** (up to 1,500
   characters).
3. Under **Who sees it**, pick the audience. Feedback for the manager only always shows your
   name. If the person has no manager in SquadBear, or you are their manager, only the person
   can see it. **Who sees this**, beside the form, names every reader.
4. Under **Your name**, pick **Shown** or **Confidential**, then choose **Send feedback**.

Every note reaches its readers as soon as you send it. Named feedback notifies them. Confidential
feedback sends no notification and is dated without a time. You can send one confidential note
about the same person every 7 days; inside that window the page offers **Show my name** instead.

## Your feedback lists

**Performance → Feedback** shows **About me**, **I gave** and, for managers, **My team**, 20 notes
at a time. Someone who manages people without a manager role sees **My team** once a note has
reached them as a manager. To take a note back, open it under **I gave** and choose **Withdraw**.
That list shows each note as **Sent** or **Withdrawn** only.

## Always named

An admin can switch confidential feedback off for the workspace under **Settings → Review
settings**: on the **Anytime feedback** card, turn on **Always named**. Every new note then shows
who wrote it. Feedback already sent stays as it was.

## Reported feedback

The person can **Report** a note under **About me**. It is hidden at once from everyone who could
see it. Admins see reported notes only, under **Performance → Feedback → Reported**, and choose:

- **Restore**: it shows again to the people it was for, who can report it again. If its author
  withdrew it in the meantime, it stays withdrawn.
- **Remove**: nobody sees it again. This cannot be undone.
- **Show author**, on a confidential note: shows who wrote it. Every reveal is recorded in the
  audit log with the admin's name. A named note already shows its author.

The list shows the 100 oldest reports at a time. When more are waiting it says so, and restoring
or removing these brings in the rest. Any admin except the author can restore or remove a note. **Show author** is not offered to the
person or their manager, so another admin has to; if no admin can, the author stays hidden.

## Feedback in reviews

Notes sent during a review's period appear in that review, up to 50, newest day first. The
reviewer finds the notes that reached them as the person's manager under **Anytime feedback** on
the rail's **Peers** tab. The person finds the notes addressed to them on the **Feedback** tab of their
self review, as **Feedback you received**. Confidential notes show no name there either.

## Worked example

In August, Aleksandra sends Tomasz, an engineer on Northlake's Platform team, a confidential note
about the incident review Tomasz ran, for Tomasz and Ewa, Tomasz's manager. Both can read it at
once, as from "A colleague", and neither gets a notification. In Northlake's Q3 2026 round, Ewa
sees the note under **Anytime feedback** while writing Tomasz's review, and Tomasz sees it under
**Feedback you received** in the self review. Had Tomasz reported it, Marta, the admin, could
restore it, remove it or show its author.

> [!AGENT]
> Find my Q3 2026 self review in SquadBear and tell me the main themes of the anytime feedback I received during its review period, without quoting it.

## Related

- [Write a review](/docs/performance/write-a-review/)
- [Who sees what in Performance](/docs/performance/who-sees-what/)
- [Data protection and GDPR in SquadBear](/docs/admin/privacy/)