🔐 Who can use this feature?
Subscriptions: Any Performance package with performance cycles
Display rules dynamically reveal follow-up questions during manager reviews based on specific answers given to earlier questions. This conditional logic keeps review forms concise and relevant for most managers, while automatically gathering deeper insights when specific responses warrant them.
Show or hide questions based on a manager's answer
Display rules work with two connected questions:
Source question: the question a manager answers first. Its answer choices are what can trigger a rule.
Follow-up question (called a branched question elsewhere in the product, including on the cycle's Review step): the question that only appears when a chosen answer on its source question is selected.
Display rules are currently available in manager reviews only. They aren't available yet in self-reflections, peer feedback, upward feedback, or probation reviews.
ℹ️ Note: Culture Amp's Engagement and Lifecycle surveys have a separate, similarly named display rules feature for showing or skipping survey questions. This article covers display rules in Performance manager reviews, which is a different feature with its own setup.
Which questions can use display rules
Questions that can trigger a rule
Only three question types can act as a source question:
Performance rating question
Rating scale question
Single select question
Multi-select and open-ended questions can't trigger a rule. A question that's linked to a goal can't trigger a rule either, even if it's otherwise one of the three types above.
Questions that can't be a follow-up question
A performance rating question can never be set up as a follow-up question, so it always stays visible in the review.
A follow-up question can't itself trigger another rule, so a follow-up question can't have its own follow-up questions.
Set up a display rule
In cycle setup, go to the Questions step.
On the question you want to use as your source question, select Display rules.
Under If the answer is, choose the answer choice you want to act as the trigger.
Choose one or more questions to show when that answer is selected.
Only questions that are eligible to be a follow-up question, and don't already have a rule for that same answer, are available to choose. If none are available, you'll see a message that all eligible questions already have a display rule for that answer.
Repeat for any other answer choices on the same source question that should show a follow-up question.
Once you've added a rule, the source question shows a rule(s) applied tag in the question list. Go to the cycle's Review step to see every rule in one place, listed by source question, the rule itself, and the follow-up question it shows.
Position and requirement settings for a follow-up question
Position: move a follow-up question anywhere in the question list, the same way you reorder any other question.
Required or optional: use the Required question toggle to set a follow-up question as required or optional independently of its source question.
Combine multiple source questions on one follow-up question
You can set up more than one source question to trigger the same follow-up question. When you do, the follow-up question appears if any one of those trigger answers is selected, not only when all of them are.
What happens when you edit or remove a rule
Changing or removing a trigger answer choice on a source question removes just that rule. The follow-up question stays in your question list as a normal, always-visible question.
Duplicating a cycle carries its display rules over to the new cycle.
Once a cycle is live or closed, display rules can no longer be added, changed, or removed on any question, the same as other question edits at that stage. On a question that already has a rule applied, the Display rules control becomes View display rules and opens the drawer for viewing only. See Understanding the Impact of Editing Questions in a Live Performance Review Cycle for how that applies to cycle questions generally.
Preview your display rules before publishing
On the cycle's Questions step, select Preview to open an interactive preview in a new tab.
Choose an answer on the Manager View tab and watch follow-up questions appear or disappear live, the same way they would for a manager completing the review.
Switch to the Employee View tab to see what's shared with the employee.
Preview reflects unsaved changes too, so you can check a new or edited rule before you save the cycle.
💡 Tip: Use Preview to confirm your display rules behave as expected before publishing the cycle, especially if more than one source question points to the same follow-up question.
Test the full manager review experience
Preview shows you how a display rule behaves, but to test the complete manager review experience, run a full test cycle the way you would for any performance review cycle. See the Performance Review Cycle Testing Guide for how to set up a labeled test cycle with dummy participants.
What managers see while completing a review
A follow-up question appears as soon as the manager selects its trigger answer. No saving is needed for it to show up.
Above the follow-up question, the manager sees a short note explaining why it appeared, along the lines of "Because you selected '[that answer]' for '[the source question]'."
If a manager changes their answer away from the trigger and then back again while still working on the review, any answer they'd already given to the follow-up question reappears.
If a manager submits the review after changing their answer so a follow-up question is no longer triggered, any answer already given to that follow-up question isn't kept.
Where display rules don't apply yet
Other review types: self-reflections, peer feedback, upward feedback, and probationary reviews don't support display rules yet, only manager reviews do.
Historical uploads: display rules aren't supported when importing historical review data by CSV.
Calibrations: you can't change a follow-up question's rating directly from the calibration table. Open the manager review itself to change it. Bulk rating imports skip follow-up questions.
Troubleshooting
Display rules isn't available on a question
This happens when the question isn't a performance rating, rating scale, or single select question, when it's linked to a goal, or when it's already a follow-up question for another rule. Choose a different question, or remove its existing rule first.
"All eligible questions already have a display rule for this answer"
Every question that could act as a follow-up for that specific answer already has a rule tied to it. Choose a different answer choice, or remove an existing rule first to free up a follow-up question.
You can't change a display rule
Once the cycle is live or closed, display rules are locked along with the rest of the cycle's questions. Set up different rules in a new cycle instead, for example by duplicating this one before it goes live.
➡️ Next steps
Performance Review Cycle Testing Guide: Set up a labeled test cycle to try the full manager review experience before you launch.
Understanding the Impact of Editing Questions in a Live Performance Review Cycle: See what else is locked once a cycle goes live.
Use display rules in a survey: The separate display rules feature for Engagement and Lifecycle surveys.
💬 Need help? Open a Support Conversation to speak with our Product Support team.