Advancing a Coworker and retiring it

Move a Coworker from Interview to Full-time with a recorded sign-off, or retire it.

For: A Coworker's Supervisor · Last updated

A Coworker earns wider access in steps: Interview, then Internship, then Apprenticeship, then Full-time. At any point it can be retired with Retire. If your company requires approval for new Coworkers, a Coworker starts one step earlier, in Proposed, and is approved into Interview by an admin or executive. See Proposed Coworkers.

Only the Coworker's own Supervisor can retire it. The Supervisor and people with the admin ability can advance it, unless your company requires approval for the move (see below). The buttons are in the Lifecycle card on the Coworker's details page, below the history of its phases. A retired Coworker cannot be advanced or retired again.

Who can see the Coworker at each phase#

Phase Access
Proposed Its Supervisor, its creator, admins and executives. Nobody can chat with it.
Interview Supervisor only (people with Executive (view-only) can view its details).
Internship A small cohort you choose, plus the Supervisor.
Apprenticeship A wider cohort you choose, plus the Supervisor.
Full-time Everyone in the company, or only the Teams you choose.

See The Coworker roster for the full rules.

Advance to the next phase#

A Coworker in Proposed has no advance button; it moves to Interview when an approver approves it. The button on the Lifecycle card names the next step:

  • Offer internship from Interview
  • Promote to apprenticeship from Internship
  • Graduate to Full-time from Apprenticeship

Phases go in order; you cannot skip one. A dialog opens, titled with the move, for example "Move [name] to Internship?"

  1. Write a Sign-off statement. It is the record of why you are advancing the Coworker, for example the pass rate you measured. It cannot be empty.
  2. For Internship and Apprenticeship, choose the Cohort: the people who will work with the Coworker in that phase. Use the filter to search by name or title. At least one person is required, and the count of people selected is shown below the list. When you advance from Internship, the current cohort is already selected so you can widen it.
  3. For Full-time, optionally choose Team access Teams from the list to limit who can use the Coworker. Leave them blank to open it to everyone in the company.
  4. Select Move to Internship, Move to Apprenticeship or Move to Full-time.

The new phase and your sign-off appear in the Lifecycle history. Each move is also recorded in the audit log, which people with the auditor ability can read. See The Audit log.

Promotion requirements#

Your administrator decides what must happen before each move: nothing, an approval, or measures the platform checks for you. When something is required, the advance dialog opens with a Promotion requirements section above the sign-off.

  • Measures. Each requirement is listed with how it stands: Met, Not met or Not enough data, plus what it needs, for example "needs 70%". The measures are Adoption (the share of the group being left that used the Coworker), Engagement (the average number of interactions per person who used it) and Feedback rating (the share of thumbs-up ratings, which needs at least 5). They count recent activity in a window your administrator sets, 30 days by default. Automatic work by triggers is not counted. The Move to button is unavailable until every measure is met. Moving from Interview to Internship has no measures.
  • Approval. The button reads Request approval instead of Move to followed by the phase. Your sign-off and cohort go to the admins and executives who approve, and the Coworker stays in its phase until one of them approves. Nobody can advance it directly, admins included. The Lifecycle card shows no advance button while a request is waiting.

Little recent usage#

When you advance a Coworker from Internship or Apprenticeship and people have barely used it, the dialog shows a Little recent usage warning with the reasons, for example how few interactions it had in the look-back period or how many days have passed with no activity. The warning ends with "You can still promote it." It never blocks the move and does not change approval. Your administrator sets how little counts as low; see Conversation quality review. The Signals card on the details page has the fuller picture; see Coworker details.

Your own Performance Expectations appear in the dialog under Your performance expectations. They are your targets for the sign-off and are not part of the promotion requirements.

A waiting or declined request#

While a request is waiting, the details page shows a banner, Promotion to the new phase · awaiting approval, with your sign-off and the measures as they stood when you asked. Select Withdraw request to take it back; you can file a new one at any time.

If an approver declines it, the Coworker stays where it is and a banner, Promotion to the new phase was declined, shows the approver's note. Make the changes it asks for and request again.

If you approve promotions#

Admins and executives see a Promotion requests · awaiting approval section on the roster. Select Review to open the Coworker. The banner shows the sign-off and the measures. Select Approve to the new phase, or Decline and write the reason in Why is this being declined?; the note is required and is shown to the person who asked. An admin can approve a request they filed themselves. An executive who is not an admin cannot; another admin or executive decides. The measures are checked again when you approve, and approving moves the Coworker with the sign-off and cohort that were requested.

Sunset#

Select Retire to retire a Coworker. A Retire [name]? dialog opens. It is available in any phase except Sunset. For a Coworker in Proposed, admins and executives can retire it too, as a way to decline the proposal.

  1. Enter the Reason. It is required.
  2. Type the Coworker's name exactly in the confirmation field.
  3. Select Retire.

The Coworker stops being available for work and nobody can chat with it. Retiring cannot be undone. Its history is kept for audit, and anyone can open its details page. It disappears from the roster unless Show retired Coworkers is turned on.

After a Coworker is retired, its Supervisor can remove its Knowledge Bases and use Unbind model on its details page.