Goals

Set company, team and individual goals, align them to each other, and track progress with check-ins.

Goals track the outcomes your organization is working towards, from company-wide targets down to team and individual goals. Each goal aligns to the goal above it, so anyone can see how a team’s work connects to what the company is trying to achieve. Progress moves through check-ins, where the owner records where the goal stands and what changed.

Goals and planning in UnitX#

Goals are one of several planning tools. Use whichever fit how your organization plans:

OKRsObjectives measured by key results, one cycle at a time.InitiativesThe strategic work that sits between a goal and the projects delivering it.Milestones and risksCheckpoints inside a goal, and a register of what could stop it.PortfoliosGroup projects to roll up budgets and track health.ResourcesCapacity, allocations and the workload heatmap.RealityWhat your recorded work actually supports.

Key concepts#

Alignment: A goal can have a parent goal. That link is what alignment means: the tree is built from those connections, and nothing is copied between goals.
Level: A free-text label such as company, team or individual. Your organization can use whatever levels it likes. If you leave it blank, the goal is created as individual.
Owner: The person accountable for the goal. When you create a goal in the web app, you’re its owner.
Check-in: A dated update recording the goal’s progress (0–100%), its health and a comment explaining what changed. Check-ins are the only way a goal’s progress and health change.
Health: On track, At risk, Off track or No status. New goals start at No status.
Visibility: Who can see the goal. Organization means every member. Team means the owner and anyone who shares a team with them. Private means only the owner and whoever created the goal.

Who can use goals#

Permissions

goal.viewgoal.creategoal.edit

goal.view shows Goals in the sidebar and lets you read goals you’re allowed to see. goal.create lets you create goals, sub-goals and templates, use templates and duplicate goals. goal.edit lets you record check-ins, link dependencies and contributions, and archive templates.

The Goals page#

Open Goals from the sidebar. Top-level goals are shown as cards, with their sub-goals indented beneath them. Each card shows the goal’s name, level, health and a progress bar. At every level, the least complete goals come first, so the ones that need attention are at the top.

Large trees aren’t loaded all at once. Where a branch goes deeper, the page shows a button such as Show 4 goals below this. Select it to load that branch.

Why a goal can look top-level when it isn’t

If a goal’s parent is private or belongs to a team you’re not in, you still see the goal. It’s shown under the nearest goal above it that you can see, or at the top level, labelled aligned above a goal you cannot see. Two people can see the same tree differently because each sees only the goals they’re allowed to.

Create a goal#

Select New goal
On the Goals page, select New goal. The Create a goal dialog opens.
Enter a Name
Required, up to 255 characters. State the outcome, for example “Hire two acquisitions analysts and one data engineer”.
Set a Level
Type a level such as company, team or individual (up to 50 characters). Leave it blank for an individual goal.
Add a Description (optional)
Select Create goal
The goal is created with you as owner, visible to the whole organization, at 0% with No status.

Add a sub-goal#

Open the goal you want to align under and select Add sub-goal in the Sub-goals section. The Add a sub-goal dialog has the same fields as Create a goal, and the new goal is aligned to the one you’re viewing. The Sub-goals section lists each sub-goal with its health, and every sub-goal’s page has a link (↑) back to its parent.

A goal can’t be placed under itself or under one of its own descendants. That would create a loop, and UnitX refuses it.

Record a check-in#

The Check-ins section at the top of a goal’s page is where progress moves. Each check-in is kept in a timeline under the form, newest first.

Set Progress (%)
A whole number from 0 to 100. The form starts at the goal’s current progress.
Choose the Health
On track, At risk, Off track or No status.
Explain What changed?
Required, up to 2,000 characters. For example: “Two of three signed. Data engineer starts next month.”
Select Record check-in
The goal’s progress bar and health badge update, and the check-in joins the timeline.

Progress doesn’t roll up

A goal’s progress is whatever its latest check-in recorded. It isn’t averaged from its sub-goals, and it isn’t moved by milestones, contributions or risks. A number that nobody entered would be a number nobody owns.

Milestones and risks#

Below the sub-goals, each goal has a Milestones section for checkpoints with their own percentages, and a Risks section for what could stop the goal. Both are covered in Milestones and risks.

Link dependencies between goals#

The Dependencies section records how this goal relates to others.

Choose the relationship
Depends on, Blocks or Related to.
Choose the other goal in Goal…
Select Link

If a goal this one depends on is off track, the row shows an Upstream off track badge. To remove a dependency, hover over the row and select the ×.

A goal can’t depend on itself.
The same dependency can’t be added twice.
A “Blocks” link that would create a loop of goals blocking each other is refused.

Link contributions#

The Contributions section links the projects and work items that show the goal is being worked on. Contributions are evidence only. They don’t change the goal’s progress; only a check-in does.

Choose Work item or Project
Pick what to link
For a work item, first choose the Project…, then the Work item…. For a project, choose it directly.
Select Link
The contribution appears with a link to the project or work item. Hover over it and select × to remove it. The same item can’t be linked twice.

Discuss a goal#

The bottom of every goal page has a comment thread. See Comments and mentions.

Duplicate a goal#

Select Duplicate at the top of a goal’s page. UnitX creates “Copy of goal name” with the same description, level, visibility, owner and parent, and opens it. The copy starts fresh: status Draft, No status, 0% progress, and no check-ins, contributions or dependencies.

Goal templates#

Templates let you create goals with the same shape again and again, such as a quarterly team goal. Select Templates on the Goals page to open the Goal templates dialog.

Create a template#

Enter a New template name
For example, “Quarterly OKR”.
Optionally set a Level
For example, “team”.
Select Add

Create a goal from a template#

Select Use on the template
Adjust the Goal name
It starts as the template’s name.
Optionally pick a Target date
Select Create
The goal is created and the dialog closes.

To retire a template, select its archive icon. Archived templates no longer appear in the list.

Tips and limitations#

Record check-ins on a regular rhythm, such as every week or two. The timeline is the story of the goal, and the comments are what make it readable later.
Goals are never deleted. Instead of deleting, a goal’s status can be set to Completed, Cancelled or Archived.
In the web app, you set a goal’s name, level and description when you create it, and goals created there are visible to the whole organization. The web app doesn’t currently have a screen for changing a goal’s owner, parent, dates, status or visibility afterwards.
Goals and OKR objectives are separate. A goal moves through check-ins, while an objective takes its progress from its key results.
Goal progress can appear on dashboards through the goal progress widget. See Dashboard widgets.

FAQ#

Does a parent goal’s percentage include its sub-goals?

No. Every goal’s progress is what its own latest check-in recorded.

I made a goal private and a colleague can still see it.

Then they either own it or created it. Both keep access on purpose, so someone who creates a goal for a teammate can still read it.

Why can’t I record a check-in without a comment?

A progress number with no explanation doesn’t help anyone reading the timeline later. The comment is required so every change says why.

I linked a project as a contribution. Why didn’t progress change?

Contributions are evidence that work is happening, not measurements. Record a check-in to move progress, or attach work items to a milestone if you want a calculated percentage.

Still stuck? Search the docs with ⌘K, open Help inside UnitX, or contact support.