> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://help.honestly.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# How does anonymity work in 360° Feedback?

> Configure anonymity per perspective and for free-text responses in 360° Feedback. Learn how thresholds work and why self-assessment is always shown.

Anonymity in 360° Feedback is configured **per perspective** — Self, Manager, Peers, Direct Reports — and separately for free-text responses. This way you can show manager feedback very early (often just one reviewer is available) while still protecting peer and report feedback behind higher thresholds.

You configure anonymity in the **Anonymity** tab when creating or editing a run.

<Note>
  * Anonymity can only be changed while the run is in **Draft** status.

  * Self-assessment is always shown (threshold fixed at 1).

  * Anonymity values set per run override the account-wide survey anonymity threshold for that run only.
</Note>

#### How thresholds work

For each perspective you set a **minimum number of responses** that must be received before results in that perspective become visible in the dashboard.

* If a recipient does not yet have enough responses in a perspective, no numerical value for that perspective is shown for that recipient.

* As soon as the threshold is reached, results become visible automatically.

* The threshold applies **per recipient** and **per perspective** — not to the run as a whole.

Example:

| Perspective     | Threshold | Effect                                 |
| --------------- | --------- | -------------------------------------- |
| Self-Assessment | 1 (fixed) | Always visible for the recipient       |
| Manager         | 1         | Shown as soon as the manager submits   |
| Peers           | 3         | Hidden until at least 3 peers submit   |
| Direct Reports  | 3         | Hidden until at least 3 reports submit |

#### Step 1: Set the anonymity threshold per perspective

In the **Anonymity** tab, for each active perspective:

1. Choose the minimum number of responses required. Options available in the

dropdown depend on the thresholds configured for your account in **Settings**.

2. A hint tells you if any recipient in the run has fewer raters in that

perspective than the threshold requires — in that case, results for that recipient will remain hidden for that perspective until more reviewers submit.

If a perspective has no reviewers assigned for a recipient at all, the dashboard will permanently show no result for that recipient in that perspective. Add reviewers in the **Reviewers** tab to fix this.

#### Step 2: Set the text anonymity threshold

Free-text responses (from **Open Questions**) have their own threshold, configured under **Text Anonymity**. It works the same way but can be set **lower than** the perspective threshold so that qualitative feedback appears earlier.

Example: perspective threshold of 3 and a text threshold of 2 — as soon as 2 peers have answered an open question, those two text answers become visible, even though the quantitative chart for peers is still hidden.

This is useful because text feedback often provides the most actionable insight, and waiting for a higher threshold can delay learning.

#### Self-assessment is always shown

Self-assessment has a fixed threshold of **1** : as soon as the recipient has completed their self-assessment, those results are visible to them on their dashboard. This cannot be changed.

#### Tips

* **Start with higher thresholds for Peers and Reports.** These perspectives typically have enough reviewers per recipient and benefit from stronger anonymity protection.

* **Use lower text anonymity to surface qualitative insight earlier** , but always coordinate the threshold with your works council / data protection policy.

* **Check the reviewer counts in the *Reviewers* tab** before you finalise anonymity — if only two peers are assigned, a threshold of three will prevent that recipient from ever seeing peer results.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.