Performance reviews are essential for growth, both for your team and your business. But without a clear system, they can quickly turn messy, inconsistent, or even biased.
That’s where ActiveMerge comes in. With a few simple steps, you can use it to streamline how reviews are created, delivered, and stored—without doing it all manually. ActiveMerge can automate all your HR documents, contracts and more.
Why Are Performance Reviews Important?
A good performance review helps people know how they’re doing and where they can grow. It builds trust between managers and staff, opens up real conversations, and makes sure everyone is on the same page.
But when reviews are all over the place, different formats, missing info, inconsistent scoring, it’s hard to compare performance fairly or make good decisions.
Standardizing the process makes it easier to stay objective, reduce errors, and save time. And with a tool like ActiveMerge, you don’t need to spend hours copying and pasting data into review forms.
Step 1: Get Your Review Template Ready
Start with a performance review form you already use, or build one from scratch. Save it as a Microsoft Word file with placeholders (also called tags) where personalized info will go, like {Employee Name}, {Department}, {Manager Name}, {Overall Rating}, and so on. This will be the master file that ActiveMerge fills in for each employee.
Step 2: Build Your Review Data Sheet
Open Google Sheets and create a list of all the employee data you want to include in the reviews. Each row should represent one employee, and each column should match a placeholder from your template. For example:
- Employee Name
- Department
- Manager Name
- Overall Rating
- Comments
You can also add more depending on your company’s guidelines. Be sure everything is spelled exactly the same as your tags in the Google Doc template.
Step 3: Log in to ActiveMerge
Head over to app.activemerge.com and log in. If you don’t have an account yet, you can create one in a few clicks. Once inside, go to your dashboard and click “Start New Job” to get started.
Step 4: Import Your Spreadsheet
Upload the spreadsheet you created earlier. You can import it directly from your device.
ActiveMerge will match your spreadsheet data with your template tags.
If you’re using Google Spreadsheets, remember to download the file as a Microsoft Excel (.xlsx) format since ActiveMerge only supports this format.
Step 5: Upload Your Template
Upload your Performance Review template. ActiveMerge will detect your merge tags automatically.
You’ll see a preview of the template, and the tags will be listed. Make sure they match your spreadsheet column names.
Step 6: Choose Your Output Format
You can decide how you want the final reviews delivered—PDFs or DOCs format. Choose what fits best with your workflow.
Step 7: Hit Preview First Document and Let It Run
Click “Preview First Document,” and ActiveMerge will do all the heavy lifting. It will take each row from your spreadsheet and fill out a separate review form automatically. No need to copy-paste or edit dozens of documents by hand.
Sample Result:
Get the Free Performance Review Template
Get a copy of the Free Performance Review template. You can download the Google Docs template in Microsoft Word (.docx) format, as ActiveMerge only supports Word documents.
Final Thoughts
Performance reviews don’t have to feel like a time-consuming chore. When done well, they become a key tool for growth and fairness at work.
ActiveMerge doesn’t just save you time—it also helps you create a better experience for everyone involved. And once your review process is standardized, it’s easier to focus on what really matters: helping your team succeed.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is ActiveMerge?
ActiveMerge is a tool that helps automate document creation using templates and spreadsheets. You can generate multiple customized documents at once without manual editing.
Can I use ActiveMerge with my own performance review form?
Yes. As long as your template is in a Word document format and uses placeholders (like {Employee Name}), it will generate reviews automatically.
Is ActiveMerge only for performance reviews?
No. You can use it to automate certificates, invoices, letters, contracts, or anything that follows a repeatable format with changing data.
