Edit and update OKRs

Last updated: September 4, 2026

To change anything about an Objective, Key Result or Initiative, click it to open its detail panel and click the field you want to change: the title and description edit in place, and owner, team, time period, alignment, metric, labels and visibility are pills that open a picker. Changes save immediately and appear for everyone. This article covers structural changes; to record progress, see Write and submit check-ins.

Who can edit an OKR

By default the goal's owners, their managers and Rhythms Admins can edit a goal; a Rhythms Admin can widen or narrow this per goal level in Settings (see OKR roles and permissions). Delegates can edit everything except three fields that need the higher "manage" permission: owners, delegates and the check-in rhythm. Deleting a goal also needs manage permission.

Open the editor

  1. Click a goal's title in any list, view or document. Its detail panel (Quick View) opens on the right; use the expand icon in the panel header to open it as a full page.
  2. Click the title or description to edit it in place.
  3. Under the title, click a pill to change it: Owner, Team, Time period, Delegate, Check-in Rhythm, Labels. Click More for Delegate, Labels and Limit visibility; each item shows only until it has been set, after which it becomes a pill of its own. Contribution to the parent is managed from the parent's ⋯ → Manage contribution.
  4. Close the picker; the change is saved and logged in the goal's activity timeline.

What you can change

Owner

Click the owner pill and tick one or more people. New owners see the goal in their personal views and receive its check-in reminders; the previous owner stops receiving them. Owners are automatically allowed to view a Limited goal. Changing the owner needs manage permission, so a delegate cannot do it.

Owner picker on a goal, searching and ticking users

Team

Click the team pill and tick one or more teams. The goal moves to the new team's views and reports. Changing the team does not by itself change who can see the goal; if the goal is Limited, add the new team under Users and Teams in the visibility dialog (see Control who can see an OKR).

Team picker on a goal listing teams and sub-teams

Time period

Click the time period pill and choose a year, quarter or custom period. Check-in rhythms and expected-progress calculations follow the new dates; past check-ins are untouched.

Time period picker showing years and quarters, with the current period marked

Alignment (parent)

Under Aligned To, click the parent field and search, or browse the Suggested, team and Company tabs. A goal can align to more than one parent. Children of this goal stay attached to it. Changing a parent changes which progress the child contributes to, so check the parent's Manage contribution afterwards.

Aligned To picker with Suggested, team and Company tabs

Metric

On a Key Result, click the metric pill (for example Quarterly Revenue: $2.8M → $3.5M). At the top of the popover choose the type (Achieve a target, Stay above, Stay below, Stay between), then edit the metric name, target and start. Change to progress based replaces the metric with a plain 0 to 100 percent. Existing check-ins keep their recorded values; progress is recalculated against the new definition, so a big mid-cycle change can make history hard to read. Prefer a new Key Result when the measure itself changes. See Metric types for Key Results.

Labels

Click the labels pill (or More → Labels when none are set) and tick labels. Labels only affect filtering and grouping in views.

Labels picker on a goal with High and Medium labels

Visibility, delegates and check-in rhythm

These have their own articles: Control who can see an OKR, Assign delegates to an OKR and Per-Goal Check-in Reminders.

Reorder Key Results, Initiatives and child Objectives

The order of children under an Objective is yours to set, so put the most important item first or arrange work in sequence.

  1. Open the parent Objective in Quick View or on its page, or expand it in a tree view.
  2. Hover over a Key Result, Initiative or child Objective; a drag handle (⋮⋮) appears on the left.
  3. Drag the item to its new position and drop. The order saves immediately and everyone sees the same order. Keyboard users can pick up and move items with the arrow keys.
Key Results list with a drag handle shown on the left of a row

You can reorder only within the same parent and among items of the same type; to move a child under a different parent, change its alignment instead. You need edit permission on the parent Objective. Reordering is purely visual and does not change progress, weights or reports.

Convert a goal to another type

A Key Result that grew into a body of work can become an Objective; an Objective that turned out to be a deliverable can become an Initiative. Converting keeps check-ins, comments, progress, owners, delegates, labels and alignment.

  1. Open the goal's ⋯ menu → Convert to… → choose Objective, Key Result or Initiative.
  2. Read the confirmation. Converting to an Objective removes the metric and disconnects any auto-update connection; progress continues as a percentage. Other directions keep the metric.
  3. Click Convert.

The goal receives a new short ID with the new prefix (for example KR-042 becomes the next free OBJ- number); the old ID still opens it. Anyone who can edit the goal, including delegates, can convert it. Afterwards, check the progress mode and parent alignment still make sense for the new type.

Edit or create new?

Edit when you are refining: clearer wording, an adjusted target, a new owner, a corrected parent. Create a new goal and close the old one when the purpose changes, when one Objective needs splitting into several, or when a Key Result's measure changes fundamentally. Closing preserves the record of what was originally intended; see Closing and Scoring OKRs.

Frequently asked questions

Can I undo a change? There is no undo button for edits; change the field back. Every change is recorded with who made it in the goal's activity timeline. Deleted goals are recoverable: they sit in Trash for 30 days (see Delete and restore OKRs).

Do edits affect past check-ins? No. Check-ins keep their values, notes and dates. Only the calculated progress percentage is re-derived when you change a metric's start, target or type.

What happens to children when I change a goal's parent? Nothing; they stay aligned to this goal and move with it in the hierarchy.

Can I reorder items across different Objectives? No. Change the item's alignment to move it to another parent, then reorder within that parent.

Do I lose data when converting a type? Only when converting to an Objective, which drops the metric and any auto-update connection. Check-in history, comments and progress are preserved in every direction.

Related articles