Reviews and Layouts

Last updated: June 12, 2026

Reviews are structured documents — Monthly Business Reviews, Quarterly Business Reviews, weekly team syncs, executive briefings — built on Layouts, Rhythms' template system. Instead of assembling updates from scratch each time, you create a Layout once and run it whenever you need a fresh review.

What Are Layouts?

A Layout is a document template that defines the structure of a review. It specifies what sections to include and what data to pull into each section — goal tables, check-in summaries, trend charts, integration data, or freeform text blocks.

When you run a Layout, Rhythms generates a new Document populated with live data from your workspace. Every time you run it, the document reflects current goal statuses, check-in history, and integration metrics.

System Layouts

Rhythms includes pre-built system layouts for common review types:

  • Monthly Business Review (MBR) — company-level goal health, key wins, risks, and outlook

  • Quarterly Business Review (QBR) — quarterly performance summary with goal attainment and forward plan

  • Weekly Team Sync — team-level goal status, recent check-ins, and action items

  • Weekly Engineering Team Sync — engineering-focused: sprint progress, blockers, and key metrics

  • Executive Briefing — concise leadership-level summary of top objectives and risks

System layouts are available to all workspace members from the Layout picker.

Creating a Document from a Layout

  1. Open the Library from the left navigation

  2. Click New Document

  3. Select a Layout from the picker (system layouts appear at the top; custom layouts appear below)

  4. Choose the scope — which team, time period, or goals to include

  5. Click Generate

Rhythms builds the document using live data from your workspace. The document is saved to your Library and can be shared, auto-refreshed, or exported.

Creating a Custom Layout

If the system layouts don't match your review format, build your own:

  1. In the Library, click Layouts → New Layout

  2. Give the layout a name (e.g., "Monthly Product Review")

  3. Add sections using the block editor:

    • Goal table — filter by team, time period, status, label, or owner

    • Check-in summary — recent check-ins for a team or goal set

    • Trend chart — progress over time for selected Key Results

    • Integration data — pull in metrics from a connected integration

    • Text block — freeform content, instructions, or headers

  4. Configure each block's data source and display options

  5. Save the layout

Your custom layout is available to you (and teammates you share it with) from the Layout picker.

Auto-Refreshing a Review Document

Documents generated from layouts can be set to auto-refresh on a schedule, so they always reflect current data without manual regeneration:

  1. Open the document

  2. Click ⋯ → Set up auto-refresh

  3. Choose your refresh cadence (daily, weekly, on-demand)

  4. Save

When the document refreshes, all data blocks update with the latest goal statuses, check-in content, and integration values. A liveness indicator in the document header shows when the last refresh occurred.

Exporting a Review

Review documents can be exported for sharing outside of Rhythms:

  • Word (.docx) — export from the document's ⋯ menu → Export to Word

  • PowerPoint (.pptx) — export from ⋯ → Export to PowerPoint

  • Share link — share directly with teammates who have Rhythms access

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I edit the content of a generated document? Yes — all generated documents are editable. Changes you make manually are preserved when the document auto-refreshes, unless you've edited a data block's underlying configuration.

Can I share a Layout with my team so they can generate their own reviews? Yes — from the Layouts list, click Share on any custom layout to give teammates access. Shared layouts appear in their Layout picker.

What's the difference between a Layout and a Document? A Layout is the template. A Document is a specific instance generated from that template, containing actual data from a point in time.

Can I create a review without using a Layout? Yes — you can create a blank document and build it manually, or ask the Rhythms AI to draft a review in chat.

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