When you own a parent OKR with multiple contributing children, keeping track of overall health can be overwhelming. You need to answer: Are we on track? Falling behind? Should we be concerned?
With automatic rollup enabled, Rhythms calculates status for you. Your parent's status is based on the progress of all contributing children, compared against expected progress at this point in time. When you check in, you'll see this calculated status and can accept or override it.
For an overview of how progress and status work together, see Understanding OKR Automatic Rollup.
Data-driven signals: Status comes from actual calculations: progress vs. expected progress
Early warning system: When children fall behind, your parent status reflects it immediately
Control when you need it: Accept the calculated status or override with your judgment and context
Time savings: No need to manually review all child progress and calculate whether you're on pace
How Status Rollup Works with Automatic Rollup
Status rollup is automatically enabled when you set your parent OKR to use automatic rollup for progress.
To use automatic rollup (which includes status):
Open your parent OKR
Click the current progress value
Select "Update automatically based on rollup from contributing children" from the dropdown
Once enabled, your parent's progress and status will both be calculated automatically based on contributing children.
⚠️ Important: When you switch to automatic rollup, your parent's displayed progress and status will immediately change to show the calculated values from contributing children. Your previous manual check-ins will remain in the history.
How Status is Calculated
Rhythms determines your parent's status in four steps:
Step 1: Calculate weighted progress
Each contributing child has a weight that determines how much it contributes to the parent. Rhythms calculates the parent's overall progress by combining each child's progress according to its weight.
For details on how weighted progress works and how to adjust weights, see Intelligent Progress Rollup: How Rhythms Calculates Parent Progress.
Step 2: Determine expected progress
Rhythms calculates where you should be based on time elapsed in your period. For example:
25% through the period = you should be around 25% complete
50% through the period = you should be around 50% complete
75% through the period = you should be around 75% complete
Step 3: Compare and assign status
Rhythms compares your weighted progress to expected progress:
On Track: You meet or exceed expected progress
Behind: You're behind, but within 25 percentage points of expected
At Risk: You're more than 25 percentage points behind expected
Step 4: Review and decide
When you check in, you see the calculated status. You can accept it or override based on your own judgment and context that the system doesn't have.
Example: Seeing It in Action
Your situation: You own "Launch Mobile App" for Q1, and you're halfway through the quarter (50% of time has elapsed).
Your contributing children and their progress:
Child OKR | Progress |
Core features complete | 70% |
Security testing | 40% |
App store approval | 60% |
Default Behavior (Equal Contribution)
By default, all contributing children have equal impact on parent progress.
What Rhythms calculates:
Weighted progress: 57% (calculated as: (70% + 40% + 60%) / 3 = 57%)
Expected progress: 50% (you're halfway through the quarter)
Gap: +7 percentage points (you're ahead of schedule)
Calculated Status: On Track
With Custom Weights (Advanced)
If your organization has custom weights enabled and you've assigned strategic importance to each child:
Child OKR | Progress | Weight |
Core features complete | 70% | 40% |
Security testing | 40% | 30% |
App store approval | 60% | 30% |
What Rhythms calculates:
Weighted progress: 58% (calculated as: (70% × 40%) + (40% × 30%) + (60% × 30%) = 28% + 12% + 18% = 58%)
Expected progress: 50% (you're halfway through the quarter)
Gap: +8 percentage points (you're ahead of schedule)
Calculated Status: On Track
For details on custom weights and how to configure them, see Intelligent Progress Rollup: How Rhythms Calculates Parent Progress.
When you open a check-in, you'll see "On Track" as the recommended status. You can accept this, or if you know something the numbers don't show—like the security testing delay threatening the launch date—you can override to "Behind" or "At Risk" and explain why in your notes.
Using Status Recommendations in Check-ins
What you see during check-in
When you check in on your parent:
Calculated progress appears (weighted average from contributing children)
Calculated status appears (based on progress vs. expected)
You decide: Accept the recommendation or select different status
Add context: Especially important if you override
When to accept the recommendation
Accept when:
The calculated status accurately reflects reality
You don't have additional context that changes the picture
The weighted math tells the true story
This saves you time and ensures consistency.
When to override
Override when you have information the system doesn't. For example:
External dependencies: Approvals, vendor delays, or blockers not tracked as OKRs.
Example: Calculation shows "On Track" but a critical approval is stuck
Weighted importance in practice: The weights don't fully capture criticality.
Example: Four children on track, one critical child at risk → consider overriding to "At Risk"
Temporary setbacks: Short-term delays with clear recovery paths
Example: Behind this week but team has recovery plan
Changes in strategic context: Market conditions changed what success means, priorities shifted mid-cycle, resources were reallocated
⚠️ Remember to document your override in the check-in notes. This helps others understand why calculated vs. reported status differ.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does "expected progress" mean?
It's where you should be based on time elapsed. Halfway through your period = approximately 50% expected progress. Three-quarters through = approximately 75% expected.
When does my parent's status recommendation update?
When you open a check-in. The calculation uses the latest child progress data available at that moment.
If I override status, do I have to keep overriding?
Yes, if you want to maintain a different status than the calculation. Each check-in shows the current calculated status—you decide whether to accept or override each time.
What happens when I postpone a contributing child?
When you set a child to Postponed status, it's automatically excluded from both your parent's progress calculation and status determination. The child's contribution weight is set to 0, so it doesn't affect whether your parent shows On Track, Behind, or At Risk. This prevents paused work from creating false health signals, postponed items won't make your parent appear behind schedule. When you reactivate the child, it resumes contributing to both progress and status calculations.
If a child's status changes, does my parent's status automatically change too?
Not directly. Your parent's status is based on weighted progress of its children, not their status. When a child's progress changes, it affects your parent's weighted progress, which may then change your parent's calculated status. This can cascade upward through multiple levels of OKR hierarchy.
Why does my parent show "At Risk" when progress looks decent?
Status is time-based. If you're at 60% progress but 90% through your time period, you're 30 percentage points behind expected progress, which equals "At Risk." The calculation reflects whether you're on pace to finish on time, not just absolute progress.
Can I disable automatic status calculation?
No. Status is always calculated automatically when you have automatic rollup enabled. However, you can override the calculated status during each check-in to reflect your strategic judgment.
Related Articles
Understanding rollup concepts: See Understanding OKR Automatic Rollup for how progress and status rollup work together and when to use automatic vs. manual modes.
Configuring progress rollup: See Intelligent Progress Rollup: How Rhythms Calculates Parent Progress for how Rhythms determines whether to sum or average, and how to configure contribution settings.
Tracking progress: See Effective Check-ins to Track OKR Progress in Rhythms for how to conduct check-ins and update OKR progress.