Alignment shows how team goals connect. In OKRnest you link objectives across teams with Contributes to, and optionally link key results up to a parent team with Supports parent key result. Together these relationships appear in Explore, the alignment map, and supporting dialogs throughout the app.

Note: Cross-team Contributes to and the alignment map require the Align OKRs feature to be enabled for your organisation. Parent key result linking is available when your team has a parent team in the hierarchy.

Contributes to (objective level)

Contributes to means this team's objective helps achieve objectives owned by other teams.

Setting contributes-to links

1. Open your team's OKRs → Create tab for the active or draft cycle
2. On an objective card, click Contributes to (or Contributes to (N) if links already exist)
3. In the dialog:
   • Browse All Objectives or switch to Selected to review your choices
   • Search objectives by title
   • Filter by team using the team dropdown
   • Sort by objective name, team, or cycle
   • Select one or more objectives from other teams (objectives from your own team are shown but cannot be selected)
4. Click Done

The button label updates to show how many objectives are linked, for example Contributes to (2).

Only objectives that are active on the current cycle's start date appear in the list.

Removing links

Open the same dialog, deselect objectives on the Selected tab, and click Done. Save the cycle from the Create tab action bar.

Supported by (read-only relationships)

Supported by is the inverse view: which other objectives contribute to this one.

You do not set Supported by directly. It is calculated from other teams' Contributes to links pointing at your objective.

You'll see Supported by in places such as:

• The Explore table (enable the Supported by column in column settings)
• The Alignment map when expanding objective nodes
• Supporting Objectives dialogs (listing objectives that contribute to or are supported by the current objective)

For key results, Supported by can also reflect child key results linked via Supports parent key result.

Supports parent key result (key result level)

When your team sits under a parent team in the organisation hierarchy, a key result can support a parent team's key result in the matching cycle period.

1. On the Create tab, open Key Result Settings (⋯ menu on the key result)
2. Under Supports parent key result, click Link to parent key result
3. Choose the parent team's objective and key result in the dialog
4. Save your OKR changes

This creates a vertical alignment link visible in status and alignment views.

Copying OKRs and alignment

When you copy OKRs from last cycle, Contributes to links are not copied. Re-establish cross-team links on the new cycle if needed.

Permissions and features

Capability	Requirement
Contributes to dialog	Align OKRs feature enabled
Alignment map tab in Explore	Align OKRs feature enabled
Parent KR linking	Team has a parent team configured

Team members with edit OKRs permission can set contributes-to links while editing a cycle.

Tips for effective alignment

• Link at objective level for strategy: Contributes to works best when team objectives clearly roll up to company or department goals
• Avoid over-linking: Two to four contributes-to targets per objective is usually enough
• Review in the alignment map: After linking, open Explore → Alignment map to validate the graph matches how your organisation actually works
• Use Explore columns: Turn on Contributing to and Supported by in the Explore table during planning meetings