This article is intended for buyers. If you’re a supplier, check out our supplier help articles here.
Introduction
Now that you’ve successfully created your question library, you can create your questionnaires that you will send out to prospective suppliers. Their purpose is to gather essential information on supplier capabilities, compliance, and financial stability, aiding in risk mitigation and ensuring adherence to industry standards.
This article provides an in-depth look at how you can create multiple, custom questionnaires to qualify suppliers based on your needs. This guide will walk you through the process, from starting with a blank questionnaire to the final review and send.
This article will cover:
Creating a New Questionnaire
To create a questionnaire, follow these steps:
Click on the Pre-qualification tab.
Click on the Questionnaires tab on top left hand side.
Click the + New questionnaire button on the top right hand side.
This action will open a new page, serving as the initial draft for a questionnaire. You will start with a blank canvas, ready for you to customise your template.
Customising Your Questionnaire
Now that you have your blank template, you must fill in the information required under each of the three tabs: Summary Tab; Questions Tab; Review & Publish Tab.
Summary Tab
In the Summary Tab, you must provide basic details for your template; Questionnaire name; Questionnaire description; Purpose overview; and Renewal frequency. This should give your suppliers a clear overview of the purpose of this questionnaire, including any request specific information you think is relevant for them to know as they answer.
Name your questionnaire.
Add a questionnaire description.
Purpose overview.
Renewal frequency.
Purpose overview
The purpose section is internal and is not visible to suppliers, it gives users context on when to use the questionnaire. E.g. This is a technical questionnaire that needs to be sent to any supplier that is providing us with IT products.
Renewal frequency
The renewal section enables users to set an expiry date on their questionnaires, ensuring that suppliers review their responses and stay current. As a buyer, you can require questionnaires to be resubmitted at any interval, such as every 2 years. Reminders will be sent to suppliers 30 days before the questionnaire expires. Both suppliers and buyers will receive an email notification upon expiry, prompting the questionnaire to return to "in progress" status. Notifications will be sent, and the supplier will need to review and resubmit their questionnaire.
Questions Tab
In the Questions Tab, you can add questions to your questionnaire as well as provide suppliers with instructions to complete.
Click Edit and fill in the instructions to complete box. This box gives the suppliers more context on how to respond to the questionnaire. E.g. You must answer all questions and please be exhaustive in your responses.
✏️ Please Note: The instructions to complete box is optional, however, it is recommended to give clear instructions to your supplier.
To add questions:
Click the + Add questions button under the instructions to complete box.
A pop-up window will appear, allowing you to select your questions from your question library.
Select any questions you wish to be included in the questionnaire.
Finally click Add questions.
Questions are categorised for easy organisation in the left-hand column. Initially, questions appear with their title and question type only. If you wish to select all questions in a category to add in, you can simply click the checkbox next to the category list on the left hand side.
To manage questions added to the questionnaire, users can use the ‘…’ button next to each question. From here, users can reorder and delete questions. Once you're done simple click the Save button.
✏️ Please Note: Questions can only be added once into each questionnaire.
✏️ Please Note: Deleted questions can be added back to the questionnaire if needed.
Review & Publish Tab
The Review & Publish tab is your chance to review your questionnaire before it is published. Double check that you’re happy with your questionnaire name and description, as well as the order of your questions.
Review all of the questions you’ve provided for your questionnaire.
If you want to change the order of questions click the Edit button to the right of the Questions heading. This will take you back to the Questions tab. Click the Edit button again. Click the ‘...’ button next to a question and select to move them up or down. Save and return to the Review & Publish tab.
Check for any error messages or missing information, if an error message appears please fill in the missing information.
Once you're happy you can publish your questionnaire template.
Once you publish your questionnaire, it will move from a draft to an active questionnaire template and become available to send to your Suppliers.
✏️ Please Note: Questionnaires are split it into three main sections and can be found in the panel on the left hand side:
Active: All the questionnaires that are ready to be sent out. You can easily send questionnaires directly from here.
Draft: This is all questionnaires that are still a work in progress and not yet ready to send. Users can start new questionnaires here.
Received: All the questionnaires that other businesses have sent to you.
Sending your Questionnaire
Congratulations, you’re now ready to send your questionnaire to suppliers. You have successfully created your pre-qualification questionnaire, here’s how to send it out:
Click the Active button on the left hand side.
Click the Send questionnaires button on the right hand side.
In the templates section, click Edit and select the questionnaire you wish to send.
You can select multiple questionnaires to send at the same time by checking multiple boxes.
In the next section, under Team members, select and invite any of your team members to this questionnaire by clicking the Edit button.
Select the team members you wish to add by clicking the checkboxes. You include as many members as you want.
Click the Save button.
✏️ Please Note: If you selected the wrong questionnaire and wish to remove it, simply click the ‘...’ button and click Remove template.
✏️ Please Note: All DeepStream users can access pre-qual questionnaires in a read only view.
To invite your suppliers to fill out the questionnaire
It is important to note that you must invite new suppliers to DeepStream before they can be included in the questionnaire. You can find out how to add new suppliers to your network here.
Click on the search bar in the Suppliers section and type the name of the supplier you want to send the questionnaire to.
This will add them to a list below.
Repeat this process for as many suppliers as you wish to send the questionnaire to.
When you’re ready click the Send Questionnaire button. A review window will pop-up, review the information, and click the Send button.
✏️ Please Note: You can select which users within the company you wish to receive the questionnaire by clicking on the Edit button next to the company, selecting users and clicking Save.
Automatic Reminders
Automatic reminders will be sent to suppliers when they have an outstanding action that they need to complete. A reminder will be sent to the supplier every five days until the task is complete.
Outstanding actions include:
No response (accept/decline) to a sent questionnaire.
A questionnaire is incomplete with no recent actions taken against it.
A complete but un-submitted questionnaire.
Revising an Existing Questionnaire
What are questionnaire revisions?
Questionnaire revisions enable users to modify the questions they have added to their questionnaires.
What changes can you make?
As part of a revision, a user can:
Add a question
Remove a question
Re-order the included questions
How to edit an existing questionnaire
Hover over the template you wish to edit.
Click on the Open button and select the Questionnaire actions dropdown button in the top right hand corner.
Select Revise questionnaire.
In the Questions box click Edit in the top right corner.
From here you can move the current questions up or down, delete questions or add new ones by clicking the + Add questions button.
Once you are happy with your revisions, click Save.
Click Continue and you will be taken to the Review & Publish tab.
What happens to my sent questionnaires when I revise the template?
After making all the necessary changes, it's time to review and publish your questionnaire.
Click on the Publish button in the bottom right corner.
A pop-up window will appear asking you if you would like to ‘Update sent questionnaires?’, at this point, you have two options: ‘No - don’t update’ or ‘Yes - update all questionnaires’.
Option 1: Publish, No - don’t update
This will generate a new version of the questionnaire, resulting in the previous one becoming inaccessible.
After publishing, you can only send this version of the questionnaire to new suppliers. This will not impact previously sent versions of this questionnaire.
Option 2: Publish, Yes - update all sent questionnaires
Choosing this option will also create a new version of the questionnaire. Additionally, any suppliers who have received a previous version of your questionnaire will have their sent questionnaire updated.
✏️ Please Note: This does not apply to declined or rejected sent questionnaires.
Once you’ve selected to update or not update the changes, click Publish changes. The status of your questionnaire will revert back to Active.
✏️ Please Note: If you want to edit an existing question, you must do it from the Question Library. If you wish to change it within the Questionnaire then you must delete the question and create a new one.
For the next step, learning how to approve suppliers through pre-qualification click here.
For further queries, please use our live chat feature or email support@deepstreamtech.com