How do I create a new questionnaire?

Sign in to your cloud dashboard with your email and password, and you will see your Questionnaire Library.

Select the My Library tab, and hit the +Create button. Select "Create a new Questionnaire", then provide a Name, Category, Scope and Description. details.  Click Save to create your new, empty questionnaire.

Once you have your empty questionnaire, you can get to work on the detail.  Here's the recommended process to do this efficiently:

1. Add Sections

Sections are used to group one or more questions on a topic.

It's better to add all your sections now if you can, but all you need is one to get started. You can always add more sections later, and you can drag and drop sections in order to get them into the right order.

Once you have added sections they will appear in a list.

A small circle in each section shows the number of questions in the section, and you will also see a +Question button, which you must click to add questions.

2. Add Questions

Add Questions individually, by clicking the +Question button in the Section where you want each one to appear.

Questions are numbered automatically, and will automatically update if you move questions or sections around.

Enter the text of the question. Note that if you are copying text from a word processing program like Word, the text will include formatting tags and this may create formatting difficulties , so here's a tip: first past the copied text into notepad, then copy from there to the question screen. This strips any unseen formatting from your copied text.

Check Is this a compulsory Question? only if you want to force the user to respond to the question at audit time. If this box is checked, the user will not be able to move the audit status to "Completed".

3. Add Responses

Now configure one or more responses to each question. Typically these will be "Yes", "No", "Not applicable", etc, but Compliance Checkpoint enables you to set up responses that are much more complex than these!

Set up responses by clicking the +Add Response button. You can either create a new response or use a response template. You can create your own templates for commonly used responses, and re-use them whenever you are adding or modifying questions - this saves you time and effort.

IF you opt to create a new response, you can choose from a range of response types. These are:

Multiple Choice (Only one answer). This allows you to select on a single response at audit time. e.g. "Yes" or "No", but not both.

Multiple Choice (Multiple answers). This allows you to select one or more responses at audit time. e.g. "Policy Documented", Policy Reviewed", "Policy Implemented" - all can be checked using a checkbox.

Drop Down List. This is the same as Multiple Choice (Only one answer), but choices are displayed in a drop down box rather than in a list of all items.

Comment/Essay box. This presents as a large box, where you expect lots of text to be entered at audit time, e.g. "Describe the circumstances leading to the accident"

Single Text Box. This presents as a small box, where you expect only brief details to be entered, e.g. "Enter name".

Numerical Text Box. This presents as a small box, where you expect only numerical data to be entered, e.g. "How many people were injured". The system forces the user to enter a valid number.

Date. This presents as a pop up calendar, where expect a date to be entered, e.g. "Date of Accident". The system uses the date selected on the calendar.

Descriptive Text. This is not actually a response at all, but the system displays your text as a label on the questionnaire page. This enables you to highlight items, insert guidance or instructions above other responses, etc. e.g. "By checking the box below, you are confirming that you have read and accept the terms and conditions"

Email. This presents as a small box, where you expect an email to be entered. , e.g. "Your email address". The system forces the user to enter a valid email.

Web Site URL. This presents as a small box, where you expect a web address to be entered. , e.g. "Your company web site". The system forces the user to enter a valid URL.

Once you have selected the response type, another screen will appear where you can enter the prompt details as per the above examples. For multiple choice and drop down lists, you can enter all the items at once, each one on a separate line.

Response configuration.

Depending on the response type, you can also use the following optional features to configure your responses:

Add Not Applicable response. This allows you to add a special response which the system will treat as "not applicable". With these responses, the system ignores any scoring you attribute to the question. For example, if you have 10 questions, each with 10 points, but at audit time you select a "not applicable" response, the percentage score will be calculated out of 90, rather than 100.

Note that you can name the response however you like (bearing in mind that you may be setting the questions up in a language other than English). When you select this option, whatever you enter here will be taken to mean "not applicable".

Do you wish to score these responses. This allows you to set up a score for each of your responses. For multiple choice and drop down lists, you can enter all the scores at once, each one on a separate line.

Is this a compulsory response. If you select this option, the system will prevent the user from progressing to the next question until a response has been selected.

Create Corrective Action. If you select this option, the system will automatically generate a corrective action record if the response is selected at audit time. For multiple choice and drop down lists, you can select more than one response item as a trigger for this function.

4. Add Sub-Headings (if required)

Compliance Checkpoint allows you to organize complex responses by grouping them into sub headings.

In normal circumstances sub-headings are not required, however let's say you wanted to create a "form"-like questionnaire such as an incident report. You might have a section titled "Details of person submitting the report", but you don't want to have separate questions to collect, Name, Contact phone, Email, etc. What you can do is set up a single question, "Contact Details", with responses like Name, Phone, Email, Street, City, State, Postal Code. To make this look sensible, you could add 2 sub-headings, "Contact" and "Address", then place the relevant response items under each sub-heading.

Note that you want to have several multiple choice items in the same response, say, 3 drop down lists, you must separate them using sub-headings. If you try to add a second multiple choice item in the same sub-heading, the items will be merged into a single list.

Once you are done making changes, click the Save button to return to the questionnaire page.