# Vendor questionnaires

> Create tailored vendor questionnaires, collect answers and supporting evidence, and complete assessments for your vendors with a clear record for review.

Source: https://tidalcontrol.com/docs/vendors/questionnaires

Vendor questionnaires help you assess and manage the security posture of your vendors with questions tailored to your organisation. The built-in Vendor risk assessment includes five fixed questions.

You can add your own questions to it or create separate questionnaires for different types of vendor. Collect answers and supporting evidence, then review the completed assessment before approving a vendor. This article explains how to build a questionnaire, start it for a vendor and finish the assessment.

## Getting started

A questionnaire is a named set of questions for assessing a vendor. You can get started in two ways:

- **Use Vendor risk assessment**, the existing questionnaire used by the standard vendor assessment. It contains the five standard questions.
- **Add a questionnaire** to create a new set of questions for a particular type of vendor.

All questionnaires in your organisation are listed here. Use the search field to find a questionnaire by name.

![Vendor questionnaires overview](/images/help/vendors_questionnaires_overview.png)

Only Super users can use **Add questionnaire** or delete a questionnaire. Adding one creates an empty questionnaire that you can fill with questions for a particular type of vendor.

![Add a questionnaire dialog](/images/help/vendors_questionnaires_add.png)

## Writing questions

Open a questionnaire to see its questions in the order they will be answered.

![Questionnaire detail with its questions](/images/help/vendors_questionnaires_detail.png)

Select **Add question**, enter the question, choose a type and save it.

![Adding a question to a questionnaire](/images/help/vendors_questionnaires_question_editor.png)

Six types are available:

- **Text** for a free-form written answer
- **Yes / No** for a straight declaration
- **Date** for a certification expiry or an audit date
- **Number** for a count or a duration
- **Single choice** for a fixed set of answers you define, with 2 to 20 options
- **Document** for evidence, which is uploaded and filed in your documents

The built-in **Vendor risk assessment** contains the five standard questions. You can reorder them, but their wording and type are fixed. Only questions you add can be edited or deleted.

## Starting a questionnaire for a vendor

Once you customise a questionnaire, every vendor has a **Questionnaires** tab next to Assessment, Details, Documents and Feed.

![Questionnaires tab on a vendor](/images/help/vendors_questionnaires_vendor_tab.png)

If your organisation has one questionnaire, its questions appear directly on the vendor's **Questionnaires** tab. Answers save automatically, and **Finish questionnaire** completes it. If your organisation has more than one questionnaire, the tab lists those already started for the vendor. Select **Start questionnaire** to choose one and create an assessment. If the built-in questionnaire has not been started yet, select its **Start** button directly.

Starting a questionnaire creates a copy for that vendor. The copy keeps the questions, wording, types and options as they were when you started it, even if the original questionnaire changes later.

## Answering and finishing

Open a questionnaire to answer its questions. Add a comment when an answer needs context.

![Filling in a vendor questionnaire](/images/help/vendors_questionnaires_fill.png)

**Save** keeps the questionnaire as a draft. **Finish** records who completed it and when, then locks it. Finished questionnaires cannot be edited. To correct an answer, start a new questionnaire for the vendor.

A questionnaire can have three statuses:

- **Not started**, available but not opened
- **Draft**, opened and still editable
- **Finished**, locked, with completion details