How Questions Are Used

How You Create Questions

When you create your question, you must specify the question text, how the question is used, and the type of response that's expected.

The table shows the attributes for a question and explains each one.

Question Attribute	Explanation
Question	The name you use when searching for this question to add to an initiative.
Status	Statuses include Draft - the question is still being developed. Active - the question is available for use. Inactive - the question can't be used. Archived - there is a newer version of the question.
Revision	The current version of this question. The question version is maintained automatically by the application.
Owner	The person responsible or point of contact for the question.
Question Level	The level at which the question applies: supplier or supplier site
Critical question	Checked if this is a critical question
Responder type	Whether the expected responder is a supplier or an internal employee, supplier questions are used to build the questionnaire sent to the supplier. Internal questions are used to build the questionnaire sent to the internal responder. If supplier is selected and mapped to supplier attribute, then the question is mapped to an attribute in the supplier's profile. If you select Automatic, responses to the mapped questions are automatically retrieved from the supplier profile and the questions are excluded from the questionnaire. You can map questions with Automatic responder type to descriptive flexfields.
Internal Survey	The question is used in a survey to aggregate feedback on suppliers from multiple internal responders.
Response Required	Selected if a response to the question is required.
Mapped to supplier attribute	When suppliers register with the application, they provide information that's stored in a profile for that supplier. You can map your question to an attribute of the supplier profile. This lets the information the supplier provides in the response to be added to the supplier profile. If the question level is supplier site, then you link to site level attributes. Also, depending on which attribute you map to, the default values for the Question Type field and Response Type field can't be changed.
Supplier Profile Attribute	If a question is mapped to a supplier attribute, then the supplier profile attribute is used to specify which supplier attribute the question is mapped to. It can be a regular supplier attribute (Supplier Type, Year Incorporated, Business Classification, and so on.) or descriptive flexfield.
Question Type	The type of response for this question: A simple text string A single selection from a defined list of allowable values Multiple selections from a defined list of allowable values
Response Type (for Question Type = text)	The format for the response: Single line of text Multiple lines of text Number Date Date and Time URL
Accepts comments from the responder	Select if you want to allow the responder to enter comments with their response to this question.
Response Attachments (for Question Type = text)	Whether the responder can include attachments in the response.
Preferred Response (for Question Type = text)	Your preferred response to the question and whether it should be visible to the supplier.
Scoring	Once a supplier has completed responding to an initiative, and you accept the response, you can view the supplier's responses to the initiative questions and assign the response a numeric value based on how desirable that response value is. This is called scoring the response. There are three types of scoring methods you can choose: None - the question responses can't be scored. Manual - when evaluating the question response, you must score the responses manually. Automatic - you can define scoring criteria and have the application perform the scoring automatically. You can have both scored and non-scored questions in a qualification area, but if you have scoring enabled for a qualification area, you must have at least one scored question in that qualification area.
Attachments	Click to add attachments to the question. If you use Setup Migrator to migrate Supplier Qualification objects to a new environment, attachments aren't carried over.
Question Text	The text of the question. The text the supplier sees on the questionnaire. You can use rich text formatting as needed.
Edit	Options available are: Edit Current Revision - Update question text and response text, along with their corresponding translations. Modify Attributes that includes attributes such as critical question, allow response comments, question attachments, hint, or preferred response. Recommend training on when and how to update the question text and acceptable response text. All the in-progress questionnaires will be affected and responders will immediately see the latest changes. Create New Revision - If the changes you're making to the question text are significant, like updating the year in the question text, you may want to create a new revision. With the exception of question text and acceptable response text, all other attributes that previously required a new revision for modifications must still be modified in a new revision. These attributes include question type, scoring, response required, adding or deleting an acceptable response, response attachments, or editing branching questions.

Acceptable Response Values

You can create a question that restricts the supplier to values from a list of acceptable values. When you create the question, you also specify the values you accept for the question. You can specify a preferred value and optionally display the preferred value to the responder. Once you mark a question as critical, you have the option to mark a response as critical in the acceptable responses table.

When the supplier answers the question, she must choose a value from the list you provide. You can let the supplier choose only a single value or multiple values from the list. You use a supplier profile attribute that has a set of possible values defined in the supplier profile. Then, those values become the allowable response values for your question. You can't change these values. For each response, you can also indicate whether the supplier can include attachments in the response.

Supplier Profile Attributes in Questions

The Supplier Profile is a standardized collection of attributes that's used by the application to define a supplier. Some examples include information such as corporate or tax information about the supplier. You can reference these attributes as question fields. When a supplier provides information for the field, and the qualification manager accepts the response, the value is used to update the supplier's profile.

Categories of business classifications are also used to describe the supplier, and a hierarchy of products and services that identify a supplier's products or services. Depending on which attribute you map to, values for Question Type and Response Type default can't be changed. If there are multiple possible values defined for the attribute in the supplier profile, those values include the acceptable values for the question. You can't add or delete values to this list.

For example, one of the supplier profile attributes is Payment Terms, and there may be several different types of payment terms available. If you use Payment Terms in a question, your responder must select an answer from the list of values.

How You Map Questions to Supplier Descriptive Flexfields

You can map questions to descriptive flexfields from a supplier profile; Descriptive flexfield attributes are used to store additional information about the supplier, which is useful for business. You can leverage this additional information during the supplier qualification process.

You can leverage supplier descriptive flexfield values in the supplier qualification process by mapping a qualification question to a descriptive flexfield attribute on the supplier profile. You can populate supplier descriptive flexfield's multiple choice single selection attribute for question mapping where both text type and multiple choice with single selection descriptive flexfields are supported.

When questionnaires are sent to suppliers and internal responders, questions configured with responder type as automatic are excluded from these questionnaires. You can use this extended supplier information in the qualification activity that may not originate directly from a supplier or internal responder.

For supplier responder type, information is gathered from suppliers using a questionnaire and for automatic responder type, responses are gathered from supplier profile automatically. Qualification managers can view all the question responses (this includes responses for automatic responder type questions too), during qualification evaluation process and award a qualification outcome for the respective supplier.

For the supplier responder type where the question is mapped to an attribute from the supplier profile, if the supplier responds with an updated value then after approval, this new value is updated in the supplier profile attribute and in the response repository. You can score supplier descriptive flexfield's multiple choice single selection attribute values.

For the supplier registration process, if the supplier registration form and questionnaire share similar descriptive flexfields (that's, the descriptive flexfields are mapped to the questions), then the values in these descriptive flexfields are synchronized with the questionnaire responses.

Question Branching

In addition to providing the supplier with a choice of allowable values for a single question, you can also use the supplier's response to an initial question to determine whether additional questions should be asked. This is called question branching. In essence, if you select a particular value for a question, you may be prompted to answer an additional question. You can do question branching for acceptable responses of supplier descriptive flexfield's multiple choice single selection based questions.

How You Modify Questions

Modifying certain fields such as question text, acceptable responses, question type creates a revision of that question. Other fields, such as attachments that doesn't create a new revision of the question). If you modify an existing question, the application assigns a new version number. Any existing responses continue to be associated with the previous version. To synchronize your qualifications and assessments with the new initiative version, you must create a new initiative and include the new revision of the question using a revised qualification area.

Questions in Sourcing Negotiations

Category Managers use the Negotiations work area to conduct negotiations with suppliers to determine the best provider for goods and services. Such negotiations include information about the negotiated items, but may also solicit company, licensing, performance history and other information from the suppliers participating in the negotiation. Category Managers identify such information by adding questions (called requirements) to the negotiations they then conduct with suppliers. Since this can be the same information you can obtain by using Supplier Qualification questions, Category Managers can use questions from the question library as requirements.

How You Include Multiple Languages on Questionnaires

If you work with regional or global suppliers who operate in different languages, you may wish to present qualification questionnaires in the supplier's preferred language. Using question translations with the language you've vetted avoids ambiguity and ensures that the supplier understands your intent. With this enhancement, you can now store translations for the question text and acceptable responses as part of a question's definition.

When you generate the questionnaire, appropriate text from the questions is displayed according to the supplier's preferred language. You can also use language translations for internal responders if you send internal questionnaires to those who use different languages. Since the translations are tied to the same underlying question, you can easily aggregate qualification data across languages for reports and analysis.

With this enhancement, you can translate these in the questionnaire:

Question details in question setup
Section names in qualification area setup
Questionnaire title, introduction, section name, and instructions in the initiative
Introduction text in rule set for automatically created initiatives

Consider these when you include multiple languages on questionnaires:

When users access pages with translated attributes, the text is displayed in their preferred language. If users update text for the language that's the same as the source language, the changes will get propagated to other languages if they have the same source language. If no other languages have the same source language, the changes are only made to that language.
When making changes to any of the attributes that support multiple languages, it's essential to open the Edit Translations dialog box to ensure content consistency across all installed language packs.
Closing the Edit Translations dialog box by clicking on the OK button doesn't automatically save the changes. It's recommended to explicitly save your changes by clicking the Save button on the object for which you are defining translations.
It's highly recommended to use the Edit Current Revision option to enter translations in questions instead of Create New Revision since translations don't change the meaning of the question.
There's no change on text responses from questionnaire responders. Responders don't enter translations and evaluators will see the exact text as entered by the responders.
If you maintain a separate set of questions for different languages today and would like to migrate, you can use Supplier Qualification Questions REST or Visual Builder Add-in for Excel to enter translations for questions. Each REST request is for one language that is based on the authenticated user's preferred language.
When you search for a question on the Manage Questions page, if you enter a search criterion in Question Text, you are searching the content in your preferred language.