Online Assessments

Use Case

The online assessment feature lets you upload questionnaires and send them to business partners or colleagues, enabling you to gather feedback efficiently and effectively.

These questionnaires can cover a wide range of topics, such as risk assessments, vendor evaluations, quality checks, or compliance gap analyses. You define the questions, possible answers, and even conditional follow-up questions based on the feedback received. Additionally, you can implement a scoring mechanism to create exam-style questionnaires for more detailed evaluations.

A dedicated portal is used to collect feedback directly into Eramba. You can configure whether participants need to authenticate and decide if they must complete all questions before submitting their responses. This ensures flexibility and control over the feedback process.

The feedback you receive can be utilized in various ways, such as creating risks or documenting findings for further follow-up and action. This ensures the information collected contributes directly to your processes and decision-making.

Questionaires

Questionnaires are simple CSV files you can create using any spreadsheet tool. 

The first three columns define a chapter, while the next three define the question. There are three types of answers: 

• dropdowns for selecting predefined options
• open feedback for free-text responses
• and a combination of both dropdown and open feedback.

For dropdowns, you can configure two additional features. 

• First, conditional questions allow you to show or hide specific questions based on the participant’s responses. 
• Second, scoring enables you to assign scores to answers, making it easy to assess whether the participant has passed the questionnaire or not.

You can manage multiple questionnaires in Eramba and reuse them across various online assessments as needed. 

Importing a questionnaire is straightforward—simply upload the CSV file using Eramba’s import tool. To make updates, modify the spreadsheet template and upload the revised version to Eramba, ensuring your questionnaires stay current and tailored to your needs.

Third Parties

If you plan to assess business partners, you should create them as entities in Eramba. You can include additional attributes, such as their address, contact information, and other relevant details.

These business partners will then be linked to your Online Assessments, making it easy to track the feedback received from each one and monitor their assessment status. This ensures a clear and organized view of your assessments and partner relationships.

Online Assessments

Once your questionnaires are imported into Eramba, you can begin creating online assessments. For instance, if you want to evaluate 50 suppliers using a single questionnaire, you would set up 50 individual online assessments in Eramba, each tailored to a specific supplier.

For each Online Assessment (OA), you need to configure specific attributes. These include:

• whether participants must authenticate or can access via a unique URL
• which questionnaire they need to complete
• Which third party you are assessing
• the start and end dates for the assessment. The start and end dates are particularly useful for automating the activation and closure of the OA, as well as scheduling email notifications to remind participants to complete their responses.

Online Assessments (OAs) can be created manually through the interface with a few clicks or by importing multiple OAs simultaneously using a CSV file.

Feedback

Once the Online Assessments (OAs) are created, you can either start them immediately or let them automatically begin on the predefined start date. Email notifications can be triggered automatically, informing participants that they need to access the OA and provide their feedback.

If you opt for authenticated OAs, email notifications will also be sent to participants as their accounts are created, providing them with their initial login credentials.

When participants log into the OA portal, they can begin answering the questions. If they have any queries or need clarification, they can use the comments & attachments feature to exchange messages with you or provide supporting documentation.

Once participants complete the questionnaire, they can submit it through the portal. Submission automatically locks the assessment, preventing any further modifications.

The feedback received can be reviewed either through the same portal used by participants or via the backend in the Online Assessments module. Typically, you would review each question individually and lock them once your review is complete, ensuring the feedback is finalized and no further changes can be made.

Depending on the purpose of your questionnaire, there are several ways to proceed after reviewing the feedback:

• If an answer is unsatisfactory, you can create findings for those questions, requiring the participant to take corrective action. You can assign a deadline and an owner to ensure accountability.
• For feedback that poses significant risks to the organization and cannot be mitigated, you can document these as Risks in Eramba to ensure they are properly tracked and managed.
• Alternatively, you can review the score obtained and make a quick decision about whether further analysis or action is necessary. This allows for efficient evaluation when time is a priority.

Result

By using custom fields, you can define attributes for your Online Assessments, such as “Pass or Fail,” “Compliant or Not Compliant,” or any other evaluation criteria that align with your assessment objectives.

These results will not only be visible in your Online Assessments but also reflected in your business partner inventory. This makes it easy to see which suppliers have been assessed, which have not, and the outcomes of their assessments, providing a clear and comprehensive view of your supplier evaluation process.

Findings

If you choose to raise findings based on the feedback received, you can document key details such as who is responsible, the deadline, and the supplier they are tied to.

You can set up multiple notifications to trigger in various scenarios, such as when findings are about to expire, when they are opened, or when they are closed. This ensures proactive management and timely resolution of all findings.

Third Party Risks

If the feedback you receive is unsatisfactory and cannot be addressed, it may be best to raise a Risk in Eramba. This allows you to document the concern and link it directly to the business partner where the risk originates, ensuring it is tracked and managed as part of your organization’s risk management process.

Notifications & Reports

You can set up multiple notifications tailored to specific scenarios, such as when an Online Assessment (OA) is about to start or finish, when it has been submitted, when a participant provides comments on your questions, and much more. These notifications help you stay informed and ensure smooth management of the assessment process.

You can configure custom reports to quickly visualize the status of your online assessments, findings, risk exposure, and supplier evaluations. These reports can be set up to be sent to you regularly via email, allowing you to stay updated without needing to log into Eramba frequently. This ensures you have the key insights at your fingertips, saving time and improving efficiency.