Assessment Stages Overview

Assessment Stages lets you track where a Vendor sits in your organization's assessment workflow using three new fields: Stage, Substage, and Substage Owner. Substages can update automatically based on triggers in the platform, or be set manually, depending on how each Stage is configured.

Note: This feature is not available by default. If interested, please reach out to your Account Manager or contact Support.

This article covers the following topics:

• Enabling Assessment Stages
• Configuring Stage, Substage, and Substage Owner Values
• Tagging a Questionnaire with a Stage
• Viewing Stage, Substage, and Substage Owner
• Duplicating a Questionnaire
• FAQs

Enabling Assessment Stages

When Assessment Stages is enabled for your instance, three new standard Partner fields are added under the Basic group: Stage, Substage, and Substage Owner.

Each field is tied to a matching Global List of the same name (Stage, Substage, and Substage Owner) and comes as a Dropdown, single-select field under the Basic group. These field settings are locked and can't be changed. Each field is Enabled by default and not Required by default, though both of those settings can be edited. You can edit these standard fields, but you can't delete them.

You'll also see a new Stages option under Advanced Config > Field Management, placed below Assessments, for configuring stages and substages.

Configuring Stage, Substage, and Substage Owner Values

Add or edit the values available for the Stage, Substage, and Substage Owner fields from their respective Global Lists.

1. Navigate to Global Lists by going to System Admin > Advanced Config > Global Lists.
2. Navigate to the intended Global List (Stage, Substage, or Substage Owner).
3. Add a new value, or click Edit next to an existing value to edit it inline. Click Save to keep your changes, or Cancel to exit without making changes.
4. Click Delete to remove a value.

Note: Each of these Global Lists only has two columns: Values and Action.

Configuring Substages for a Stage

From Advanced Config > Field Management > Stages, you'll see a table listing every Stage value, along with whether Substages and System Triggers are currently enabled for it.

Click a Stage's name to open its substage configuration page.

Enabling Substages

By default, the Enable Substages toggle is off, and the page displays: "This stage will not have substages and can only be triggered manually."

Turn the toggle on to reveal the System Substages and Custom Substages sections.

System Substages

System substages update automatically based on triggers in the platform. When you turn on Enable Substages, the Enable System Triggered Substages sub-toggle defaults to on as well.

The System Substages table lists each system-triggered substage from the Substage Global List, its trigger, and an optional Default Substage Owner you can set from the Substage Owner Global List.

The following system-triggered substages are available:

Note: Only the latest Assessment for a Vendor, based on its Published On date, triggers automatic updates to the Vendor's Substage field. Individual Assessments still update their own Substage field based on these triggers regardless.

Note: Turning off Enable System Triggered Substages keeps any Custom Substages active. If there are no Custom Substages configured either, the entire Enable Substages toggle turns off and the stage returns to its original state, with a message: "No custom substages found. Add substages to enable this feature."

Custom Substages

Custom substages are set manually rather than by a system trigger. The Custom Substages table lists any custom substages from the Substage Global List; their Trigger and Owner columns are read-only and always show "Manual."

Click Save to keep your changes to a stage's substage configuration, or Cancel to discard them and return to the Stages page.

Tagging a Questionnaire with a Stage

You can tag a questionnaire with a Stage from the questionnaire table's three-dot menu, or from within the questionnaire itself, using the Tag Stage option.

In the Tag Stage window, select Enable Stage for this questionnaire, then choose a Stage from the dropdown. If the selected stage has substages configured, they'll display below; otherwise, this shows N/A.

Click Save to confirm, or Cancel to close the window without making changes. You can tag a questionnaire with a stage, or change its stage, at any point.

Viewing Stage, Substage, and Substage Owner

On the Questionnaires Table

Stage is available as an optional column on the questionnaire table. It shows the Stage the questionnaire is tagged with, or "N/A" if it isn't tagged to a stage.

On the Assessments Table

Stage, Substage, and Substage Owner are each available as optional columns on the Assessments table. These reflect the standard Vendor fields, and show "N/A" if the Assessment isn't tagged to a stage, or if there's no value to display (for example, a Stage with no substages configured will show "N/A" for Substage).

Duplicating a Questionnaire

When you duplicate a questionnaire, its Stage tag carries over to the new copy automatically, so you don't need to retag it.

FAQs