Creating a Questionnaire

The Questionnaires feature in Bonfire allows for a structured way to receive vendor responses for a large number of criteria while displaying the Vendor's responses side-by-side. (To learn more about Questionnaires, see our What is a Questionnaire and when should I use one? article.)

• Questionnaire Creation
• Bulk Importing Questionnaire Data
• Setting up Question Sets
• Mapping Questionnaires to Requested Information
• Mapping Questionnaires to Criteria

Questionnaire Creation

To create your Questionnaire, navigate to the Questionnaires tab on your Project Details page and click the Create button. 

You will then be met with an empty Questionnaire. To modify its name and description, simply click Edit Questionnaire. An edit window will open up, where you can name the Questionnaire and add a description, as well as any additional instructions for your Vendors.

NOTE: Every single Questionnaire is auto-designated a unique reference number. Bonfire uses this identifier to verify that the vendor is uploading the correct template into the correct slot so that your evaluators can use the side-by-side response view. Therefore the unique reference number changes even if you have more than one Questionnaire where the questions and contents are the exact same.

Once you've named your Questionnaire, you can move on to importing or adding your questions! 

Bulk Importing Questionnaire Data

It is possible to bulk import the content of your Questionnaires so that you don't have to manually input your Questions into the system one by one.

NOTE: After you bulk import you have the ability to bulk edit questions or individually edit questions in the questionnaire. 

1. Click the Bulk Import Questions button on the page with your Questionnaire:

2. If this is your first time ever bulk importing, click the Download Template button to download an Excel template.
3. Type or copy and paste your questions in to match the template layout.
4. Once all of your Questions are properly formatted, just copy and paste the entire Questionnaire into the large text box on the Bulk Import screen. Make sure to check the box next to My data has headers accordingly. Click the Next Step button when done. 

You will then see a table of your imported data. Use the drop-down menus for each column to correctly label the content of each column. (If you have selected "My data has headers", then this matching should be done for you automatically.)

After all of the columns have been properly labelled, select Import at the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. If there are any errors in your data, you will be prompted to fix them before the Questionnaire will be able to be created. 

Setting up Question Sets

If you plan on adding questions individually, you will need to create your Question Sets beforehand. You can create them as you add items, or you can create them all at once before adding items. To add a set, click on Add Question Set in the bottom-right corner of the page, and the Add Question Set window will open. From here you can name the set, order it, and add any Vendor instructions.

When you add Question Sets, they will show up as separate tabs along the bottom of the Questionnaire. Now you can click into any of these sets, and add questions or subsets into them.

To add a question, click the Add Question button. A window will open where you can input your Question Set title and choose your question Subset, should you wish to organize it that way.

You can then set the number of points you'd like to allocate to this question. Or, alternatively, you can set the question as Info-Only which negates adding points. Here, you can also check off if you require Reviewers to add a Scoring Comment. 

Vendor Response Options and Auto-Scoring of Vendor Response Options can be inputted when creating each Question. Questions can be set as Info-Only on an individual basis as well. For more information about Auto-scoring see our Auto-Scoring Questionnaires article. 

Once all of your questions have been added, you must map it to a Requested Information slot in order to request it from your Vendors. 

Mapping Questionnaires to Requested Information

You can add your Questionnaire as a piece of Requested Information by clicking the Manage button next to the Requested Information heading:

This will open up a modal that will let you add the requested Questionnaire.

By pressing the Requested Questionnaire dropdown and then selecting the Questionnaire you've created, it will then show up as one of the options. 

When a Questionnaire is mapped to Requested information and is required you will see a YES or NO below the Requested From Vendors column. Below is a screenshot of two Questionnaires, the Specifications Questionnaire is required and the Pricing Questionnaire is not required. This set up can be used on a multistage project where the Specifications Questionnaire is requested during the first stage of the project and the Pricing Questionnaire is requested on the second stage(during the second stage the Pricing Questionnaire would need to be set as required before opening the project again to vendors). 

Mapping Questionnaires to Criteria 

Once you've set up your Questionnaire for your project and it's ready for your vendors to fill it out, it's time to set it up so that your Reviewers can view and score it!

NOTE: In order to do this, your Questionnaire must have been requested from your vendors under Requested Information. (For guidance on how to do this, please read our How can I add my Questionnaire to Requested Information? page.) 

For Reviewers to score the Questionnaire, you must map your created Questionnaire to the Criteria section using the following steps:

1. Go to the Criteria section and click the Manage button: 

2. You will be able to select the Questionnaire from the dropdown at the bottom of the view:

3. Assign the final details:

Once you've mapped your Questionnaire to Criteria, you'll see that the Questionnaire becomes a Criteria Group, with the Criteria in the group consisting of the Question Sets. This graphic is a great illustration of the actual structure of Questionnaires in Bonfire:

Consider the following example along with some special considerations for Questionnaire Criteria:

1. Since the Questionnaire is treated as a Criteria Group, you can assign the entire Questionnaire an overall point value, just like you would with any other Criteria. For example, assuming you want all of your criteria to sum up to 100, and you wish for your Questionnaire to be worth 40% of the total points, then the 668 pts would be scaled to 40 pts, and all of the other criteria would add up to 60 pts.
2. You have complete control over how much each Question Set is worth no matter how many Questions are in it. For example, if Integrations is deemed twice as important as End User Functionality, you simply enter double the number of points for Integrations.
3. The Total Points shown for each Question Set is simply the sum of the points assigned to the Questions within it. For example, Technical Infrastructure had 8 questions, each worth 4 points, totalling 32 points.
4. The N/A that can be seen in the Evaluation Group column indicates that questions in that Question Set have been individually assigned to an Evaluation Group, and therefore, the whole set can no longer be assigned to an Evaluation Group. You will need to go into your Questionnaire and bulk edit the rest of the questions to be mapped to the Evaluation Groups of your choosing (for more information, please see our How do I edit an existing Questionnaire? page.)

NOTE: By default, unless modified, all criteria will be of the Rated Input type (_/X pts). 

NOTE: If your organization does not utilize logos, Vendors and Suppliers may encounter errors when downloading Vendor Templates. Please contact Bonfire Support at support@gobonfire.com.