Setting Up Checklists for Formulation Questionnaires (Compliance Management)

You must set up checklists in your Compliance Management Vault to support formulation questionnaires. Compliance Management Vaults include the FQ Checklist Type, which targets the Formulation Questionnaire object. When users relate a Formulation Questionnaire to a specific Formulation, Vault automatically identifies the applicable Checklist Design based on the user-defined Industry and Location values on the Formulation Questionnaire, targeting the questionnaire to a specific industry and location.

You must complete all required configurations before completing the steps in this article. After completing the steps in this article, configure your Vault to import data from completed formulation questionnaires into Qualitative Assessments.

Setup Overview

Setting up your Vault to use checklists for formulation questionnaires involves the following steps:

  1. Configure object workflows
  2. Configure object lifecycles
  3. Configure the applicable object lifecycle actions
  4. Configure and design checklists
  5. Create industry- and location-specific Checklist Design records
  6. Configure user permissions

Formulation Questionnaire Workflows

Compliance Management Vaults include the following workflows to support questionnaires, which you can configure according to the needs of your organization and connect to the Send PALs action:

  • FQ Acceptance Workflow: Configure this workflow to allow users to initiate questionnaires and optionally pre-populate answers before manually sending them to respondents with a user action.
  • FQ Pending Acceptance Workflow: Configure this workflow to automatically send questionnaires to respondents based on an entry action.

You can optionally configure short circuit workflow tasks on the complete checklist workflow tasks if multiple Organization Persons (respondents) are associated with a supplier and you want to restrict questionnaire completion to a single respondent.

See Configuring Object Workflows for more details about how to configure object workflows.

FQ Accepted Workflow

We recommend configuring the FQ Accepted workflow to include the following steps in order and connecting it to the Send PALs user action so users can manually send questionnaire PALs to respondents:

  1. Start step. Add a Participants control and select the option to Use custom action to define participants.
    • For Custom Action, select Set PAL FQ Checklist Respondent.
  2. Action to Change State to In Progress.
  3. Task to complete the checklist.
    • For Assign the Task To, select the Participant Label you configured for the Start step and select the option to Assign to all users in participant group.
    • For Notification Template, select the Welcome: FQ Checklist.
  4. System Action to Validate Checklist is Complete.
  5. System Action to Set Respondent Field.
  6. Action to Change State to Completed.
  7. End step.

In order for users to be able to enter answers to certain questions before sending questionnaires to respondents, you must also configure the Start Checklist action.

FQ Pending Acceptance Workflow

We recommend configuring the FQ Pending Acceptance workflow to include the following steps in order and connecting it to the Send PALs entry action so users can automatically send questionnaire PALs to respondents:

  1. Start step. Add a Participants control and select the option to Use roles participants.
    • For Roles Allowed to Participate, select Checklist Respondent.
  2. Action to Change State to In Progress.
  3. Task to accept and complete the checklist.
    • For Assign the Task To, select the Participant Label you configured for the Start step and select the option to Assign to all users in participant group.
    • For Notification Template, select Welcome: FQ Checklist.
  4. System Action to Validate Checklist is Complete.
  5. System Action to Set Respondent Field.
  6. Action to Change State to Completed.
  7. End step.

Configuring DAC

If you configure the FQ Pending Acceptance workflow so that Vault automatically sends questionnaires based on the Send PALs entry action, you must enable DAC on the Formulation Questionnaire object and create a custom sharing rule for the Application Managed User you created. Assign the user to the Editor role on the rule so that they can respond to questionnaires.

Formulation Questionnaire Lifecycles

Compliance Management Vaults include the FQ Checklist Lifecycle, FQ Lifecycle, and FQ Response Lifecycle to support questionnaires. You can configure additional custom lifecycle states to meet the needs of your organization.

To configure the Bulk Create Formulation Questionnaires action, you must configure a lifecycle on the Formulation Questionnaire object.

Configuring Formulation Questionnaire Object Actions

The Send PALs and Inactivate PALs actions are available to configure on the FQ Checklist Lifecycle on the FQ Checklist object, which targets the Formulation Questionnaire object. You must configure these actions to allow users to send and inactivate public access links (PALs). Respondents use these links to securely access and respond to questionnaires in Vault without having to log in. You can also configure the Start Checklist action on the FQ Lifecycle on the Formulation Questionnaire object to allow users to initiate and pre-populate questionnaires before manually sending them to respondents.

Send PALs Action

We recommend configuring the Send PALs action on the FQ Checklist Lifecycle in the following ways:

  • Add the Send PALs action as an entry action on the In Progress lifecycle state so users can trigger Vault to send questionnaires to respondents automatically. PALs are active for 30 days.
  • Add the Send PALs action as a user action on the In Progress lifecycle state so users can manually send and resend questionnaires to respondents. We recommend labeling this action “Send Questionnaire”. Users can use the same action to send and resend PALs. When questionnaires are resent, all previous PALs for that checklist instance are automatically inactivated.

When users run the Send PALs action on a Formulation Questionnaire, Vault instantiates the appropriate Checklist Design based on the Industry and Location values of the Formulation Questionnaire, generating an FQ Checklist. Vault also identifies all Organization Persons associated with the related Formulation and emails those persons a PAL to the questionnaire; the email contains details about the user who ran the action and the related Formulation. Questionnaire-related entries on Formulation Questionnaire audit trails include both the checklist respondent (Organization Person) and the Application Managed User.

Inactivate PALs Action

We recommend configuring the Inactivate PALs action on the FQ Checklist Lifecycle in the following ways:

  • Add the Inactivate PALs action as an entry action on the Completed lifecycle state PALs related to a specific questionnaire are automatically inactivated when a supplier completes a response.
  • Add the Inactivate PALs action as a user action on the In Progress lifecycle state so users can manually inactivate PALs related to a specific questionnaire. We recommend a label such as “Inactivate Links”.

Start Checklist Action

To optionally allow users to initiate questionnaires and pre-populate answers before sending them to respondents, you must configure the Start Checklist action on the appropriate FQ Lifecycle lifecycle states for the Formulation Questionnaire object. Depending on your business needs, you can:

  • Add this action as an entry action on any FQ Lifecycle state.

  • Add this action as a user action on any FQ Lifecycle state.

See Configuring Checklists for more details about entry and user actions to initiate checklists.

Bulk Create Formulation Questionnaires Action

The Bulk Create Formulation Questionnaires action allows users to create Formulation Questionnaires for multiple Formulations with a bulk object record action. When a user runs the Bulk Create Formulation Questionnaires action, Vault collects the user’s Industry and Location selections using the Bulk Create FQ User Input object. When the user completes the action, Vault creates temporary Bulk Create FQ User Input records for each Formulation for which the user creates a Formulation Questionnaire.

If you configure this action and the Send PALs entry action, Vault will automatically create FQ Checklists and send questionnaires for the newly-created Formulation Questionnaire records. This allows Regulatory teams to send questionnaires to many suppliers at the same time, such as for a regulatory change, internal campaign, or supply chain disruption.

How to Configure the Bulk Create Formulation Questionnaires Action

To configure the Bulk Create Formulation Questionnaires action:

  1. Ensure you have configured lifecycles on the Formulation, Formulation Questionnaire, and FQ Checklist objects.
  2. Assign the Bulk Create Formulation Questionnaires action to the Formulation object and do one (1) of the following:
    • Select the Available in All Lifecycle States checkbox to apply atomic action security defaults for the applicable lifecycle states.
    • Add the action as a user action to the applicable states of the Formulation object lifecycle.
  3. Optional: Configure the Bulk Create FQ User Input object layout to customize the Details page users see when they run the Bulk Create Formulation Questionnaires action. We recommend removing or hiding all fields except Industry and Location. Do not add any custom required fields.
    • Optional: Make the Industry and Location fields required.
  4. Optional: Schedule the Bulk User Input Object Cleanup Job.

Configuring the Bulk User Input Object Cleanup Job

When users run the Bulk Create Formulation Questionnaires action, Vault collects the user’s Industry and Location selections using the Bulk Create FQ User Input object and creates temporary Bulk Create FQ User Input records for the Formulations selected by the user on the Details page. The Bulk User Input Object Cleanup Job (Compliance) deletes the temporary user input records created more than 24 hours before the job runs. You can schedule the job to run at a specific time. We recommend that you schedule this job to run daily.

Configuring & Designing Checklists

When configuring checklists to support formulation questionnaires, you must complete the following:

See Configuring Checklists for more details about how to configure checklists and Designing Checklists for more details about how to design checklists.

Configuring Custom Notification Messages

You can customize the emails and notifications Vault sends for each questionnaire. To support this:

  • Insert a new Details section to the Checklist Design object layout that includes the Welcome Email Subject, Welcome Email, and Welcome Notification Text fields.
  • Configure the Formulation Questionnaire Invitation and Welcome: FQ Checklist notification templates. The ${Object.welcome_email_subject__sys}, ${Object.welcome_email_text__sys}, and ${Object.welcome_notification_text__sys} object message tokens reference the corresponding fields on the Checklist Design object.

With this setup, you can customize the notifications for each Checklist Design record.

Creating Checklist Designs

Create industry- and location-specific Checklist Design records. When users run the Send PALs action on a Formulation Questionnaire record, Vault automatically identifies the appropriate Checklist Design to instantiate and send to supplier Organization Persons based on the Industry and Location values on the Formulation Questionnaire.

We recommend creating a “global” Checklist Design record that includes all industry-specific questions, then copying that record to create location-specific Checklist Design records and removing all questions that aren’t relevant for that particular location. For example, you can create the following regional-specific records with the applicable Industry and Location values and include only the questions relevant for the specified region:

  • “Chemical - APAC”
  • “Chemical - EU”
  • “Chemical - NA”
  • “Chemical - Global” (do not specify a Location)

With this setup, when a Formulation Questionnaire record does not have a Location value of “APAC”, “EU”, or “NA”, Vault instantiates the “Chemical - Global” design for the related Formulation.

Customizing Notification Messages

If configured, you can customize the welcome notifications Vault sends for each Checklist Design by entering details in the Welcome Email Subject, Welcome Email, and Welcome Notification Text fields.

Limitations

The following limitations apply to formulation questionnaires:

  • Respondents cannot add Vault documents to questionnaire responses.
  • Admins cannot create aggregate checklists.

Configuring User Permissions

You must ensure users have the appropriate read and create permissions to access the appropriate objects and object fields in addition to the permissions outlined below:

Bulk Create Formulation Questionnaires

To bulk create Formulation Questionnaires, users must have:

  • For the Formulation Questionnaire and Bulk Create FQ User Input objects: Create permission.
  • For the Bulk Create Formulation Questionnaires action: Execute permission.
  • Application: Object: Bulk Action permission to perform bulk actions.

You can complete all the steps in this article with the standard System Administrator or Vault Owner security profile. If your Vault uses custom security profiles, your profile must grant the following permissions:

Type Permission Controls
Security Profile Admin: Configuration: Object Workflows: Create, Edit Ability to create and modify object workflows.
Security Profile Admin: Configuration: Object Messages: Create, Edit Ability to create and modify object messages.
Security Profile Admin: Configuration: Objects: Create, Edit Ability to create and modify Vault objects.