How to send security questionnaires in UpGuard Vendor Risk

Learn how to send security questionnaires to your monitored vendors in UpGuard Vendor Risk.

Written by Abi Tyas Tunggal

Note: you must be monitoring a vendor before you can send them a security questionnaire. Learn how to add a new vendor here

Text walkthrough

Step 1: Log in to the UpGuard platform

Click here to log in to the UpGuard platform.

Step 2: Navigate to Questionnaires

Now that you're logged in, click the 'Questionnaires' button in the sidebar under the 'Vendor Risk' heading, or click here to go straight there

Click 'Send Questionnaire' in the top right-hand corner or centre of the tab if you haven't sent any before.

Step 3: Search for your vendors

Use the search bar to search for your vendor by name or URL, e.g. 'Example'. Select which vendors you would like to send the questionnaire to, then click the 'Confirm and Next' button in the lower right-hand corner. Note you can apply filters to filter by labels, tiers or score.

Step 4: Choose questionnaire type

Choose between sending a previous questionnaire or a new, blank questionnaire. For this example, we'll choose to send a new, blank questionnaire.

Tip: If you've sent this vendor a questionnaire in the past and want to send them the same set of questions again, it's recommended that you select 'Send a questionnaire I've sent before'. This will give you access to the Questionnaire Changes View, and keeps your Vendor page dashboard neat and tidy.

When you choose to send a blank questionnaire, you'll be able to choose what type of questionnaire you would like to send, e.g. the default UpGuard questionnaire or the ISO27001 questionnaire.

You will also be able to configure your risk visibility i.e. whether or not the questionnaire recipients will be able to see risk information. The default will be based on your preferred configurations as per your organizations settings.

Once you've made your selection, click the Next button in the lower right hand corner.

Step 5: Set schedule

Choose a due date for when recipients should complete the questionnaire by, an optional reminder date, and whether you want to be reminded to resend the questionnaire.

Once you've set your schedule, click the Next button in the lower right-hand corner.

Step 6: Choose recipients

You'll be able to choose to send to an existing contact or add a new contact for each Vendor you are sending the questionnaire to.

Once you've chosen your recipients from each Vendor, click the Next button in the lower right-hand corner.

Step 7: Title your questionnaire and add a custom message

Once you've added a title and message, click the Next button in the lower right hand corner. Default message and title can be set in the Templates area of Settings

Step 8: Review and send

Before sending your questionnaire, review the details to ensure you are sending the questionnaires to the right person at each Vendor. 

Once you're happy, click 'Send questionnaires' in the lower right hand corner.

You've successfully sent a security questionnaire on the UpGuard platform. This will take you back to the Questionnaires page, where you can click into a Questionnaire to see the current status of the questionnaire, any reminders set, revision history, correspondence, and a timeline.

Step 9 (optional) Add Internal collaborators

All UpGuard users with permission to view the vendor you have sent a questionnaire to will be able to collaborate on questionnaires you have sent via UpGuard, but if you want to invite other colleagues outside of your security team to collaborate on questionnaires you can do so by selecting share with others in your organization from the Questionnaire details page. This helps to give visibility to business owners, and follow-up with the vendor where needed, and also for contributors from other departments to provide input.

You will then be able to select the users you want to want to invite to collaborate, as well as edit the default message you want to sent to invite them. The default message is set the Templates section of Settings.

Collaborators will receive and email invitation via email to join UpGuard, and will be able to view the questionnaire and any other questionnaire they have been invited to collaborate on, be notified on status updates, and provide input into questionnaire review via internal messages.