Skip to main content

Solutions

Law firms

Tax, audit & accounting firms

Corporations

Governments

Products

Legal

Trade & supply

Tax, audit & accounting

Corporate tax

Risk & fraud

Books

Recommended products

Questions? We are here to help.
Contact us

Purchase

Buy solutions

Buy books

Contact sales

Questions? We are here to help.

Resources

Insights

Events

Product training

Product communities

Developers

Author Online

Setup Questionnaire in Author Online

Contract Express does not require users to organise questionnaires into groups and pages to test template. If no structure is specified, questions will be presented in their order of appearance, with adjustments for any conditional logic. For example, questions that determine the relevance of other variables, such as guarantor details, will be asked first. This ensures that guarantor-related questions are only displayed if the user indicates that a guarantor is relevant.
However, the questionnaire experience can be enhanced by organising it into a more structured format with pages and groups. This can be easily achieved using the questionnaire view.

Accessing and resizing the Questionnaire

To access the questionnaire, click on the
Questionnaire
 tab. To work with the questionnaire efficiently, you may want to resize the work pane. To do this:
  1. Move your cursor to the edge of the add-in panel.
  2. When the cursor changes to a resize arrow Resize icon. , click and drag the edge to widen the panel.
Alternatively, click on the header of the work pane to undock it and move it to the center of the screen or another monitor. Adjust the size of the window by dragging its edges outward or inward.
Resizing the window.

To be allocated

When you first access the Questionnaire, all your variables will be placed in the section called "To be allocated." These are variables that have not yet been assigned to a specific page or group.
Any relevant variables will automatically appear on the questionnaire, even if they are not yet allocated to a specific page. If you forget to add new variables to questionnaire pages, they will still appear at the end of the questionnaire on a system-generated page, as long as they are relevant for document generation.
Similarly, any group or page or question that is not relevant will be automatically hidden from Contract Express template, ensuring that the end user is never asked to complete questions not relevant for his document.

Auto-setup of Questionnaire

In the new author add-in, we've added the flexibility of the "Auto-setup" feature, now enhanced with AI capabilities.
'Auto-setup" Questionnaire option.
This new functionality not only uses a chronological order but also arranges things logically, considering factors like conditions, repetitions, and relationships between variables. The tool will also generate page names and group variables logically. For example, all questions relating to landlord details or tenant questions will be grouped together.
This feature can also be applied to
non-English documents
, providing greater flexibility for users who prefer to create templates in their native language.
After the automatic arrangement is complete, the template author can fine-tune and finalise the questionnaire by manually adjusting the order, page names, or group names as needed. Additionally, users have the option to manually create pages if they prefer to organise the questionnaire differently from the automatic setup.
Adding a page or group manually
To add a new page to the questionnaire, choose the "Add Page" option.
'Add page' option.
The new page will be displayed under the Questionnaire tab.
Newly added page with edit option.
To edit the name of the page, click on the three ellipses. The
Edit page
 will appear as shown below:
Edit page window.
  1. Title:
     This lets you change the name of the page you'll see in the questionnaire.
  2. Guidance:
     Add information about the questionnaire here, like what it's for and when to use it (you can even use formatting).
  3. Always show:
     Select this option to ensure the page is always displayed, even if it doesn't contain relevant variables. This is particularly useful for informational pages, such as introductory or concluding pages, that do not rely on variable data.
  4. Collate Groups:
     Used for nested repeats only, this option organises questions by the parent question, rather than collecting information about all items at the same repeat level at once.
Once pages are created, the first group is added automatically. You can create additional groups as needed. To assign questions to the pages and groups, navigate to the 'To Be Allocated' section and use the drag-and-drop feature. Alternatively, you can also re-run the auto-setup to allocate the variables to existing pages and groups.
note
If you are using version 10.12 or older, when you re-run auto-setup, it will remove and reorganise all existing pages and groups and rearrange the setup from scratch. Ensure you confirm this action before proceeding.
Groups in Questionnaire tab.
You can also search for a variable in the questionnaire tab to locate its group or arrangement using the search window.

This article applies to:

  • Product: Contract Express