Security questionnaire automation means a buyer’s questionnaire goes in and a finished, reviewed response comes out, with people spending their time only on the questions that actually need them. Drafting answers is the easy part. The work is everything around it: reading an odd spreadsheet or portal correctly, getting the right expert to answer the rest, and sending it back in the exact shape the buyer asked for.
Here is how that works in Evident, start to finish.
What does the workflow look like?
Drop the questionnaire in, let Evident answer from your evidence, clear what’s left with the right people, then send it back.
Bring it in
Upload the Excel or Word file in the app, drop it in Slack or Teams, or paste a portal link. Pick the customer and the products it covers, and mark it as an RFI or RFP if it is one.
Evident answers from your evidence
Evident finds the questions that apply and drafts each answer from your Knowledge Base, with the source attached. Anything your evidence doesn’t cover is left open, with the missing part named.
Clear what’s left
Assign open questions to the right people. They answer in Slack or Teams, one question at a time, without logging in. Ask a teammate to review answers before they go out.
Send it back
Download the file with answers in the right cells and dropdowns, validation and formatting kept, or let Evident fill the portal and send it.
Which questionnaires does it handle?
Excel and Word files, including older .xls files, vendor portals of every kind, and RFIs and RFPs, all answered from the same evidence.
- Spreadsheets. Multi-sheet workbooks, dropdowns, validation rules, formulas and answer cells that list their own options. Evident keeps all of it and writes answers where the buyer expects them.
- Word documents. Answers go back into the document, including checkboxes.
- Vendor portals. Evident opens the portal in its own browser, reads every question, including ones inside frames and pop-up dialogs, and fills text, choices, custom dropdowns, dates and attachments. It can sign in with credentials from 1Password, and you can choose which of a portal’s questionnaires to fill.
- RFIs and RFPs. Company, product and security sections answered from your approved content, with the same sources and review.
How do you know the answers are right?
Every answer shows the document it came from, and Evident leaves a question open instead of guessing when your evidence is silent.
A reviewer can open the source behind any answer. When two of your documents disagree, Evident shows both sides and lets you pick one, then offers to update earlier answers that relied on the other side. Answers can be scoped to the product the buyer is buying, so one product’s evidence never answers for another.
Does it get better over time?
Yes. Corrections you make become knowledge for the next questionnaire, and your answer style rules shape every new draft.
When you fix a fact in an answer, Evident saves it and uses it on later questionnaires. When you edit wording, Evident suggests a style rule from the change. You can also give a one-time instruction at upload that applies to that questionnaire only.
When is automation worth it?
When questionnaires arrive often enough that answering them slows sales down or pulls your security team away from security work.
If a few arrive a year, a good answer library may be enough. Once they arrive every week, or come through portals, RFPs and Slack threads at the same time, the time goes to chasing people and reformatting files. That is the part Evident removes. If you already use a compliance platform, Evident works next to it; see Evident vs Vanta and Evident vs Drata, or how to sync policies from Drata.
Send us your hardest questionnaire
We’ll show you every answer, and where it came from.