Assessment States

Overview States Status Button Transitions

Overview

📋 Note: If your assessment uses the simplified workflow, see Understanding the Simplified Assessment Workflow for more information.

The following diagram illustrates all possible assessment states:

The following table provides a quick description for each state. For more details, see the rest of this article.

Assessment States

Open	The initial state for all newly saved assessments. The Open state is akin to a Draft mode — the assessment is still being configured. You can change any settings and reassign assessment sections to different respondents before it is published. For more information, see Saving & Publishing Assessment to Respondents.
Survey	The assessment survey is published and available to respondents. To publish, click Publish and select Publish Now from the context menu as described in Saving & Publishing Assessment to Respondents. If the Assessment Creator is also a Respondent, the Publish and Start Survey option becomes available, which takes you directly to the Survey page after publishing.
Survey Complete	All respondents have submitted their answers. The assessment automatically moves to Survey Complete once all respondents submit their answers.
Survey Incomplete	The Assessment Reviewer has scheduled some submitted sections for reassignment. An assessment can reach Survey Incomplete only after first reaching Survey Complete. It moves to Survey Incomplete automatically when any approver reassigns a section via the Reassign Sections button on the Assessment Report page. For more information, see Reassigning Assessment Sections. Note that the Reassign Sections button only schedules sections for reassignment — it does not complete the process. To finalize, click the arrow on the Survey Incomplete Assessment Status button and select Resend Survey. Enter the reasons for resending and then click Next > Send. The system sends email notifications to the reassigned respondents and the assessment status returns to Survey.
In Review	Submitted answers have been accepted and the assessment is in issue remediation mode. Approvers and Assessment Owners can move an assessment to In Review. The assessment must be in this state for approvers to mark identified issues as resolved. To move from Survey Complete to In Review, click the arrow on the Survey Complete status button and select Review Issues from the context menu.
Review Complete	All identified issues have been marked as resolved. The assessment moves from In Review to Review Complete automatically once all issues are resolved. For more information, see Reviewing Answers and Creating a Task.
Pending Approval	All issues are resolved and the assessment is waiting for approver approval. To move from Review Complete to Pending Approval, click the arrow on the Review Complete status button and select Start Approval from the context menu. Once all approvers approve the assessment, the status changes to either Approved Pending Remediation or Approved depending on whether any incomplete tasks remain.
Approved Pending Remediation	All approvers have approved but incomplete Remediation Tasks remain. Note: Incomplete Manual Tasks do not cause an Approved Pending Remediation state. The assessment automatically moves to the final Approved state once all associated Remediation Tasks are marked as complete. Read more about the difference between Remediation Tasks and Manual Tasks in Managing Tasks.
Failed	All or a majority of approvers have failed the assessment and incomplete tasks are associated with it. Note: To opt out of this feature, contact the TrustArc support team at [e-mail].
Approved	All approvers have approved the assessment and there are no incomplete tasks associated with it.

Assessment Status Button

The assessment state is displayed on the Assessment Status button (1), which appears in the top-right corner of the screen once the assessment is saved for the first time and remains there throughout the lifetime of the assessment.

Transition Between States

The Assessment Status button also allows for transitions between states. Once the conditions for moving to the next state are met, a small arrow appears to the left of the status button.

Clicking that arrow opens a context menu from which you can transition to the next state.

📋 Notes

›If you are ready to transition but the arrow is not visible, some conditions required for the next state are likely not yet met — for example, some respondents may not have submitted their answers or unresolved issues remain. See the States section above for the conditions required for each transition.

›When transitioning from Survey Complete to Survey Incomplete or In Review, a confirmation message appears before the transition completes.

›If you change the assessment approvers and want to send the assessment back to respondents (changing state from Survey Complete to Survey Incomplete), be sure to check the Lock in approvers to override auto rerouting of approvers checkbox to lock the approver change.

TrustArc  ·  Understanding Assessment States  ·  support.trustarc.com