Use of Questionnaires and Checklists 

Purpose

You can create questionnaires or checklists for different tasks and assign them to work areas. When you perform one of these tasks, such as a site inspection, you can work through the checklist you have prepared and save your notes. If you do not have access to an SAP system on site, you can print out the required document, fill it out by hand, and then scan it back into the system.

When you execute a risk assessment, you can also make use of questionnaires (checklists). In this case you only evaluate the questionnaires. The questionnaires must have been completed and closed first in work area management.

Prerequisites

The necessary system settings were made in Customizing for Occupational Health and in Customizing for Industrial Hygiene and Safety. For more information, see Set Up Questionnaire and Specify Number Range for Questionnaires in Customizing for Industrial Hygiene and Safety.

In accordance with the terminology used in the SAP system and to make it easier for you to read this documentation, in this section we will refer only to questionnaires. This is a collective term used also to cover all types of checklists in the system.

You can only use questionnaires in the application in which they were created. This means that questionnaires you create in Industrial Hygiene and Safety can be used in Industrial Hygiene and Safety only. You access the basic questionnaire functions from the Environment menu in work area management.

Process Flow

Decide for which purposes you need questionnaires and specify how the questionnaires are to be structured.

Note that you must always carry out the process steps described below if you want to use the questionnaire analysis method in risk assessment.

1.       Creating the general questionnaire

Creating a questionnaire is based on the principle of building blocks: first you need to create the various blocks or modules that your questionnaire is to contain. These include texts, headers, and questions. From these modules you can then put together your questionnaire. Once they have been created you can reuse modules again and again in new questionnaires. The following steps are involved:

First you structure the subject areas into which you then sort the modules. You then create one or more question catalogs for them. You can, for example, create an Industrial Hygiene and Safety question catalog.

When you have created the catalog structure you create the modules. The modules are known in the SAP system as catalog entries. If necessary you can translate the catalog entries into the languages installed in your SAP system. The same applies again here: you create the translation once only and you can then use the element in as many questionnaires as you wish.

Once you have created question catalogs and catalog entries, create the general questionnaire. The general layout is predefined by the format definition of the SAP system and the settings in Customizing. As a user you must only insert the various modules (catalog entries) and assign the questionnaire to a subject area. This assignment makes it easier to find a questionnaire at a later date, but is not mandatory. As a result, a general questionnaire is created, which is not yet assigned to a work area and therefore cannot be completed.

2.       Assignment to a work area

You assign the general questionnaire to a work area. This generates a specific questionnaire that you can complete. You can assign the general questionnaire to as many work areas as you wish.

You can group the contents of a number of general questionnaires together in one single (specific) questionnaire. This makes sense, for example, if an employee has to fill out a number of questionnaires with partly identical questions. So that the employee can provide answers in one session and only needs to answer each question once, you can create a merged specific questionnaire. Any repetition of questions is eliminated automatically by merging questionnaires.

3.       Completing the questionnaire

You complete the specific questionnaire. When you are finished you close the questionnaire, locking the document against any changes. Before you close it the system checks whether there are any inconsistent or incomplete answers and gives you the chance to correct the errors. You can also start this check function manually.

If a second person wants to complete the same questionnaire, assign the general questionnaire again and create a second specific questionnaire.

4.       Evaluating the questionnaire

You can evaluate the completed and closed questionnaires for a work area in the information system.

In addition you can also evaluate the specific questionnaires as part of a risk assessment. As the result of your evaluation you assign a rating, such as safety measure necessary.

The specific questionnaires must always have the status closed.

In the application help for Occupational Health under Question Catalog and Questionnaire, you will find detailed documentation on the different questionnaire functions. You can also use the functions described there in the context of Occupational Health.