Scores and Weightings

Scores

Scores enable you to convert the value into numbers that a response has for you in relation to others. This makes it easy to compare the responses of different suppliers.

Example Example

For the question “Do you use and develop resource-efficient products and production methods?”, you provide the following responses to choose from:

Yes, throughout the whole production process
Yes, throughout most of the production process
Yes, throughout parts of the production process
No, only for small parts of the production process
No, not at all

The system automatically assigns default scores. By default, scores are distributed as follows:

Default Score Distribution
Response	Scores
1. Yes, throughout the whole production process	100
2. Yes, throughout most of the production process	75
3. Yes, throughout parts of the production process	50
4. No, only for small parts of the production process	25
5. No, not at all	0

If you keep the default distribution, response 1 is the most valuable response for you, and response 5 the least valuable. From response 1 to 5, the value decreases in equal steps.

You can change the score distribution, for example by changing the score for response 4 to 10 scores only. By doing so, you express that response 4 is less valuable to you than a difference of only 25 points to response 3 would convey.

End of the example.

Questionnaire Managers assign scores to responses for single-answer questions and for yes/no questions in the question library. For more information, see Managing Questions and Sections in the Question Library.

Questionnaire Managers assign minimum scores accepted and target scores to questions, sections, and to questionnaires as a whole. These scores are benchmarks for internal analyses.

For flexible qualifications, that is, when Category Managers create questionnaires directly in the qualification request, Category Managers (as opposed to Questionnaire Managers) assign minimum scores accepted and target scores to questions, sections, and to questionnaires as a whole.

Dependent questions do not have scores. Only the score of the superordinate branching question is used for the calculation of the total score.

Scores are not visible to the person filling out a questionnaire. They are a means for internal analysis and comparison.

Rules Regarding Scores

Scores need to be whole numbers between 0 and 100.
Scores for different answer options must be different.
As a consequence, a score may not occur more than once within the answer options for one and the same question.
To aggregate scores on a higher level, the average score on the lower level is determined.
Unless you have assigned a different weighting (see below), this is the mean average.
Note
Aggregating on a higher level, in the present context, means one of the following operations:
- Question scores are aggregated on section level.
- Section scores are aggregated on questionnaire level.
End of the note.
If no response has been provided for a question, this question is not taken account of in the score aggregation.
Aggregation results of scores are rounded to whole numbers.
Minimum scores accepted and target scores depend on the question type.
- For single-answer questions, these scores can be set by the user.
- For Yes/No questions and certificate questions, these scores are set to 100 by the system and cannot be changed.
- Free-text questions and multiple-answer questions do not have a score, thus these scores are 0.

Weightings

Weightings enable you to convert the importance into numbers that a question or section has for you in relation to other questions or sections. Weightings influence scores of questions and sections when they are aggregated on a higher level, that is, on section and on questionnaire level.

Example Example

Your questionnaire contains the following sections and questions:

Section “Social Compliance”
- Question: “Do you guarantee not to use any form of child labor?”
- Question: “Do you have a policy for business ethics?”
Section “Environmental Compliance”
- Question: “Do you use and develop resource-efficient products and production methods?”
- Question: “Can you ensure that you do not use prohibited materials?”

To express that social compliance is more important for you than environmental compliance, you can assign, for example, a weighting of 2 to the social compliance section and a weighting of 1 to the environmental compliance section.

In the same way, you can use weighting to differentiate between the importances of questions. If, for example, not using prohibited materials is three times as important to you as resource-efficiency, assign a weighting of 3 to the first and a weighting of 1 to the latter.

End of the example.

Questionnaire Managers assign weightings to questions and sections.

Weights are not visible to the person filling out a questionnaire. They are a means for internal analysis and comparison.

Rules Regarding Weightings

Weightings need to be whole numbers greater than or equal to 0.
Free-text questions, certificate questions, and multiple-answer questions do not have a score, and their weighting is always 0.
The default weighting for every question and section is 1.
This means that each question represents one n-th of the section score, and each section score represents one n-th of the overall score on questionnaire level, where n is the sum of all weightings of the questions in a section, or all sections in a questionnaire, respectively.

By changing the weighting of a question from the default value 1 to the value 3, for example, you achieve that the question score will represent 3 n-ths of the section score. It will thus have the triple weight of the score of a question with the default weight.