The Questionnaire Administration function available with Oracle Performance Management helps to automate the creation of questionnaires for use in appraisals or surveys. You can use Questionnaires to collect additional information for Talent Management and Performance Management functions, such as competencies. By default, the Questionnaire Administration function is available with the HR Professional responsibility.
Using the Questionnaire Administration page, as an HR Professional, you can:
Search for existing global questionnaires that are available to all business groups or local questionnaires available to a specific business group. You can search using the questionnaire name or the publication status search criteria.
Create questionnaires
Publish questionnaires so that they are available to your workforce, for example, to use in appraisals.
Unpublish questionnaires if you do not want your workforce to use them.
Users can generate the HTML content of the questionnaires with any external HTML editor.
A questionnaire is a set of user defined questions with the ability to record the answers for future analysis. An example of a questionnaire is an employee survey.
On the Create Questionnaire page:
Provide a unique name to the questionnaire that you are creating.
Select the Global Questionnaire check box, if the questionnaire is applicable to all business groups in your enterprise. For example, to include the same questionnaire in all appraisals in enterprises that use multiple business groups, define the questionnaire with global scope. A local questionnaire is available only within the business group.
Note: After saving a questionnaire, you cannot change its scope.
Enter the questionnaire content in the form of HTML code. You can use either an HTML editor, for example, Netscape Composer or a text editor, for example, Notepad to create the HTML code. You need to copy and paste the source HTML of the completed questionnaire in the HTML Text box.
You can use formatting options used in any HTML file, for example, bold, color, and font size.
Note: Text fields in questionnaires hold up to 2000 single-byte characters. If users enter or paste text containing multibyte characters, the field limit reduces accordingly. Text is truncated automatically to fit the 2000-byte limit. You cannot make fields on a questionnaire attached to an appraisal template mandatory.
Following are some of the guidelines for creating a questionnaire using the HTML code:
The HTML must have following layout:
<html>
<head>
</head>
<body>
<form>
</form>
</body>
</html>
The HTML code must not contain <Frame>, <Frameset>, <SCRIPT>, <BASE>, <SUBMIT>, <RESET>, <HIDDEN>, and <SPAN> tags. The <Form> tag must have method of post, for example, <form method="POST> to enable data to be collected from the questionnaire when it is submitted. Within the <Form> tags, you can create the inputs you require to hold the questionnaire results. You can collect data using any of the HTML inputs type: text boxes, radio buttons, and check boxes.
Click Continue when you complete the HTML Text box. The application validates the HTML code and generates an error message if the HTML code is not valid. You can correct the code and resubmit the questionnaire for validation.
Following are some of the troubleshooting tips on text wrapping issues in the HTML code when creating questionnaires:
Ensure that there is NO nowrap tag in the HTML code. Wrapping of text is controlled by 'nowrap' tag defined in Questionnaire html.
Place the whole HTML code inside a TABLE tag. For example,
<table width="600">
HTML code
HTML code
</table>
Specify the columns with values, which wrap the text for the text input areas. For example, <TEXTAREA ROWS=4 COLS=35 WRAP="Physical">
For multiple text areas in a single row, make sure that the sum of the column values is less than 80.
Specify the width of the TD tag for non text input areas so that it also wraps.
Check the code behavior in different web browsers, preferably with the latest versions.
For more information on the HTML code and troubleshooting tips, see:
Guide to Self-Service Human Resources (SSHR) - Setting Up Questionnaires on My Oracle Support Note: 73471.1
Text Wrapping Issues in Talent/Performance Management on My Oracle Support Note: 559057.1
After validating the HTML code, the application displays the questionnaire and stores it in the database when you click Submit.
Publishing a Questionnaire
When you publish a questionnaire, it is available to other users. You can set the Publication Status to Published when you create or update a questionnaire.
You can update a questionnaire that is not in use. For example, you cannot update a questionnaire that is already attached to an appraisal template. You cannot delete or update a questionnaire that is in use.
You can change the status from Published to Unpublished, even if the questionnaire is currently in use in appraisals or simply attached to an appraisal template to prevent future use of a questionnaire.