Overview

You have been asked to complete a security assessment by an organisation that uses Zeron Vendor Pulse. This guide walks you through signing in, answering the questions, attaching evidence, bringing in colleagues, submitting, and responding when the organisation sends its review back.

You do not need a Zeron account, a username or a password. Access is through the link in your invitation email plus a one-time password (OTP) sent to your email address.

Prerequisites

• The assessment invitation email sent to you
• Access to the mailbox that email arrived at — the one-time password goes to the same address
• Your evidence files, if the questions ask for any

Signing In

1. Click the link in the invitation email. It opens the welcome page headed Welcome to Questionnaire Portal.
2. Click Let's get started. A Verify OTP dialog opens and shows the email address the code was sent to.
3. Enter the six-digit code from the email.
4. Click Submit. You are taken to the questionnaire.

Things to know:

• The code is valid for 15 minutes. If it does not arrive or has expired, click Resend OTP.
• The link is personal. It identifies you, and the code is always sent to the address the link belongs to. If you forward your link to a colleague, the code still goes to you. Invite colleagues with Add Collaborator instead so each person gets their own link.
• Keep your invitation email. There is no login page to fall back on — the link in that email is how you get back in each time.
• Once the assessment's due date has passed, the portal no longer lets you in. Ask the requesting organisation to extend the due date.

Finding Your Way Around

The top bar of the questionnaire shows:

Below that you get a Team Access card, an assessment metrics strip, the category list on the left, and the selected question on the right.

The Team Access card

The card tells you which role you hold:

The metrics strip

Answering the Questions

1. Pick a category from the Categories list on the left. The list shows how many required questions are answered. You can search, open the filter to narrow by review outcome (All Categories, Compliant, Partially Compliant, Non Compliant, Not Applicable) or by completion (All Questions, Completed, Not Completed), and use Reset Filters to clear it.
2. Click a question to open it on the right. A question you have not answered is marked Not Answered. A mandatory question carries a marker in the list and a red asterisk beside its text.
3. Answer it. A choice question shows the options to pick from; a text question shows a text box.
4. Attach evidence if the question asks for it (see below).
5. Click Save & Next. The button briefly reads Saved and the next question opens. Previous Question takes you back.

Some questions only appear depending on how you answered an earlier one, so the list can grow as you go.

Viewers can read every question and answer but cannot change anything. For a Viewer the button reads Next.

Attaching Evidence

Where a question, or the option you picked, asks for supporting documents, an upload area appears under the answer.

1. Drag files onto the upload area, or click it to browse. You can add more with Click to add more files.
2. Check the selected files.
3. Click Upload Evidences.
4. Click Save & Next so the uploaded files are saved with your answer.

To open or remove a file you have uploaded, click the menu on the file and choose Download or Delete. Deleting asks you to confirm and cannot be undone.

The reviewing organisation can mark each uploaded document as approved or rejected. If a document is rejected, upload a replacement.

Commenting on a Question

Each question has its own comment thread shared with the requesting organisation.

• The most recent comment is shown as Previous Comment, with a Read All link to open the whole thread in a Comments panel.
• Type in the Add Comment box and click Add Comment to post. A comment can be up to 500 words.

Comments in the vendor portal cannot be changed once posted — there is no edit or delete action here. If you need to correct something, post a follow-up comment.

Inviting Colleagues

Only a vendor Admin can manage the team.

Adding someone

1. Click Add Collaborator in the top bar.
2. Under Collaborator details, enter their Name and Email. Both are required.
3. Choose a Collaborator role — Admin, Collaborator or Viewer. Collaborator is preselected.
4. Click Send Invitation.

They receive their own invitation email with their own link, and sign in with a one-time password sent to their own address.

The dialog carries an explicit warning: the person you add will be able to fill in answers, upload evidence and add comments. Only add people you intend to give that access to.

The roles

The first Admin is the main contact (SPOC) whose email address the requesting organisation registered for your company. Everyone invited afterwards through Add Collaborator is a Collaborator unless the Admin chooses a different role, so most people working on an assessment are not Admins and will not see Submit Answers.

Managing existing members

1. Click the avatars in the Team Access card. The Team Members dialog opens and lists each member with their status — Invited (has not signed in yet), Active or Deactivated (removed).
2. To change someone's role, pick a new one from the dropdown on their row.
3. To take someone's access away, click Remove.
4. To restore someone you removed, click Send Invite on their row. They get a fresh invitation email.

Rules that protect the assessment:

• The main contact's (SPOC's) role cannot be changed, and the SPOC cannot be removed.
• The last remaining Admin cannot be demoted or removed.
• You cannot remove yourself.
• An email address that is already on the team cannot be invited a second time. There is no button to re-send the invitation to a member who is still Invited or Active — if a colleague has lost their email, Remove them and then use Send Invite on their row.

If the wrong person holds the Admin role, there are two ways to fix it: your Admin can change your role to Admin in the Team Members dialog, or the requesting organisation can change the main contact (SPOC) email on their side to yours.

Importing Answers From a Spreadsheet

If you would rather work offline:

1. Click Import Assessment in the top bar. The Import Assessment Questions dialog opens.
2. Click Download Assessment Template to get the questions as an Excel file.
3. Fill in your answers. Use Answer (Text) for text questions and pick from the dropdown in Answer (Option Text) for choice questions. Leave the other columns as they are.
4. Drag the completed file onto the upload area and click Import Assessment.

Supported upload types are .xlsx, .xls and .zip. Use a .zip to send evidence files together with the spreadsheet: put them in the same zip and type each file's exact name in the Evidence File Name column.

This option is available to Admins and Collaborators, not Viewers.

Submitting

1. Check the metrics strip — Required Completion should be 100%.
2. Click Submit Answers.
3. A Final Submit Confirmation dialog asks "Are you sure you want to submit this assessment?" — click Confirm Submit.

You are taken to a confirmation page. The requesting organisation is notified, and your portal session ends: you cannot change answers after submitting unless the organisation sends the assessment back to you.

Only an Admin can submit

Submit Answers is shown only to an Admin. If you are a Collaborator or a Viewer the button is not displayed at all, even when every question is answered. This is deliberate, not a fault, and it is not affected by your screen size or browser zoom.

Check the Team Access card at the top of the page to see your role. If you are not an Admin, either ask an Admin on your side to submit, or ask them to change your role to Admin in the Team Members dialog. If nobody on your side can act as Admin, ask the requesting organisation to update the main contact (SPOC) email for your company.

If Submit Answers returns an error

The assessment will not submit while any mandatory question is still incomplete. The error tells you how many questions are incomplete. A question counts as incomplete if:

• it has no answer saved, or
• it, or the option you chose, asks for supporting evidence and no document has been uploaded and saved against it.

An answer with missing evidence looks answered on screen but still blocks submission. Set the question filter to Not Completed to find the ones holding it up, complete each, then submit again.

When the Organisation Sends Its Review Back

After you submit, the organisation reviews your answers. If they send the review back, you receive an email and the assessment is reopened for you.

1. Open your invitation link again and sign in with a new one-time password.
2. Click Review status in the top bar to see the breakdown.
3. Filter the categories by Non Compliant or Partially Compliant to find the answers that need work. Each reviewed answer shows the organisation's verdict as a coloured label above it.
4. Read the comments on the question, revise the answer or attach better evidence, and click Save & Next.
5. When you have dealt with everything, an Admin clicks Submit Answers again.

An answer the organisation has marked Compliant is locked — you cannot change it or its evidence.

Responding to a Risk Evaluation

Separately from the questionnaire, the requesting organisation may send you specific risks to respond to. That arrives as its own emailed link into the Risk Evaluation Portal, again secured with a one-time password. It is not a section inside the questionnaire.

For each risk you are asked to record:

• Response Strategy and Response Plan
• Mitigation Strategy and Mitigation Plan
• Controls already in place
• Supporting evidence — required on every risk before you can submit

Response and mitigation plans and controls are limited to 500 words each. Click Save & Proceed as you work through the items, and Submit Evaluation when you are done — a Submit Evaluation Confirmation dialog asks you to confirm.

Evidence here accepts .pdf, .xlsx, .xls, .doc, .docx, .jpg, .jpeg and .png files, up to 15 MB per file. Each file is marked Pending until the organisation marks it Approved or Rejected.

Troubleshooting

I never received the invitation email → Check your spam and junk folders. If it is not there, ask the requesting organisation to send a reminder — they can do that from the assessment in their platform.

The one-time password has not arrived → Click Resend OTP in the Verify OTP dialog. The code goes to the exact address your link belongs to, which is shown in that dialog. If you opened a link forwarded by someone else, the code went to them.

"Invalid OTP" or "OTP has expired" → Codes last 15 minutes. Click Resend OTP and use the newest code.

"Invalid url!" when I click Let's get started → The link is incomplete. Open it directly from the email rather than retyping it, and make sure it was not cut off.

"You are not authorized!" appears while I am working → Your session has ended. Open the link from your invitation email again and sign in with a new code.

"Assessment has expired" → The due date has passed. Ask the requesting organisation to extend it.

"User is deactivated" → An Admin on your side removed you from the team. Ask them to use Send Invite on your row in Team Members.

A file will not upload → Check the type is one of .pdf, .docx, .xlsx, .xls, .jpeg, .jpg, .png, .csv, .eml, and that both the individual file and the combined total are within the sizes stated on the upload area.

I cannot see Submit Answers, Add Collaborator or Import Assessment → Those actions depend on your role. Submit Answers and Add Collaborator are Admin-only. Import Assessment is hidden from Viewers. Your role is shown on the Team Access card.

I have answered everything but Submit Answers returns an error → A mandatory question is still incomplete. The most common cause is a question that requires supporting evidence where no document has been uploaded — it looks answered, but it is not complete.

I cannot edit one of my answers → The organisation has marked it Compliant, which locks it; or you hold the Viewer role.

Inviting a colleague fails saying a member with this email already exists → They are already on the team. Open Team Members to check their status.

A colleague cannot get in → Confirm their email address was entered correctly in the Add Collaborator dialog, and that they are using their own invitation email rather than a forwarded copy of yours.

The organisation still sees my assessment as Ongoing → An assessment stays Ongoing until an Admin submits it. It also returns to Ongoing when the organisation sends its review back to you.

Need more help? Contact support@zeron.one