Assessment Templates

Assessment templates are the questionnaires an assessment runs on. Each template is a set of sections containing typed questions, and it carries the governing legal authority the assessment is conducted under and, optionally, a preliminary screener. The template a coordinator picks at creation determines the questions that appear on the assessment's Sections tab.

Where to Find It

Open Settings from the app toolbar and choose Assessment templates in the Assessments & controls group. This group is visible only to users who hold the relevant privacy configure permission.

The List

Templates use the shared Settings list. Click a row to open a read-only view of its settings (the view also lists its sections and how many questions each holds), and use Edit in the footer, or the pencil on the row, to open the questionnaire editor. The bin deletes a template you added; a built-in template, or one delivered by a jurisdiction pack, shows the bin greyed out with the reason, so turn it off with Enabled instead. Drag a row (or press Alt+Up / Alt+Down, or use the move arrows) to set the order the pickers show. The list shows each template's Type, Legal authority and Version, with an In use chip when assessments use it.

Building a Template

A template is organized into sections, each holding one or more questions. Every question has a type that controls how it is answered on the assessment:

Governing Legal Authority

Every template names a governing legal authority — the law the assessment is conducted under. At creation this authority is shown read-only beneath the chosen template, and it carries through to the finished assessment.

Preliminary Screener

A template can define an optional preliminary screener (a threshold analysis). When present, creating an assessment adds a screener step of Yes/No or choice questions, each with optional guidance. Every question must be answered, and the answers drive the determination:

• Screened out — a lightweight compliance record is created with no sections.
• Otherwise — the full section set is instantiated for the assessment.

Screener questions can also use the Screening list answer type, which shows a regulator's list of processing that requires (or is exempt from) an assessment as a single question, and the Exempting role: a ticked entry of an exemption list screens the assessment out. See Screening Lists.

Validation Settings

The template form has a Validation section, with four parts:

• Validation steps — the opinions to seek, the decision with its outcomes, the attestations and signature, and the regulator consultation regimes with their reply and extension periods.
• Section evaluation — off, optional or required, and its scale.
• Risk matrix — the levels, their definitions and the level of each likelihood and impact pair.
• Summary layout — how the summary is laid out.

Each is a configuration document that is checked when you save: an invalid one is refused with the reason, and a valid one is summarized in one line (the matrix also shows its bands by cell). A value set on the template replaces the assessment type's whole value; leave it blank to use the type's. Entering {"version":1} on its own switches the type's validation steps off. These settings are not structural: changing them on a template in use applies to its assessments at once, except that a rating an evaluation already uses cannot be removed from the scale. See DPIA Validation for how the steps work on an assessment.

Where a questionnaire defines its own risk matrix, the risk panel rates on that scale and shows each level's definition beside it. The universal PIA questionnaire (ISO/IEC 29134) has its own four-level matrix: likelihood and impact are each Negligible, Limited, Significant or Maximum, and every pair gives Low, Medium, High or Very high. If you build a matrix of your own, you can ask for a printed risk map in the PDFs. See Risk Maps.

Standard Risks

A risk table question can carry standard risks, which are created on every new assessment and marked Standard risk (for example, the CNIL's three feared events in France, and the five privacy risks the Alberta HIA PIA must address). A required standard risk cannot be removed from its table; assessors rate it and describe its circumstances and mitigation.

Diagram Questions

A Diagram question has the setting Keeps the privacy subject's diagram (data-flow diagram, or boundary diagram for systems). The question that has it starts with a copy of the subject's current diagram, and when the assessment is approved a diagram that differs becomes the subject's new current version. Keep one such question per diagram in a template.

Audit Templates and Standard Sections

An audit template is an assessment template for an Audit-category type; see Audit Templates. Under the sections of an audit template, once its header is saved, Add the standard sections inserts the outline every audit questionnaire shares (Planning and scope, Fieldwork and evidence, Management response and Conclusion) with their questions, in every language your tenant has. A section the template already has is left as it is, and the copies are yours to edit. It is offered on a template no audit uses yet.

Section Modules

A template can also be flagged as a section module instead of a full questionnaire. A section-module template is an add-on — one section (occasionally a few) meant to be layered onto an assessment that already has its own base questionnaire, rather than run as an assessment in its own right. Flagging a template this way:

• Removes it from every ordinary template picker — it is never offered at assessment creation and never seeds a new assessment on its own.
• Surfaces it instead under Add section from library on an assessment's Sections tab, where a coordinator appends its section(s) into that assessment's own instance-scoped copy of the questionnaire, alongside whatever base template it started from.

Use a section module for content that only some assessments need — an optional module of AI-specific questions, or a jurisdiction add-on — rather than folding it into every base template and forcing coordinators to skip past it.

Versioning

Templates are versioned. When an assessment's questionnaire is customized, a provenance banner on the Sections tab names the source template and version, so you can always trace which template edition an assessment was built from.

Per-Assessment Customization

A coordinator with the customize permission can clone a template for a single assessment — either by ticking customize the questionnaire in the create dialog, or via Edit questionnaire (or Customize while the assessment is still Active) on the Sections tab. Customization opens the builder on the assessment's own copy and never touches the shared template.

How It Affects Assessments

• At creation, the template list is filtered to the chosen assessment type; exact-type templates sort first, generic ones follow.
• The template's governing legal authority shows read-only in the create dialog.
• If the template defines a screener, creation routes through Continue to screener before the assessment is instantiated.
• The template's sections and questions become the assessment's Sections tab, which coordinators fill in or delegate section by section.

When AI Assist is enabled, the Sections tab additionally supports AI-assisted answer suggestions: coordinators can have a section's unanswered questions drafted from the assessment's record, its documents, and the Organization profile, then accept or dismiss each suggestion per question. Every suggestion is an editable draft a person decides on — see Assessment Details. AI Assist is optional and toggled under Settings → Features.

Best Practice

Treat shared templates as governed master copies: make broad wording and structure changes on the template in Settings, and reserve per-assessment customization for one-off tailoring. That keeps every new assessment starting from a consistent, current questionnaire.

Related Pages

• Assessment Types — the types that offer templates and the validation settings they hold.
• Screening Lists — regulators' lists the screener reads.
• Audit Templates — templates of the audit types.
• Statistical Report Templates — report templates are a separate page and are edited as a form.