A common way for charterers to get information about ships they are interested in fixing for charter is to send out a template for ship owners to fill out. The template is usually custom made by the charterers, requesting for specific information they are interested in.
In the past, questionnaires have usually been sent out as Excel spreadsheets (most common), PDF forms or even Word documents although other formats can also be seen.
In Ankeri you can keep track of both the traditional questionnaires as well as questionnaires received via Ankeri, in a single location.
The feature described below is accessible to ship owners under the Questionnaire tab of each ship profile.
Overview
From the Questionnaires tab you get a quick of all incoming questionnaire for a particular ship. From there you can see from where it came, who is assigned to the task, when it is due and status.
Questionnaires received via Ankeri, i.e. from a charterer using Ankeri to send out questionnaires, automatically appear in the list of questionnaires.
Registering a questionnaire
When looking at a ship profile that does not yet have any questionnaires, the user is greeted with the following.
When a new questionnaire is received via email, it can be registered and managed in Ankeri. To add a new questionnaire, the user simply clicks on the New questionnaire button and fills out the following form.
- Questionnaire: Questionnaire file as received. Can be Excel, PDF or Word.
- For Excel based questionnaire spreadsheets, Ankeri searches for available template matching the given questionnaire
- If a template with over 80% similarity is found, it is given as an option in the Template dropdown
- If a similarity is below approx. 98%, it is recommended to compare the uploaded questionnaire file and the matched template to see if any fields/lines have been removed or added to the questionnaire file, compared to the available template
- Once way to compare Excel spreadsheets is described on Compare two versions of a workbook by using Spreadsheet Compare (external link)
- Template: If a template is matched to the uploaded questionnaire it becomes available here. Using templates is the preferred way to make the most of data already stored in Ankeri. If no template is available, the questionnaire can still be stored in Ankeri.
- Company: Name of the company/charterer that sent you the questionnaire file. This can either be taken from Companies or written directly in the field.
- Received from: Default email address used to return the questionnaire once it has been filled out.
- Assignee: Person at your company responsible for the questionnaire process, i.e. for making sure the questionnaire gets filled out and returned.
- Due date (optional): Due date for returning the questionnaire. Can be internally set or as requested from charterer.
- Comment (optional): Any message you would like to keep with the questionnaire.
Questionnaires received via Ankeri, i.e. from a charterer using Ankeri to send out questionnaires, automatically appear in the list of questionnaires.
Working with a questionnaire
When a new questionnaire file has been registered in Ankeri it appears in different way depending if it connected to a questionnaire template or not.
Questionnaires connected to a template
By connecting a questionnaire to a template, the questionnaire is automatically mapped to the information already available in Ankeri - greatly simplifying the otherwise tedious process of filling out the questionnaire.
- Questionnaire: Uploaded questionnaire as received from charterer. Here the user can click on the questionnaire name and directly edit it in Ankeri.
- Attachments: By clicking on Edit list of attachments in the top right corner the user gets the option to attach files to the questionnaire. These files will be delivered with the questionnaire once it is confirmed (returned to charterer).
- Received from: Information about the charterer. Can be edited by clicking on the edit icon.
- Progress: Information about progress and people contributing to the questionnaire work. Can be edited by clicking on the edit icon.
- Files: Download questionnaire and attachments in a single zip file. Content of the zip file is the same as can be delivered to charterer via link in email.
- Proceed to confirm: Once the questionnaire is ready to be returned, the Proceed to confirm button is selected which gives the user few options before returning the questionnaire.
By clicking on the questionnaire's name the user is taken the an inline version of the questionnaire as shown below. All available information about the vessel is automatically entered into the questionnaire and the remaining fields can be updated directly in Ankeri as shown below.
One the questionnaire has been filled out it can be confirmed and returned to the charterer in an email as shown in Confirming a questionnaire section below.
Questionnaires that that are not connected to a template
- Questionnaire: Uploaded questionnaire as received from charterer. Here the user can download the questionnaire and work on it by clicking on the name of the file or download link. A new version can then be uploaded again using the upload link.
- Attachments: By clicking on Edit list of attachments in the top right corner the user gets the option to attach files to the questionnaire. These files will be delivered with the questionnaire once it is confirmed (returned to charterer).
- Received from: Information about the charterer. Can be edited by clicking on the edit icon.
- Progress: Information about progress. Can be edited by clicking on the edit icon.
- Files: Download questionnaire and attachments in a single zip file. Content of the zip file is the same as can be delivered to charterer via link in email.
- Proceed to confirm: Once the questionnaire is ready to be returned, the Proceed to confirm button is selected which gives the user few options before returning the questionnaire.
Note that edit rights vary between users.
Confirming a questionnaire
Once a questionnaire has been finalized and is ready to be returned, you can click on the Confirm questionnaire (preview) button to get the following dialog from where you have the following options.
1. Send an email via Ankeri
- Click on Confirm questionnaire button and send an email via Ankeri to the email addresses listed.
- Email addresses can be added/removed from the list of recipients and optional message can be added to the email.
- You can also preview the email before sending it
2. Send your own email with a download link
- Remove all email addresses from the list and then confirm the questionnaire by clicking on the Confirm questionnaire button.
- Using this approach you must then manually send an email with a download link to the email addresses that are supposed to receive the questionnaire.
- This way you will not keep track of the recipients in Ankeri
Edit rights - who is allowed to do what?
When working with questionnaires in Ankeri, the following edit rights matrix is used.
- All users with edit rights to a ship profile can add/register new questionnaire
- A prerequisite to questionnaire/attachment upload is to have edit rights to the ship profile in question
| Upload new version | Attach files | Edit counterparty | Edit progress | Confirm | Reopen | Remove | |
| Administrator | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Creator * | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | - | Yes | Yes |
| Assignee | Yes | Yes | - | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Contributor | Yes | Yes | - | - | - | - | - |
* Creator is the user that originally added/registered the questionnaire