Assessment templates

An assessment form is the form an assessor fills in for each application. You build it in the Form Builder under Plan > Form templates > Assessments, and choose it on the Template step of an assessment round.

Create an assessment form

1. Go to Plan > Form templates and open the Assessments tab.
2. Select New Template, enter the Template name and select Create.
3. Add the questions in the Form Builder. See Form builder.

You can also select Create a New Assessment Form on an assessment round's Template step.

Score a field

Choice fields and sliders can be scored. In the Form Builder:

1. Select the field and turn on Score this field. Each answer's score adds to the assessment's total.
2. Give every option a score. An option without one adds nothing to the total. For a slider, the number chosen is the score.
3. Optionally set a Weight. A weight of 1 doubles the score, and 10 turns a score of 10 into 110. Leave it blank for none.
4. On a scored Single choice, optionally fill in each option's Anchor descriptor: a sentence of up to 500 characters saying what that level means. Assessors see it beside the option's score. Anchor descriptors can't be changed once the form is in use.

The field shows the most it can add, and the form shows its Total Score. Scored fields are marked Scored field in the fields panel.

If you stop scoring a field on a form that is in use, the scores already given for that field are recalculated when you save.

An application's assessment scores are added together. Averaging or normalising them instead is turned on for your organisation by Backed support; there is no setting for it on your side.

Criteria library

The criteria library holds scored questions you can reuse across assessment forms. Each criterion has a name, guidance for assessors, a default weight and a scale of 3 to 10 levels. Each level has a label, a score and an optional anchor descriptor, and scores go up from the first level to the last.

1. Go to Plan > Form templates and open the Criteria library tab. The list shows each criterion's Scale, Default weight, Current version and how many templates it is Used in.
2. Select New criterion, fill in the name, guidance, default weight and scale, and select Create criterion.

Select Edit to change a criterion. Saving a changed scale, guidance or weight makes a new version. Forms that already use the criterion keep the version they were given.

To add a criterion to a form, open the form in the Form Builder and select Insert from criteria library in the fields panel, then choose the criterion. Save any changes first. It is added to the end of the selected section as a scored Single choice, with the criterion's levels, anchors, guidance and weight. You can't insert a criterion into a form that is in use.

When a newer version of a criterion exists, the field's panel says Newer version available. Select Update to version to bring the field up to date. This is only possible while the form is not in use. Changes you make to an inserted field's options apply to that form only.

Archive hides a criterion from Insert from criteria library without changing the forms that use it; tick Show archived criteria to see it again and select Unarchive. Delete removes a criterion that no form uses. A criterion in use can't be deleted; archive it instead.

Capacity assessment settings

An assessment form can instead be a capacity template, used to rate an organisation's capacity rather than to score applications. Open the template with View and, under Capacity assessment:

• Tick Capacity assessment. The template is then offered only when you start a capacity assessment, never on an assessment round's Template step.
• Set the Divergence threshold (% of a criterion's maximum), 20 % unless you change it.
• Add the Rating bands on the total: a Label and From (% of the total) each, the first from 0.

Select Save capacity settings. A template in use keeps its threshold and bands. See Capacity assessments.

See also

• Assessment rounds
• Capacity assessments