Edit a published assessment

Modified on Tue, 4 Aug at 3:44 PM

How to change an assessment that's already live, what happens to assessments your team has in progress, and how drafts and published versions work.

Who this is for: Administrators and User Managers.

The short version

Editing a live assessment is safe. Your changes only apply to assessments started after you publish them. Anything already in progress carries on with the version it began on, so you won't disrupt work that's underway.

How drafts and published versions work

An assessment has two sides:

The published version is what your team uses right now.
The draft is your working copy.

When you start editing a live assessment, Tendable creates a draft for you to change. The published version keeps running untouched until you choose to publish your draft. In your list of assessments, one with unpublished changes shows both a Published and a Draft badge, so you can see at a glance that you have edits waiting to go live.

Edit and re-publish

Open Assessment management and go to the Assessments tab.
Find the assessment and click Edit.
Make your changes. They save to the draft automatically as you work.
When you're ready, publish again to make your changes live.

Until you re-publish, your team keeps seeing the current published version.

What happens to assessments in progress

Assessments your team has already started keep their original questions and layout. Only new assessments started after you re-publish will use your updated version. This means you can improve an assessment without affecting results that are already being collected.

Assessments you can't edit

Some assessments are managed by Tendable, such as standard CQC ones. These are locked, so you'll see that editing is blocked. You can still choose which units they cover and publish them, but you can't change their questions. If you need a change, contact Tendable.

Preview your changes first

Before you publish, use Preview to open your draft in a new tab and check it reads well, exactly as when you first built it. See Build and publish an assessment for how previewing works.

Tips and troubleshooting

My changes aren't showing for my team. Publish your draft to make them live. Remember that assessments already in progress keep the version they started on, so only new ones will show the update.
An assessment shows both Published and Draft badges. That means it's live, and you have unpublished changes saved in the draft. Publish when you're ready for them to go live.
You can't edit an assessment. It may be a locked Tendable-managed assessment, or you may not have the right role. Building and editing assessments needs an Administrator or User Manager role.
Someone else is editing the same assessment. Only the first save goes through if two people edit at once. Reload to pick up the latest, then redo your change.