How to Review a Document

Table of Contents

• Summary
• Steps
  • How to Review a Vendor Document
    • Option 1: Document Received Through a Whistic Document Request
    • Option 2: Document Received Through Another Method
  • Conducting Your Review
• Additional Resources
• What's Next?

Summary

After a vendor returns a requested document or uploads documentation to their profile, you can conduct a formal review to assess their security controls and compliance. This review process allows you to add internal notes, collaborate with team members, update the vendor's assessment status, and generate a final review report.

Note: For information on how to request assessments (questionnaires and/or documents) from vendors, visit this article.

📋 How to Review a Vendor Document

The steps to start your review depend on how you received the document:

Option 1: Document Received Through a Whistic Document Request

1. Navigate to the vendor's profile by going to Assess > Vendors
2. Locate and open the vendor record you wish to conduct a review on
3. Open the Assessment Activity dropdown (latest should already be expanded)
4. Locate the returned document request
5. Select Start Review

Option 2: Document Received Through Another Method

If the document was uploaded to the Document Repository, submitted through an Intake form, attached to an Issue, or obtained through another method:

1. Navigate to the vendor's profile by going to Assess > Vendors
2. Locate and open the vendor record you wish to conduct a review on
3. Open the Document Repository (left menu)
4. Locate the file you want to review
5. Click the Action dropdown next to the document
6. Select Assess
7. In the prompt that appears, select the appropriate document type.

🔍 Conducting Your Review

Once you've opened the review page:

1. The full document will display on your screen
2. Click Start Review to begin
   • Note: If you don't see the Start Review button, you haven't been granted permission to conduct reviews. Contact your Whistic Administrator to request access.

3. An Assessment Notes panel will appear on the right side of the screen where you can:

   • Enter review notes in the text editor
   • Check the Include in Report box to automatically add your comment to the final report
   • Save your note and continue adding additional notes as needed

   • View, edit, and delete notes throughout the review process

     
   Note: Other users with review permissions can also add notes to this document.
4. When your review is complete, click Finish Review
5. A window will prompt you to select the vendor's Assessment Status from the dropdown menu
   • This status will be reflected on the Vendor Detail page
6. Click Export Report to open the final report editor
   • The report includes key vendor details and all comments you tagged for inclusion

📚 Additional Resources

• Want to customize your document request types? Learn more here.

🚀 What's next?

We will continue building out the document review functionality, here are a couple of features to expect in the future. We are always interested in your feedback, please let your Customer Success Manager know which review features you would like to see next:

• Send review comments to the Vendor
• Collaborate with other reviewers
• Flag comments and create Issues
• AI Review of other documents