How to Complete Vendor Security Follow-Up Questions

When a reviewer uses Whistic's Vendor Summary AI feature to analyze your security documentation, they may send follow-up questions to clarify specific security controls or practices. Unlike standard needs clarification requests, follow-up questions require a two-step response: you must select an answer (Yes/No, Multiple Choice, Text-based, etc.) and provide a detailed comment explaining your response. This ensures reviewers receive both structured data and the context they need to complete their assessment.

Table of Contents

• Summary
• Steps
• Helpful Tips

📋 Summary

When a reviewer uses Whistic's Vendor Summary AI feature to analyze your security documentation, they may send follow-up questions to clarify specific security controls or practices. Unlike standard needs clarification requests, follow-up questions require a two-step response: you must select an answer (Yes/No, Multiple Choice, Text-based, etc.) and provide a detailed comment explaining your response. This ensures reviewers receive both structured data and the context they need to complete their assessment.

🪜 Steps

The steps below will guide you through accessing, reviewing, and completing vendor security follow-up questions. If you received a notification email with a link, that should allow you to skip steps #1-4.

1. After logging into Whistic, navigate to the Dashboard page.
2. Locate the Outstanding Customer Requests section.
3. Confirm the request is available, if so, select Resume.

4. On the next prompt, confirm you want to Go to Questionnaire.

5. The questionnaire will display two items that will be required attention to successfully share back the request with the requester:
   • Follow-up questions,
   • Reviewer Comments
6. Step 1 - Select Your Answer:
   • Select or type in your answer for each question
   • Answers will be automatically saved as you go
7. Step 2 - Provide Your Comment:
   • In the Respond to Reviewer box, provide a comprehensive explanation and click Save to store your comment.

NOTE: Both an answer selection and a comment are required for each follow-up question. Selecting an answer alone is not sufficient. If you need to provide additional documents, click the paperclip icon in the question and an upload modal will appear for you to provide them.

8. Notice how the progress bar and the questions remaining counter update as you complete the questions (e.g., "0 / 1 Questions Completed" will update to "1 / 1 Questions Completed"). This helps you track what percent or how many questions you have remaining.
9. When you are ready to submit your updates for review and all questions have been fulfilled along with comments, select Notify Customer. This step is required as it confirms in the system that you do not wish to add any further clarification.

10. Request complete! The requestor will receive a notification to review your updated information and the request will be removed from your dashboard.

💡 Helpful Tips

• While your responses are automatically saved as you work, the request is not considered complete until you click the Notify Customer button
• Both an answer selection and a comment are required for follow-up questions - this differs from standard needs clarification requests where only a comment may be needed
• If you're unsure about an answer, you can save your progress and return later after consulting with your team
• Review the Reviewer Comments tab to ensure you understand what additional information is being requested and respond to all comments.
• To verify the request has been successfully completed, check your Whistic Dashboard:
  • If the item still appears on your dashboard, click Resume to return to the request and click Notify Customer to finalize it
  • Once properly completed, the request will no longer appear in your outstanding requests