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Quick Summary: The Questions library is an administrator-only bank of reusable questions. You create a question once, then link it to careers, sections, skill groups, or skills and reuse it in assessments and surveys. Every edit creates a new version, and launched surveys and assessments stay pinned to the version they launched with.

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Overview

The Questions library is the central question bank for your organization. Instead of retyping the same question into every assessment or survey, administrators write each question once in Library > Questions and reuse it wherever it is needed. A question can be a knowledge check with a correct answer, a short free-text prompt, a drop-down choice, or a file upload request. Questions connect to the rest of SkillsDB in two ways. First, you can link a question to a career, a career section, a skill group, or an individual skill. Linked questions are posed to people when they are assessed against that career or skill. Second, the Assessment Builder and the survey builder both let you pick saved questions from the bank, so the same question can appear in many places while you maintain it in one. Because questions can carry an answer key, the library is restricted to administrators. Question rows and the question detail page show which options are correct, so managers and employees cannot open Library > Questions, even by typing its address. Employees only ever see a question when it is posed to them inside an assessment or survey. Every saved change to a question creates a new version. Surveys and assessments that have already launched keep the exact version they launched with, so editing a question never changes work that people have already started. This gives administrators a safe way to improve wording or fix an answer key over time while keeping a full history of every change.

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Prerequisites

Before you use the Questions library, you need:
  • Permission level: Administrator role. The Questions library is not available to managers or employees.
  • Setup requirement: The Questions library must be turned on in Company > Settings > Hide Library Sections. The library is on by default.
  • Access requirement: Library > Questions in the left sidebar
Note: Turning Questions off in Company > Settings > Hide Library Sections hides the library from every administrator, including you. Unlike the other libraries, there is no administrator bypass, because administrators are the library’s only audience.

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Turning the Questions library on or off

Administrators control whether the Questions library appears in the sidebar. The setting lives with the other library visibility toggles.
1

Open Settings

Navigate to Company > Settings.
2

Open library visibility

Find the Hide Library Sections row and select Configure. The Manage Library Visibility dialog opens.
3

Toggle Questions

Switch Questions on or off. The row is labeled “Visible to admins only” because no other role can see this library.
When the setting is on, Questions appears under Library in the sidebar for every administrator. When the setting is off, the sidebar entry disappears and direct links to Library > Questions are refused. Turning the library off does not delete any questions, and questions already used in assessments and surveys keep working.

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Creating a question

You create questions from the library itself, or from a career or skill page when you want the new question linked to that career or skill straight away.
1

Open the Questions library

Navigate to Library > Questions.
2

Start a new question

Open the Actions menu at the top of the page and select Question under Add New (or press ⌘K / Ctrl+K and search for “Add question”). If the library is empty, select + Question in the empty state instead.
3

Choose a question type

In the Create a question dialog, choose a type. The type cannot be changed later, so pick the one that matches how people should answer.
4

Write the question

The Create Question page opens. Enter the question text in Question (required). Optionally add a Description, which is extra context shown with the question, and attach Labels.
5

Add response options

For Multiple Choice and Drop Down questions, add at least two options with Add option, and choose Single Select or Multi Select under Response options. You can also select Import CSV to load many options at once. For a File Upload question, choose the file type that uploaded answers are filed under.
6

Save

Select Create Question.
The new question opens on its detail page, where you can link it to careers and skills. You can create these question types: The bank can also hold Rating, Confirm Certifications, Yes / No, and Likert questions that were created in the survey builder. You can view and edit them in the library, but you cannot create those types from Library > Questions.

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Making a question scored

A scored question has an answer key, so responses are graded as correct or incorrect. Only Multiple Choice questions can be scored. To make a Multiple Choice question scored, mark one or more of its options as correct in the question editor. If you leave every option unmarked, responses are collected but never graded, and the question is unscored. The Scored column in the library shows whether each question is Scored or Unscored. The grading rule depends on the selection mode:
  • If the question is Single Select, then a response is correct when any one correct option is chosen.
  • If the question is Multi Select, then a response is correct only when the selected options exactly match the set of correct options.
The detail page shows each correct option with a Correct badge. Correct answers are visible there because the page is admin-only.

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Linking questions to careers and skills

Linking decides where a question is posed. When a question is linked to a career, a section, a skill group, or a skill, it is posed to people who are assessed against that career or skill. To link a question from its detail page:
1

Open the question

Navigate to Library > Questions and select the question.
2

Choose where to attach it

Open the Actions menu and, under Attach to, select Career, Section, Skill group, or Skill. Once a question is attached to something of that kind, the same option appears under Change instead.
3

Pick the targets

Search for and select the careers, sections, skill groups, or skills, then confirm.
The question’s Related section lists every career, section, skill group, and skill it is linked to, plus the surveys and assessments that use it. The Posing panel shows how each career or skill poses its questions: Pose every question, Only questions not yet answered correctly, or Randomly pose one. You change the posing mode on the career or skill itself, not on the question. Only Multiple Choice questions can be linked to careers and skills. Questions of every other type are posed through surveys, and their detail page shows “Not posed anywhere — questions of this type are posed through surveys and cannot be linked to a career or skill.” You can also add questions from the other direction. On a career page or a skill page, open the Actions menu and select Question under Add New to create a question, or Question under Search to Add to attach an existing one.

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Using questions in assessments and surveys

The Assessment Builder and the survey builder both open the same Add a question picker. From the picker you can search saved questions in the bank or create a new one with Create a new question. When a survey or assessment launches, it pins the current version of each question it uses. Later edits to the question create new versions in the library, but the launched survey or assessment keeps showing the pinned version. This means editing a question never changes what people see in work that is already in progress. See Manager Assessments for how questions fit into the Assessment Builder.

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Finding and organizing questions

The library table shows Name, Type, Scored, and Labels by default. Use the Display menu to add Careers (#), Skills (#), Surveys (#), Assessments (#), Options (#), Version, Created by, and Last updated. Use the view menu next to the page title to switch between Active, Archived, and All questions. Group the table Alphabetical, by Label, Career, Skill, Skill group, or Type, or choose None for a flat list. When grouped by career, label, skill, or skill group, a question appears once under each group it belongs to. The filter menu offers these filters: The Question Status filter is useful for cleanup. For example, Unlinked and never used finds questions that are attached to nothing and have never been asked. To export, open the Actions menu and select Export under Export. The file reflects your current filters and visible columns, and each question appears once even when the table is grouped. If you select rows first, only the selected questions are exported.

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Editing, archiving, and deleting questions

Editing. Open a question and select Edit under Manage in the Actions menu. The editor shows the question’s type and the same fields you used to create it. Select Save to create a new version. The Versions section on the detail page lists every version, what changed field by field, and which launched surveys or assessments are pinned to it. Archiving. Archiving removes a question from every picker so it can no longer be added to new assessments or surveys. Launched surveys and assessments keep their pinned versions, and the question’s history is preserved. To archive, open the question and select Archive question, or select rows in the library and choose Archive. You can restore an archived question at any time with Restore. Deleting. Deleting permanently removes a question and its version history. To delete, open the question and select Delete under Manage in the Actions menu, or select rows in the library and choose Delete.
Warning: A question used in a launched survey or assessment cannot be deleted. SkillsDB shows “This question can’t be deleted” and offers Archive instead, so the history of launched work stays intact. Deleting an unused question cannot be undone.

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Common Questions

No. The Questions library is visible only to administrators, because question rows and detail pages show the correct answers. Managers and employees see a question only when it is posed to them in an assessment or survey. Direct links to Library > Questions are refused for every other role.
The Questions library has been turned off in Company > Settings > Hide Library Sections. Unlike the other libraries, administrators do not bypass this setting. Turn Questions back on in the Manage Library Visibility dialog to restore the sidebar entry.
No. Each saved edit creates a new version. Surveys and assessments that have already launched stay pinned to the version they launched with, so people in progress see no change. New surveys and assessments use the latest version.
Only Multiple Choice questions can be scored. Mark one or more options as correct to make a Multiple Choice question scored. Drop Down, Text Response, and File Upload questions are always unscored.
A question that has been used in a launched survey or assessment can only be archived. Deleting it would remove history that launched work depends on. Archive the question instead to hide it from every picker while keeping its history.
No. The type is chosen when you create the question and stays fixed. To use a different type, create a new question of that type and archive the old one.

Manager Assessments

Build assessments that pose questions from the bank

Surveys

Create surveys that reuse saved questions

Careers

Link questions to careers, sections, and skill groups

Skills Library

Link questions to individual skills

Checklists

Another admin-only library for step-by-step procedures

Labels

Organize questions with labels

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Need More Help?

If you need additional assistance:
  • Email support@skillsdb.com
  • Use the in-app help chat
  • Schedule a training session with your account manager