# Completing a questionnaire

You can download a questionnaire at any point. Marking it as complete is a
separate step, and worth doing properly.

## Mark the questionnaire as approved

When you have finished a questionnaire, move it from **Needs Input** to
**Approved**.

Doing so approves every questionnaire item within it that is ready to be
approved, so you don't have to work back through them individually.

This matters for two reasons beyond tidiness. Approved questionnaires are easy to
tell apart from ones still in progress, which keeps a growing list manageable.
And because approval is recorded, it lets you track your cycle time — how long
questionnaires actually take you — which is the number worth watching as your
knowledge base grows.

**Approve before you build your knowledge base:** Only items with approved answers are offered as new knowledge base items, so
approving the questionnaire is what unlocks the suggestions. See
[updating the knowledge base after a questionnaire](/questionnaires/updating-kb-after-questionnaire/).

## Download your answers

The **Downloads** card on the questionnaire offers three options:

| Download | Gives you |
|---|---|
| **Download original file** | The file exactly as the customer sent it, with no answers added |
| **Download as CSV** | A flat list of the questions, answers, and guidance |
| **Download file with answers** | The original file with your answers written back into it |

**Download file with answers** is the one to send back to your customer. It takes
the original spreadsheet and writes your yes/no responses and written answers
into the columns they were
[mapped to](/questionnaires/column-mapping/), leaving the rest of the workbook as
it was. It should be ready to pass on as it is.

Use **Download as CSV** when you want the content rather than the customer's
format — for review, for your own records, or to work with the answers elsewhere.

## If the export doesn't come back cleanly

ResponseHub always writes answers back into the original format. Occasionally a
complex spreadsheet makes that difficult: some workbooks contain formulas or
hidden columns that aren't obvious when you look at them, and writing into a file
like that can occasionally cause a problem.

If something does go wrong, you will see a notification. Often there is no
visible effect on the spreadsheet at all. If the exported file does have a
problem, contact support.

You can avoid the most common cause of this by checking the column mapping before
you answer — answers cannot be written into a column that contains formulas. See
[column mapping](/questionnaires/column-mapping/).

## Next steps

- [Updating the knowledge base after a questionnaire](/questionnaires/updating-kb-after-questionnaire/)
- [What happens when sources change](/questionnaires/when-sources-change/)