# Questions, wording and the builder

> How the test is doing on your people, trying a new question without it counting, rewording, editing the result page's words, and bringing in questions of your own.

For: Admin, Owner
Canonical: https://emmauos.com/docs/questions-and-trials

Three screens under **Assessment** in the sidebar, for admins and the owner.

## Questions: how the test is doing

![The Questions page, one gift at a time, with the statements and how each one is behaving.](/docs-img/questions.png)

Pick a gift and see its 5 statements with, once enough people have answered, how each one is behaving: how many answered, the average, how spread out the answers are, and how well the statement moves with the rest of its gift. A statement everybody agrees with tells you nothing; a statement that doesn't move with its gift is measuring something else. The page flags those, and **What these numbers mean** explains every term in a sentence.

**Reword** a statement in place. New results use the new wording; past results keep the wording they were answered against.

**Test a new question.** Write a statement for a gift or an Ephesians 4 function and start a trial. People answer it like any other, but it doesn't count toward anyone's result until you decide. When the trial has enough answers to judge, **Swap in** replaces an existing statement with it; the old one retires. You can also retire a trial that didn't work.

## Results wording

Every phrase on the result page can be yours: what each gift is, what it looks like in a person, and for each pair of gifts the tension that pair tends to carry. Pick an item, write, save. **Use ours** restores the original. Members see the change the next time a result is opened; nothing is rescored.

## Assessment library

![Assessment library: your EmmauOS assessments and other assessments side by side.](/docs-img/builder.png)

Settings → **Assessment library** is the one home for the assessments themselves. People and their results move on [Import & export](/docs/import-and-export).

### EmmauOS assessments

For a church that already has questions it trusts, like a homegrown inventory, on the Growing plan:

- **Create a new assessment** as a draft, or **Clone as draft** from the one you have, and edit its questions, scales and weights.
- **Import** questions inside a draft as CSV with the header `scale,prompt,type,weight,trial`, or EmmauOS JSON `{"items":[{"scale":"Mercy","prompt":"...","type":"agree","weight":1,"trial":false}]}`. Trial questions are asked but never scored until you promote them.
- Publishing creates a new version. Results already taken keep the questions they were answered against, forever.

The default assessment stays available; the builder exists so that a church with a tradition of its own isn't forced to abandon it.

### Other assessments

Many churches already use **APEST** (the 5Q test), **SHAPE**, or a survey of their own. **Other assessments** keeps each one as itself, beside EmmauOS's:

- **Add** one and start from APEST (its five functions are filled in), SHAPE, a gifts inventory, or your own. Name its **dimensions** (the functions or gifts it scores) in the order it lists them, and its **score range** if it has one.
- **Questions are optional.** EmmauOS doesn't include any publisher's questions. If your church has a licensed copy you may paste its questions to keep them with the assessment, and you check that your church may use them; who checked and when are kept and in the audit log. With questions and a scoring rule, people can [take it here](/docs/other-assessments).
- **Scores** people already have go in on [Import & export](/docs/import-and-export#a-spreadsheet). They are stored against that assessment, not turned into EmmauOS gifts, and each person's page shows them under **Gifts** as the assessment reports them, every dimension in its own order.
- **Export definition** downloads it as a file; **From a file** brings one in, from another church or written by an AI agent. Saving the same file twice updates one assessment.
- **Archive** hides it from imports. Scores already on file stay on people's pages. A dimension people have scores on can't be removed.

### Ask their questions in your EmmauOS test

If you'd rather have one combined test that people take here, **Ask their questions in your EmmauOS test** makes a draft from your current test with APEST, SHAPE or inventory questions from your licensed copy:

- **Paste the questions** one a line, with the function or gift first (`Apostolic, I start new things`). A spreadsheet's two columns pasted straight in work too.
- **Instead of ours** swaps only that part: APEST replaces the Ephesians 4 section, SHAPE or an inventory replaces the gifts section. **Alongside ours** keeps both.
- **Preview** shows how many questions land on each function or gift, and anything it couldn't place. Common names are understood: *pastor* and *shepherd* are Shepherding, *exhortation* is Encouraging, *helps* is Serving, *leadership* is Leading.
- APEST needs a question for all five functions. You check that your church may use these questions.
- Publishing the draft makes it your church's live test. Results already taken keep their questions.

Try it on the demo church: the [Assessment library](/app/demo/builder) is where assessments are built, added or brought in from a file.