I can’t create my account, why do I get an error message
Who should be Focal Point within my organization?
When I create an audit, I cannot find the name of the audited FSP in the dropdown list.
How much time do I have to conduct my audit?
How can I be sure my data is saved?
How can I be sure my data is secure?
What’s the difference between completing and finishing an audit?
I received an email inviting me to take part in an assessment. What does it mean?
I did not receive my email of invitation / my email to reset my password.
I get an error message when I try to open the SPI report? Why can’t I open it?
How networks and investors can share audits with members and partners?
I have an old SPI4 Excel file that I want to upload to my SPI account. How do I do that?
The USSPM and CPP scores are empty in the SPI report.
I can’t create my account, why do I get an error message?
Error: This email address already exists.
CERISE or your organization may have created an account for you or you may have already used your email to create an account.
Check your emails (and spams) to see if you can find the login and password. If you can’t find it, click on “Forgot password?” to reset your password. Remember to check your spam!
If the problem persists, contact CERISE support@cerise-spm.org.
Error: This organization already exists. Please contact its administrator to create an account.
This means that someone in your organization has already created an account and is the Focal point for your organization.
If you don’t know who it is, contact CERISE support@cerise-spm.org.
Who should be the Focal point within my organization?
The Focal point should be a person who knows the organization’s staff members and is willing to manage the organization’s account on SPI online.
It might not be the person who will fill in the audit. The audit can be filled by an external auditor, for instance. Depending on the size and internal organization of the FSP, it can be for example the CEO, the Operations Manager, the SPM Manager, etc.
CERISE’S RECOMMENDATION
In the case of a Self-Assessment, ideally the person in charge of the online audit is the Focal point. However, if the Focal point and the person in charge of the audit are two different persons, make sure to write the auditor’s name in the title of your audit.
I want to create an audit for an organization that has already been audited, but I do not know the name of the Focal point. What do I do?
If you are a staff member of the audited FSP, the “Name of the Focal point at FSP” will be automatically filled in.
If you are an External auditor, as long as you fill in the FSPs name correctly (i.e. the way it is registered in SPI online), the “Name of the Focal point at FSP” will be automatically filled.
See the list of FSP names as they are registered in SPI online. The next update to SPI online will include the FSPs names in a drop-down list!
If the “Name of the Focal point at FSP” is not automatically filled in, this might mean that the FSP does not yet have an SPI account. Contact support@cerise-spm.org and the FSP to facilitate the account creation process.
When I create an audit, I cannot find the name of the audited FSP in the drop-down list. What do I do?
This means this FSP has not registered on SPI yet. Contact support@cerise-spm.org and the FSP to facilitate the registration process.
Who should create the audit (and become Owner)?
The FSP is conducting a Self-Assessment (internal audit):
In this case, we suggest that the person in charge of conducting the audit creates the audit. This might be the FSP Focal point but not necessarily. Remember, the person who creates the audit becomes the Owner and is the only one who can manage sharing permissions, and invite others to take part in the audit.
The FSP is accompanied by an External auditor during the audit process:
The FSP Focal point or the External auditor can create the audit.
CERISE’S RECOMMENDATION
We suggest that the FSP’s Focal point creates the audit, which makes him/her the Owner, and invites the External auditor to modify the audit. That way, FSPs are sure to be able to visualize the results of their audits.
If the External auditor creates the audit, he/she becomes the Owner and must invite the FSP staff to VIEW or MODIFY the audit.
If the External Auditor does not invite FSP staff, the audit will not be associated with a FSP or the country of operations, and the name and country will not appear on the results dashboards.
How much time do I have to conduct my audit?
You do not have a time limit to conduct your audit. You can finish it when you have completed 100% of the questionnaire.
How can I be sure my data is saved?
SPI automatically saves the changes you make. Your session will stay logged in for 2 hours even if you are not active. If you are not active for 2 hours, you will be automatically logged out of your account, but there is no message to signal this in the current version. You must log in again to make sure any changes you make are saved.
CERISE’S RECOMMENDATION
If you are inactive for longer than 2 hours, you should manually log out and log in again to your account, to make sure all new changes are saved.
How can I be sure my data is secure?
Please read about data security here.
Completing vs finishing an audit?
Complete an audit means you have filled in 100% of the mandatory indicators. You can see the Universal Standards Report, Client Protection Report, and you can export your results into an Excel file.
Finish an audit means CERISE receives a notification to review your audit in order to integrate it into the SPI4 database and determine if it can be used in the benchmark analysis. It is important to finish an audit, so that the SPI4 database contines to grow and provide users with relevant benchmarks!
Once you click on “Finish audit”, the audit is locked, and you cannot make changes anymore. But don’t worry, you can ask CERISE to unlock your audit if necessary at support@cerise-spm.org.
I received an email inviting me to take part in an assessment. What does it mean?
It means that the person who created the audit wants you to access this audit on SPI.
You can make changes and add comments.
To access the audit, click on the link in the email you received. Then, create an account or login.
The audit that you have been invited to will appear on “My audits” page.
I received an email that tells me that I am registered as co-worker of my organization. What does it mean?
This email means that your colleague wants you to be part of the organization on SPI. Follow the link to sign up or log in on SPI.
On “My audits” page, you will see any audits that your colleague shares with you.
I did not receive my email of invitation / my email to reset my password
Check your spams! Sometimes, emails from SPI end up in your Spam inbox. Make sure you mark the address used in the email as non-spam to avoid having this issue in the future. If you don’t see it there, contact CERISE at support@cerise-spm.org.
Why won’t my scores update?
Progress and scores only update when you click on another section.
I get an error message when I try to open the SPI report? Why can’t I open it?
With certain browsers, including Mozilla Firefox, it is not possible to open the file directly. You will need to download the file on your computer then open it.
How networks and investors can share audits with members and partners?
With SPI, networks and investors now have a simple way to centralize and share all their audits.
STEP 1 – ACCOUNTS CREATION
The Head Office and each affiliate create their own individual accounts. Taking BRAC as an example, this means that:
- BRAC International Microfinance has its own account, with its own Focal point (the person in charge of SPM)
- BRAC Uganda has its own account, with its own Focal point (the SPM Champion, for example)
- BRAC Rwanda has its own account, with its own Focal point
- et cetera!
IMPORTANT! If you have shared an audit with CERISE in the past, we may have already created your SPI online account. Check your email from May 27th for your login and password, or contact CERISE.
STEP 2 – CREATE AN AUDIT
The Focal point from the Head Office should create the audit for its affiliate, and in the Audit Settings, should share the audit with affiliate’s Focal point (and other staff if necessary), and give modification privileges, so the affiliate can complete the audit.
Now both parties can take part in the audit if needed, or simply see the end results.
I have an old SPI4 Excel file that I want to upload to my SPI account. How do I do that?
This works for SPI4 Excel versions 2.0 and after. Check the top middle of the Welcome Page to see the version you have.
1. Connect to your SPI account.
2. Create a New audit.
3. This brings you to Audit Settings. Fill in the Settings.
- Make sure the language of the audit is the same as the language of your SPI4 Excel file
- Make sure to select the same modules for the audit as in your SPI4 Excel file
- Before entering the name of the FSP, check first to see if they an account on SPI already by looking at the List of FSPs registered on SPI (Help Center > SPI Resources)
- If yes, make sure to write the FSP name in exactly the same way they did when creating their account (ex., if the FSP used CEAPE-PE, then make sure to use the same. If you type in the wrong name, e.g. CEAPE PE (without hyphen), the Focal point‘s name will not automatically appear, and the name of the FSP will not appear on your reports
4. Click on “Start offline”.
5. This will automatically generate a SPIflat. (You can also start online and then click on SPIflat and export a SPIflat).
6. Now, the busy work. Copy and paste your answers and comments from the SPI4 in Excel into the SPIflat for both Org Info and Questionnaire sections. BE CAREFUL!
- The Org Info section in SPIflat is slightly different from SPI4 in Excel. Copy and paste your data over with care!
- There is new portfolio data in the Org Info section – either you have the information and you put them on the SPIflat, or you put 0 in the missing information (GLP by sector and by activities)
- Paste your comments from the SPI4 in Excel into the column entitled “Comment to import 1” in the SPIflat, not the greyed out one entitled “Exported comments (do not modify)”. When entering numbers:
- No separators for thousands (1000000 and not 1,000,000 nor 1.000.000 or 1 000 000)
- Avoid decimals as much as possible for large numbers
- On SPIflat, for financial ratios that take percentages (Org Info/Financial information), use a coma or a point depending what is used on your Excel and computer.
7. Once you’ve finished pasting your answers and comments from SPI4 in Excel into the SPIflat, import this SPIflat back into SPI online.
8. The scores may be slightly different in the SPI online. SPI online scores N/A a bit differently, and so you might see a small difference.
9. Click on “Finish audit”.
I need to complete a mock audit with fictitious data as part of my SPI auditor qualification process (or to maintain my auditor qualification as part of the transition to SPI online). How do I do that?
These are the steps to follow to perform your mock audit:
1. Connect to SPI online
2. Create a new audit
3. For the name of the audit, fill in the following way: Mock_year_name of the auditor (if it is an audit for the SPI qualification process, use the following name: Mock qualif_year_name of the auditor)
4. For the name of the FSP, fill in with: Mock FSP
5. For the name of the focal point, fill in with: Focal mockfsp
You can fill in the other information on the audit creation page as you wish.
To start filling out your audit, click on “Start online” or “Start offline”.
When you have finished completing your mock audit, click the green button: “Finish audit”.
Remember that this exercise is an opportunity for you to test the new features of SPI online, before a future field audit. In particular, the offline filling functions, the import of data via SPIflat, the collaborative audit process, the visualization of the results, new filters to facilitate the filling of the tool, etc.
Auditors who are already qualified and who do that exercise to maintain their qualification can use data from an old SPI4 to fill out the mock.
The USSPM and CPP scores are empty in the SPI report.
If the SPI report appears to update but the USSPM and CPP scores remain empty, it is possible that the report data is not downloading correctly. Here is a solution:
