✅ Feature availability: This article discusses the browser extension for portals feature, which may require an upgrade or add-on. Refer to Vanta Plans and Pricing for details.

The Vanta questionnaire automation browser extension lets you complete web-based or web portal questionnaires: scan the questionnaire to extract questions into Vanta, collaborate and approve with your team in Vanta, then fill answers into the web page.

Video overview

Installing the extension

Before getting started, you’ll need to install the Vanta - Questionnaire Automation extension from the Chrome Web Store. The extension is supported in the following Chromium-based browsers: Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Brave.

When you open the browser extension when viewing a web-based questionnaire, you’ll see the following options:

Call to action	When to use it
Complete a web-based questionnaire	Choose this when you want to create a new questionnaire in Vanta and import the questions from the web page or portal you’re viewing.
Continue an existing questionnaire	Choose this when you’ve already created the questionnaire in Vanta and want to fill responses in the browser.
Answer a one-off question	Choose this when you need a quick answer to a single question without creating a questionnaire in Vanta. The extension will suggest an AI answer and similar answer library matches.

💡 Tip: If the browser extension seems stuck, out of sync, or isn't showing your latest changes, try closing and reopening the extension. If that doesn't help, close and reopen the tab you're working on.

Importing questionnaires to Vanta

The browser extension uses AI to scan the portal and extract questions, sections, and answer field types, then creates the questionnaire automatically in Vanta.

To import the questionnaire:

Open the questionnaire in your browser.
Open the browser extension and select Complete a web-based questionnaire.
Enter a name for the questionnaire, fill out any optional fields, and click Create. You can edit this information in Vanta later if needed.
The extension will scan the portal and extract all questions—the page will be locked during this process to ensure accurate results. Once scanning is complete, click Open in Vanta to collaborate on and approve questions in Vanta.

Collaborating on questionnaires in Vanta

Once questions are imported, Vanta AI generates responses based on your knowledge base and answer library. We recommend reviewing and approving responses in Vanta before filling them back into the portal to help ensure accuracy.

📖 Learn more: Collaborating on Questionnaires

Filling in answers with the extension

Once you've reviewed and approved responses in Vanta, head back to the questionnaire in your browser and reopen the extension. Select Continue an existing questionnaire, choose the questionnaire from the list, and from there you can fill answers directly into the portal and submit once everything looks good.

⚠️ Note: Filling an answer from the extension does not approve it in Vanta. If your team uses an approval workflow, approval still needs to happen in Vanta. Questions marked Answered by Vanta AI are draft responses, while questions marked Approved have already been reviewed by someone on your team. Both can still be filled into the portal from the extension.

Question status

When viewing the Questions tab in the browser extension, each question will have one of the following statuses:

Status	Description
Filled	The answer has been filled into the page and matches what’s in Vanta.
Mismatch	There’s already an answer on the page, but it doesn’t match what’s in Vanta.
Needs answer	There isn’t an answer available in Vanta yet.
Not filled	Vanta has an answer for this question, but it hasn’t been filled into the page yet.
Not found	The extension tried to fill this question, but couldn’t find the matching field on the page.

Filling in answers

You can review and make small edits to answers directly in the extension before filling them in—expand any question to see the answer, references, and an edit option.

Go to the Questions tab when you're ready to fill in answers. You have three options:

Fill all: Located at the top of the tab. Fills all fillable answers across the entire questionnaire.
Fill section: Located at the top of each section. Fills all fillable answers within that section.
Fill answer: Fills a single response at a time.

💡 Tip: In the Portal map tab, click Rescan when you navigate to a new section or when new or conditional questions appear—this rescans the page so Vanta can detect and import additional questions

Inspector mode

Inspector mode is a fallback tool for capturing questions that were missed during the initial scan or that appeared conditionally after you started filling in answers. Rather than rescanning the entire page, you can use inspector mode to manually select and bring in individual sections or questions.

To use inspector mode:

Scroll to the bottom of the extension and click the inspector mode icon in the Tools section. A banner will appear across the top of the page indicating inspector mode is active.
Toggle between Sections and Questions depending on what you need to capture.
Click the element on the page you want to add to your questionnaire in Vanta.
Click Done in the banner when you're finished.

Marking as complete in Vanta

Before marking a questionnaire as complete, ensure all responses have been reviewed and approved in Vanta. Approved responses are automatically imported into your answer library for future use.

To mark as complete in Vanta:

Open the questionnaire in Vanta.
Click Mark as complete in the top right corner.
Optional: Sync any new or updated answers to your answer library.

⚠️ Note: You can also mark a questionnaire as complete directly from the browser extension once all questions have been filled. The browser extension does not verify that responses are approved before allowing you to mark a questionnaire as complete. If your team uses an approval workflow, make sure all responses are approved in Vanta first.

Troubleshooting

Extension won't authenticate to Vanta

Start by signing in to Vanta in the same browser, then connect the extension. If you haven't connected the extension yet, you'll be prompted to do so after signing in.
If you're signed in but still running into issues, check that you've selected the correct region and that the extension has the necessary permissions.
Your organization may also have a policy that restricts browser extensions. Visit chrome://policy in your browser to check whether your administrator has set any extension restrictions, and reach out to your IT team if needed.

Portal isn't supported or scan fails

If the scan fails or misses questions, you can use inspector mode to manually capture questions directly from the portal page and add them to your questionnaire.
The extension works across a wide range of portals, but not every portal has been tested. If the extension fails to scan, extracts questions incorrectly, or gets stuck during the scanning process, click the ••• menu in the top-right corner of the extension to report an issue.
This sends a snapshot of the portal structure to our team, which helps us understand what went wrong and prioritize improvements. Submitting a report doesn't guarantee a fix for that specific portal or trigger a support response, but it's the best way to get the portal on the team's radar.
No data submitted through this process is used to train models.

Conditional or missing questions

Some portals reveal additional questions based on how you answer earlier ones—for example, selecting "Yes" may expand a follow-up question that wasn't visible during the initial scan.
If new questions appear, navigate to that section in the questionnaire and click Rescan in the portal map to pull them into Vanta.
If the extension still misses a section or question after re-importing, use inspector mode to manually capture it.

Unsupported question types

The extension currently supports text fields, single-choice radio buttons, and dropdowns.
Multi-select checkboxes and file attachment fields aren't supported yet—if your questionnaire includes these, you'll need to fill them in manually on the portal.
If your questionnaire includes file upload fields and the portal supports drag and drop, you can drag evidence attachments directly into those fields.

MFA or login required on a portal

If your portal requires you to log in or complete MFA before accessing the questionnaire, just complete that process as you normally would in your browser before opening the extension.
The extension doesn't interact with portal authentication at all—it only activates once you're on the page with the questionnaire. You don't need to take any special steps to make this work.

Text highlighting isn't working

When using the Answer a one-off question flow, you can highlight any question directly on the page and the extension will instantly suggest an AI-generated answer.
If highlighting isn't working, it's likely because the tab was already open before you installed the extension. Refreshing the tab should fix it. If not, you’ll need to enter the question text directly into the extension instead.
Text selection isn’t supported on some pages that render text in non-standard ways, including Google Docs and Office 365. If that happens, enter the question text directly into the extension instead.

Completing Website Questionnaires with the Browser Extension