FAQ
Frequently asked questions about the platform
Product fit
Which questionnaires does Atteston support?
CAIQ v4 / CSA STAR, AI-CAIQ, HECVAT, and VSAQ workbooks in any layout, plus other parseable .xlsx and .xlsm questionnaire workbooks and UTF-8 CSV and TSV files, are the supported scope: upload, generate, review, and export back into the original file. SIG workbooks are the one exception: they get clearly labeled best-effort assistance (Assisted Beta). Word-only or PDF-only questionnaires and portal workflows are not supported answer targets.
See the full supported-scope tableDo I need to reformat the questionnaire into your template?
No. Upload the workbook your customer sent. Atteston parses the questions and answer cells in place and exports back into the same file.
What about portal-based questionnaires?
Not yet. Atteston focuses on Excel workbooks today. If portals like OneTrust or UpGuard are your primary bottleneck, Atteston is not the right tool for that yet.
How long does setup take?
The self-serve workflow starts by uploading an evidence document and a questionnaire. Teams with more evidence or more complex review ownership can add that context as they go.
I already use Vanta or Drata. Do I need Atteston?
Vanta, Drata, Secureframe, and similar suites can include questionnaire automation alongside broader compliance and trust-center tooling. Atteston is a focused option for teams evaluating a dedicated evidence-to-review-to-Excel workflow. The products can be complementary.
Atteston and compliance suitesAccuracy and evidence
How do you prevent hallucinated answers?
Draft generation is constrained to uploaded evidence, but AI output still requires human review. A draft from your documents is grouped Ready to review only when it carries admissible citations to current evidence, and it still waits for a person's approval. A question with no admissible evidence is grouped Needs you and shown as not found in the sources searched.
What if a draft is wrong?
Generated candidates require human review before export. The review page groups every question as Needs you, Ready to review, To confirm, Approved, or In progress, which shows what kind of attention it needs. The approved answer version and reviewer action preserve whether the draft was accepted or edited.
Can I see where an answer came from?
When a candidate has resolved evidence, the review workspace shows its source anchors so you can inspect the passage in context. A question with no admissible evidence is grouped Needs you and shown as not found in the sources searched, instead of being presented as cited.
Excel fidelity
Will you break my Excel file?
The engine writes only your approved answers and their associated explanation and ownership or maturity fields. For workbooks with formulas, it may also update a setting that requests recalculation when the file opens. An automated drift check compares every export against the original workbook and flags unexpected structural changes. Formatting is preserved across tested fixtures; preservation of macros and embedded graphics is not yet fully verified across workbook variants, so contact us before relying on those features.
What happens to formulas and protected sheets?
Formulas are detected and skipped, never overwritten. Protected sheets are respected — answers are written to unprotected cells only.
What about merged cells and dropdowns?
Merged cells are handled with anchor-cell redirect logic. Dropdown answers are matched to the available options, including alias matching such as y to yes.
What about macros, images, and charts?
Preservation of VBA macros and embedded graphics is not yet fully verified across workbook variants. If your workbooks rely on them, contact us about your specific file before depending on the export.
Security and data
Do you train AI models on my data?
Atteston’s product policy is not to use customer content to train general-purpose models. Third-party processing follows the configured provider terms and contractual data-use restrictions described on the security page.
How is my data isolated from other customers?
Account-scoped row-level security is enforced in PostgreSQL and paired with membership authorization, request-local account context, a runtime-role guard, and automated cross-tenant regression tests.
Who processes my data?
The security page lists the default and optional providers used for configured processing and describes the data shape for each task lane.
Read the security overviewAre you SOC 2 certified?
Atteston follows SOC 2-aligned control practices — tenant isolation, least-privilege access, and audit logging — but does not currently have a SOC 2 report. We will not claim an attestation we have not completed, and this answer will state it plainly when that changes.
Can I delete my data?
Authenticated, auditable workflows support account deletion and member removal or erasure. Document-level self-service deletion is not currently available.
Pricing and billing
How much does Atteston cost?
$750/month. Cancel anytime. The subscription includes 5 questionnaires per month, 2,000 OCR pages per month, and 50 export runs per month.
What counts as a questionnaire?
One uploaded workbook counts once against the monthly allowance. Exports are metered separately with their own allowance, so re-exporting after edits does not consume another questionnaire.
What if I need more questionnaires in a month?
One-time questionnaire packs are available inside the product for subscribed workspaces. Unused pack questionnaires do not expire while your subscription stays active.
Is there a time-boxed trial?
No. Monthly cancellation is the risk control — the subscription starts when you do, and you can cancel from the billing portal at any time. The sample demo on the homepage shows the real product states before you pay.
View the sample demoHow do I pay?
Credit card through Stripe. Billing is monthly, and subscription management and cancellation are self-service.
Alternatives
Why not just use ChatGPT?
Depending on plan and configuration, ChatGPT can cite connected sources, retain project context, support team work, expose enterprise compliance logs, and edit spreadsheets. Atteston adds a questionnaire-specific workflow with evidence-linked review states, exact approved-answer reuse, approval-controlled export, and workbook drift checks.
Atteston vs ChatGPTWhy not an RFP tool?
RFP platforms are built for proposal collaboration and content libraries across the whole sales motion. If your specific bottleneck is security questionnaires arriving as Excel workbooks, Atteston is a specialist for exactly that job.