To effectively use the various assessment tools in Elentra ME some initial setup is required.
For the Assessment & Evaluation module specifically, a staff:admin or medtech:admin will need to configure assessment response categories in System Settings. For information about configuring assessment response categories (required to build scales), please see the System Setup help section. A medtech:admin will have to configure scales through Admin > Assessment & Evaluation (see next section).
Note that assessment characteristics (in system settings), are used in the the Gradebook module to define assessment types like written exam, test, quiz, project, etc. You do not need to build a list of assessment characteristics to use the Assessment & Evaluation module.