This Guide Covers:
Introduction
The Authenticate platform is used by businesses to manage compliance. Part of this process is establishing transparency in the supply chain through a process called product mapping.
Customers set up products and specify their components and the supplier of each component. Suppliers then receive a notification to confirm they supply that component and a request to further map that component down their own supply chain. In this way, the customer can establish provenance back to source and suppliers benefit from the deeper relationships that can be established through transparent operation with their customers.
This guide explains to suppliers what to do when they receive a product link and how to map that link to your supply chain (should you wish to).
Product Mapping Step by Step
The Product Mapping process has 5 steps, each of which is described in more detail in the following sections:
- Receiving a customer product request
- Responding to a product request
- Mapping your products supply chain
- Managing your product catalogue
- Maintaining/making changes to your product
- Adding/Removing Suppliers in your Supply Chain
1. Receiving a customer product request
| You (or the contact selected from your company by your customer) will receive an email regarding the product request. | |
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| If you are not already a member of the Authenticate platform, please follow the instructions in the email to register and receive your user credentials to access your company profile on the Authenticate platform. | |
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Once you log in, there will be a task on your homepage with the following details.
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2. Responding to a product request
You will receive a separate request for every product you supply to your customers who are using the Authenticate platform. | |
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Once you have selected ‘Respond’ on the homepage task you can choose from one of the following:
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If you do not supply the product, you can choose ‘Deny Request’ and it will allow you to give a reason. Rejecting a request will notify the customer along with the reason that you have stated from the drop-down options. | |
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If you are a first-time user, your product will not yet exist, and you will need to select ‘Create a New Product’ you can then either pre-populate the details using the details from your customer's request or simply enter your own. | |
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If you have already created the exact product/supply chain in your product catalogue, you can accept this against an existing product line by selecting from the dropdown. This will share the details of this product and the existing supply chain with your customer. |
3. Mapping your product supply chain
Now that you have an accepted product from your customer, the next task is to ‘map your supply chain’. You can choose to do this immediately after accepting the product but if you choose to ‘Map later’ a task will be created on your homepage to map your supply chain. | |
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| When you choose to map your suppliers, you will be presented with the following form: | |
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To map your product, start typing the name of your supplier(s) in the supplier box. If this supplier does not yet exist on the Authenticate Platform, you can create the company with basic information by selecting ‘Add a new company to Authenticate’. When a new company is created they will be sent an email to tell them they have been added to the Authenticate Platform inviting them to join The ‘Product Name’ and ‘Product Reference’ are the details of the product supplied to you by your direct supplier. If you have multiple suppliers of the same product or multi-components/ingredients, select ‘Add another supplier/component’ to map to multiple businesses. If you know your direct supplier’s exact site that you source your products from, select from the existing list of declared sites. (Your direct suppliers will need to confirm this when they accept your link request) Once you have mapped your product, you can then start to see the supply chain which you can access via your product catalogue. Your direct suppliers will receive a product request email and a task on their homepage to complete the request you have sent | |
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If you are unable to map your supply chain for any of the following reasons:
Select the ‘I do not want to map’ when responding to the task on your homepage and select from the options provided. This will notify your customer of your response | |
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4. Managing your product catalogue
Your product catalogue is a way for you to organize and store your product information. With the ability to create category folders a sub-folders, you can organize this in whatever way you wish. Select an image from the image folder or add any image of your own to the categories/sub-categories. | |
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If you wish to move products/supply chains and re-organise your product catalogue, simply select the ‘move product’ icon and select the catalogue you wish to move this (or multiple) products to. | |
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5. Maintaining/Making Changes to your product
Once you have accepted your customer's product request and mapped it to your supply chain, any changes to your product name/reference and supply chain need to be maintained in the product area. To change your product name, select the edit pencil icon on the product chain/or catalogue. | |
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If you have changed your site that the product comes from or simply need to add another site used, amend this in the ‘associated sites’ area. |
6. Adding/Removing Suppliers in your Supply Chain
From your product Catalogue, you can access the supply chain for any of your products. Simply select the product that you wish to view, then from the ‘Product Line Details’ Panel that appears select the ‘View supply Chain’ button which will take you to the following screen. | |
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| To add a Direct Supplier, ensure you have your company selected in the supply chain and click the ‘Add Supplier’ button from the profile on the right of the page. This will open the following form. | |
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| To remove a supplier, select the supplier you wish to remove from the supply chain and then click the ‘More Actions’ link on the profile. This will give you the option to either ‘Delete supplier’ (where the link has already been accepted but your supplier) or ‘Rescind Supplier’ (where the link to your supplier is still pending). | |
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Summary
In this guide, you have learnt how to accept a product request from your customers, map your product supply chain and organize your products in the catalogue.
You should now be able to action all the tasks from your customers for product requests and build your supply chain to provide transparency to your customers.
General FAQ’s
Who can see my supply chain?
Once you have accepted the product request, your customers will be able to see the supply chain of your direct/indirect suppliers. You can see fully down the chain, but you only have visibility of the customer above you one level up. Only those companies that you have accepted a product link from can see your supply chain.
I know my full supply chain; can I map this to my indirect suppliers?
You are only able to map to your direct suppliers. This is so that we can capture self-declared and confirmed supply chain information.
I have 1000s of suppliers for 1 product, this will take me ages!?
If you have lots of suppliers for 1 product, please do not hesitate to contact Authenticate who may be able to help you action this as efficiently as possible.
Contact Information
If you have any difficulties with the product specification module or any other part of the authenticate platform, please contact your account manager or email platform-support@authenticateis.com