This Guide Covers:

Introduction


Welcome to Authenticate, the global leader in supply chain transparency and collaboration for the food industry. 

The Authenticate platform securely connects customers and suppliers enabling them to share information, reducing the cost of compliance. 


As a supplier, Authenticate enables you to easily respond to customer requests as well as maintain core information about your business and products that you can share with multiple customers. 

Before we start, it is useful to define a few concepts: 


Company Profile

Every business on the Authenticate platform has a company profile – this contains basic public domain information – such as company address, your company's operating sites (these are owned by your company and not your suppliers), key contacts, and certification details. 


****** DO NOT add your suppliers to your Company Profile ******

Suppliers should be added when mapping your supply chains


Your company profile can be seen by any user of the Authenticate platform and should be kept up to date - but should only contain information you are happy to be shared publicly. 


Supply chain maps

You may have received product links and mapping requests from one or more of your customers. Product mapping is the way that Authenticate creates visibility of a supply chain, the customer specifies their Tier 1 suppliers that provide a product, Tier 1 suppliers then specify any Tier 2 suppliers and so on. The end customer can see the full supply chain map. Members of the supply chain can only see the level above and the level below them. Supply chains are NEVER public and only customers with whom you share product information can see the supply chain. 

When mapping a supply chain you can search the authenticate directory to find and add suppliers to your product supply chains, if you cannot find a specific supplier on our directory it is at this point you will be able to create them. 


Adding Suppliers: DO NOT add suppliers to your company profile. To add suppliers either click the respond link as part of a customer request from the homepage as part of accepting the link request you can follow the steps to select/create your product and then map to add your suppliers at the same time OR if not responding to a customer request you can navigate to your product catalogue, create a product if one doesn't exist and from the product supply chain page you can add suppliers.


Assessments

Customers may also send you assessments to complete – like physical audits, assessments are a series of questions you need to respond to. Answers to assessments can only be seen by the company requesting the assessment from you. 


Supplier Manager

Separate from supply chain maps, Supplier Manager allows you to manage your own suppliers. By building custom supplier lists you can check certification status, send assessments, and set risk scores, you can do all this and so much more. Once registered on the platform you can try Supplier Manager for FREE


First Login Steps 


1.When you first log on, you will be asked to read and accept the terms and conditions, these set out that we will keep your data confidential and that you remain the owner of your data. Click the read and accept button to proceed.


2.In the popup window, click the “I have read the above terms and conditions box and click Accept You have now completed your first login.


Complete your basic company profile 


Your Company Profile is information about your company and operating sites owned by your company. 

It is important that you complete your company profile and keep it up to date – this means customers will need to ask you for less information.


Follow these simple steps to complete your Company's Profile:


1.Click the “pencil” icon to edit your company information.


2.Complete all the relevant details for your business and select save.


3.To View your company profile, select ‘Company Profile’ under the settings menu in the left-hand navigation.


4.Add site details. You now need to fill in the details for your sites. One site will have been created automatically when your company profile was created. You can edit this site to add more details or add new sites for each of your operational facilities.

****** DO NOT add your suppliers to your Company Profile ******

Suppliers should be added when mapping your supply chains


5.After clicking edit site, or add site, fill in the relevant information. If the site you are adding g is NOT a manufacturing site make sure you tick “this is a non-production site”. (NB If you are an agent or broker, do not check this box for sites you wish your customers to be able to link to)


Adding Contacts


The final step of building your profile is to add public contacts for your company. This is important so if any customer wants to contact you, they know who to contact. 


Your contacts are created as users, and you can choose whether they have access to log on. In order to protect peoples’ data, their information will only be shown in the profile if you explicitly make them ‘Visible on Authenticate’.


Simply follow these two steps:


1.Select the contacts tab in your company profile, then select manage


2.Select ‘Add New User’ and enter the details for the contact. * If you do NOT want the user to have access to Authenticate Select ‘No’ next to ‘User can login’ Otherwise select ‘Yes’ and set Roles for them. * For the contact to be public on your company profile make sure you select ‘Yes’ next to ‘Visible on Authenticate’.


Contacts will be shown in a business card-style view on the company profile. Please repeat the process for each contact you want to be seen. 


*** Remember to review your public contacts regularly and ensure they are kept up to date. ***

Global Directory 


Your completed profile will now be visible in the global directory of over 35,000 food businesses, remember to keep your profile up to date with any changes to sites, certifications or contact details. 

You can find the directory on the main menu – feel free to browse around. 


Your profile will be seen by other members of Authenticate – including your customers, so it is important that the data is accurate.

What to do Next


Now you have completed your profile you will probably have some requests from your customers on your home page to map products or complete assessments 

Read the “Product Mapping Step by Step Guide” and the “Assessments Step by Step Guide” for further information