Understanding Safety Data Sheet Management

Get to know the concepts for SDS management process and compliance pattern.

Safety data sheet management is integrated into the value chain with:

• Checks on purchasing, sales, and delivery documents - such as sales orders, delivery notes, and stock transfer orders (examples) to safeguard, that only products are sold and shipped, for which safety data sheets are available as required for the market countries/regions. In this context, availability of safety data sheets also relates to required languages. For numerous countries there is more than one language required for providing safety data sheets.
• Automated shipment of safety data sheets, which is triggered upon posting goods issue. Automated shipment is not only relevant for initial shipments, when a customer gets the product for the first time, but also for subsequent shipments in case of updates or changes on the safety data sheet. This implies the versioning concept for safety data sheets.

The compliance pattern Safety Data Sheet Management is underlying these integrated functionalities.

Compliance Requirements (CR) have a common basic structure:

• Header - defines the CR Version with the following:
  • Compliance Pattern
  • Validity Period, Effective Date, End of Transition
  • Maintenance Status
  • Name and translations
  • Validity (worldwide, one or multiple countries)
• Regulation or Policy Details:
  • Issuing Organization
  • Official Name
  • Version Name
  • Source URL

Details, specific for the compliance pattern - here: Safety Data Sheet Management with Safety Data Sheet-Specific Details

• Required Languages for Documents
• Shipment Settings, applicable for subsequent shipments

These compliance requirements with compliance pattern Safety Data Sheet Management and assigned to the content provider SAP SE are in status released, so they are ready to use.

You can find the provided compliance requirements in the Manage Compliance Requirements Safety Data Sheets app.

You just need to activate and assign to compliance purposes.

Identify and activate compliance requirements you need for SDS management.

You can find available compliance requirements (CR) for safety data sheet management by setting the filter for compliance pattern.

Setting the filter for content provider to SAP SE narrows the results to the system embedded content.

In case there is no compliance requirement, you need for safety data sheet management for your specific country/region, you have two options:

• Apply an existing CR of a different Country/Region.

• Create your own compliance requirement.

In case you cannot find a suitable compliance requirement for safety data sheet management, you can create an own one.

In the Manage Compliance requirements Safety Data Sheets app, you start by creating the first version of a compliance requirement with the compliance pattern Safety Data Sheet Management.

You specify the validity of the compliance requirement (CR) by assigning at least one country/region.

Be aware, to engage the compliance requirement for a specific country/region, you need to apply the activated CR to the country/region in a subsequent step.

In the Safety Data Sheet-Specific Details, you specify the settings for safety data sheet shipment:

• Required Languages for Documents

• Settings for Subsequent Shipment

The functionalities for document versioning are related to the compliance pattern and are processed in the assessment of the compliance requirement.

We are now in the Activate Compliance Requirements Safety Data Sheets app. Here you find new or updated compliance requirements, which had been released after creation or revision.

Be aware, that only activated compliance requirements are available for assignment to compliance purposes.

Similar for new or updated versions of an existing compliance requirement – assessment is only possible after activation or confirmation.

In this app, you also get insights on active and inactive/deactivated compliance requirements.

Apply existing compliance requirements for SDS management to additional countries/regions.

The Apply Regulations app provides an overview on the availability of activated compliance requirements for safety data sheet management.

You can toggle between the map view and the table view.

The status for safety data sheet management is indicated:

Selling allowed - activated compliance requirement for safety data sheet management is available and is assigned to at least one compliance purpose. Selling is also allowed in case no safety data sheets are required for the country/region

Selling not allowed - no activated compliance requirement is available for this country/region. Safety data sheet management is not available, so you cannot sell products to this market.

Inconsistent - activated compliance requirement for safety data sheet management is available but is not assigned to at least one compliance purpose. Safety data sheet management is not available, so you cannot sell products to this market.

You can zoom into the map and click on a country/region to get details on safety data sheet management settings:

• Assigned compliance requirement and active version

• Required Languages

• Assignment to Compliance Purposes (not on the screenshot)

In edit-mode – here with table view – you can modify:

• The assigned compliance requirement;

• Languages required for the country/region;

• Navigate to the Manage Compliance Purposes app.

Be aware, once you have assigned a compliance requirement to a country/region, you cannot revert back to the initial status Country/Region not yet classified. The only options are:

• Assign a compliance requirement.

• Set to No safety data sheet required.

Upload safety data sheet and apply versioning for the SDS document.

When processing safety data sheet assessments in the compliance view of an unpackaged product, you make the safety data sheet document available by uploading the base safety data sheet (base SDS).

You must upload translations for all required languages as defined in the compliance requirement. Missing translations cause errors in safety data sheet checks and in the automated shipment.

For each language variant, you must apply versioning, means after the initial upload, you define, if a newly uploaded document is

• A major version, which will initiate automated subsequent SDS shipment according to the setting in the compliance requirement version;
• A minor version, which will not initiate any follow up processes.

In the overview list of compliance requirements for safety data sheet assessments, you see:

• Related country/region with

• Required languages and

• Safety Data Sheet Status

When you edit the assessment details, you define:

• Document version – Major Version and Subversion

• Generation Date

Then, you upload the safety data sheet document.

When you apply your data and uploaded document, the draft assessment is done.

When you save the assessment, the uploaded base safety data sheet is released and available for SDS shipment.

Be aware, you need to assess, this means to upload the safety data sheet document for all required languages to complete the assessment of the compliance requirement.

The overall SDS status is Missing until you complete the language assessments.

As soon as you have completed the language assessments, the overall safety data sheet status automatically changes to Available.

Check availability of safety data sheets - get an overview, for example, by product or by country/region.

The Analyze SDS Availability app allows you to get insight on your safety data sheets:

• Graphic filters help to get an overview by applying filters on the following:
  • Processing Status
  • Country/Region
• Drill down to safety data sheets for a specific product by applying compact filters and then refine, for example by:
  • Processing Status
  • Country/Region

You can export the result lists for further processing.

The Analyze SDS Availability app with the easy-to-use graphical filters provides insight by processing status and country/region.

By clicking on the filter criteria, you can change the applied values for filtering.

The compact filter in the Analyze SDS Availability app provide additional criteria. With these filters, you can for example get insight on the safety data sheets available for a specific product.

Product compliance functionalities are integrated in the value chain. We will now look at the integration of safety data sheet (SDS) checks and SDS shipment from sales order to delivery.

While following the process, we will look over the shoulders of the involved business roles:

• The internal sales representative, who creates the sales order.
• The shipping specialist, who creates the outbound delivery from the sales order, initiates picking of the product and posts goods issue.
• The product stewardship specialist, who provides safety data sheets and monitors SDS shipments.

We will see, how integrated safety data sheet checks are processed and how the product stewardship specialist gets informed in case of issues.

Whenever the internal sales representative edits a sales document, integrated safety data sheet checks are processed automatically for compliance relevant products.

This is standard system behavior, except for those sales documents which are explicitly excluded from safety data sheet integration, for SDS checks.

In case safety data sheet checks identify an issue - for example no completed safety data sheet assessment exists for the ship-to country/region, beside the message for the user, the system automatically notifies the product stewardship specialist on the issue and creates a request from logistics. As soon as this request is processed, the sales document is automatically re-checked.

Automated safety data sheet checks are also processed in the outbound delivery.

Most important here is the automated shipment of the safety data sheet upon posting goods issue.

Integration of safety data sheet management also takes care of applicable subsequent SDS shipments in case there is a new major version as defined by underlying regulations.

With the activation of the "Safety Data Sheet Management Integration into the Value Chain" business feature (scope item 3VQ) in the Customizing, the integration for safety data sheet checks is active in the following:

• Sales
• Delivery
• Purchasing

For the selected business feature "Safety Data Sheet Management Integration into Value Chain", you can exclude document types from processing safety data sheet checks.

This is currently available for:

• Sales document types
• Delivery document types

Learn about SDS recipient determination and use of SDS contact data.

Safety data sheet recipient for automated SDS shipment is derived from business partners on delivery header with priorities:

In the manage Contact Data – Safety Data Sheets app, you define the contact data, used in the automatically created cover letter for safety data sheet shipments.

There must be a set of SDS contact data available for SDS shipment, otherwise SDS shipment ends up with an error status.

You can define specific sets of contact data related to:

• Product
• Sales organization
• Target Country/region

You must maintain at least one of these three criteria for a valid set of SDS contact data.

Use a business partner record for definition of addresses.

For SDS shipment by email, make sure, there is an email address maintained in the business partner record, since this is used as sender email.

It is recommended to maintain a specific SDS Responsible contact.

Assignment of a logo, for use on the cover letter, is mandatory.

Logos are managed in SAP S/4 HANA Output Management.

It is recommended to maintain an Emergency Phone Number.

See how safety data sheet checks are integrated in sales order processing.

When entering a product, which is indicated Compliance Relevant, to a sales document (Sales Order, Quotation, Order without Charge, Scheduling Agreement), the system automatically checks safety data sheets.

If there are issues regarding safety data sheets, a launch pad notification is sent to the Product Stewardship Specialist to inform of the issues. 

Parallel to the creation of the launch pad notification, in the background, a request from logistics is automatically created in status "In Assessment" so that the sales or delivery document can be rechecked as soon as the Product Stewardship Specialist has finished the assessment. If the recheck was successful, the request from logistic is automatically closed.

The country of the ship-to party is the destination country, taken for processing of safety data sheet checks.

In the example, the country is the United States of America.

Safety data sheet status is determined from the safety data sheet assessment.

As soon as you finish adding an item line, beside other checks, product compliance checks are processed for the product and you receive a message in case of issues.

You navigate to the item details to investigate.

You find the Safety Data Sheet Status set to Warning. This means, the safety data sheet is not available.

A request from logistics was created automatically and the product stewardship specialist received a notification on the issue.

The warning status regarding safety data sheets, results also in a safety data sheet status warning on the sales order header, but there is no consequence for creation of the subsequent delivery.

Status from item level are aggregated on header level.

According to the aggregation rules, safety data sheet status on header level is set to Warning, since there is the item status Warning – Request Pending.

Experience the integration of product compliance with the value chain and automatically created requests from logistics in case checks detect issues.

If there are issues regarding safety data sheets, a launch pad notification is sent automatically to the Product Stewardship Specialist to inform about the issues. 

Now, we look at the product stewardship specialist, who is in charge, to process the automatically created request from logistics.

Parallel to the creation of the launch pad notification, in the background, a request from logistics is automatically created in status "In Assessment" so that the sales or delivery document can be rechecked as soon as the Product Stewardship Specialist has finished the assessment. If the recheck was successful, the request from logistic is automatically closed.

The product stewardship specialist receives an automatically created notification to inform on the missing safety data sheet.

Next step is to pick up the automatically created request from logistics in the Process Requests from Logistics app.

The product stewardship specialist picks up the automatically created request from logistics.

Inside the request, there is the logistic document, in this case a sales order, from which the request was initiated.

As soon as the request is processed, safety data sheet checks will automatically be reprocessed for the document.

From the request, you can directly navigate to assess the compliance requirement.

As soon as the safety data sheet assessment is completed and saved for all required languages, safety data sheet status changes to Available and the request from logistics is completed.

Observe how delivery processing triggers automated safety data sheet shipment.

As soon as the Product Stewardship Specialist has finished the missing safety data sheet assessment, the related logistic document is automatically re-checked.

The shipping specialist is processing the outbound delivery. In case there is an SDS block status, posting goods issue is not possible.

With posting goods issue, an automated safety data sheet shipment is triggered:

• Safety data sheet(s) to be shipped are available from the SDS assessment for the country/region is derived from the ship-to party.
• The safety data sheet recipient is derived from business partners assigned to the delivery.
• SDS contact data is determined for creation of the SDS cover letter.

With the shipping specialist posting goods issue, shipment of safety data sheets is automatically triggered.

Watch how you can keep track on safety data sheet shipments.

Posting goods issue triggers automated safety data sheet shipment.

The Product Stewardship Specialist monitors safety data sheet shipments to identify issues and solve them.

Then SDS shipment can be processed again.

The product stewardship specialist can check shipments in the Monitor Shipments Safety Data Sheets app.

Find the SDS shipment related to the just finished delivery.