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FAQs - Sustainability Assessment

For general information, registration, login and passwords: Please also take a look at the FAQs for SAP Product Stewardship Network.

General

What are sustainability assessments?

Sustainability assessments are performed to measure the sustainability performance of a supplier base. The assessments are based on product category-specific surveys. A survey consists of one questionnaire, which is related to exactly one category. A survey consists of one questionnaire which is related to exactly one category, additional guidance to each question und related documents to the questionnaire.

How were the questions of the surveys developed?

The questions were developed by The Sustainability Consortium (TSC), a multi-stakeholder collaboration. Working groups assessed environmental and social impacts and opportunities for improvement for broad categories of products. Retailers participated in this process along with leading nongovernmental organizations and global companies.

What is The Sustainability Consortium?

The Sustainability Consortium (TSC) is an independent organization building a scientific foundation to drive sustainability improvements in consumer products. Through TSC, a diverse group of global academic, business and nongovernmental leaders develop tools and science-based measurement reporting systems to transform products and supply chains in a scalable, transparent process.

Registration & System Access

How do I register for SAP Product Stewardship Network?

There are two starting points for a registration:
a) If you have been invited by a customer to join SAP Product Stewardship Network via an email invitation from PSN, simply use the registration link in the email and follow the registration steps. You will automatically be connected to the company that has invited you to join the network.
b) If you have not received an email invitation from PSN, you can register by opening the registration page here and follow the registration steps. You will have no pre-established connections to business partners.
Read more about the Registration Process here . Or visit the Product Stewardship Network FAQs.

During registration I am asked to choose a scenario. Which scenario should I choose?

Should you be asked to choose a scenario, select Sustainabilty Assessment.

I registered for the wrong scenario. How can I change it?

You can simply add a new scenario by going to the Choose Scenario Quick Activity on the left side of the screen. By activating the desired scenario, this scenario is added to your account and you can switch to it via the Choose Scenario Quick Activity whenever you wish.


Company Profile

How can I edit my company profile?

To edit your company data, click on the company name on top of the screen. Your company profile opens. Here you can add and change data by clicking Edit in the specific area you want to change. Don´t forget to save your changes.

How can I upload a logo to my company profile?

To upload a company logo, click on the company name at the top of the screen. In the Company Information area on the left-hand side select Edit. You will then be able to upload a logo. Don´t forget to save your changes.

How can I change my contact information?

To edit your contact information, click on your name at the top of the screen. In the Contact Information area you can change your data. Don´t forget to save your changes.
Please note: Although this changes the contact information displayed in your account, it does not change your user name or the registered email address.
If you want to change the main contact person that is displayed for your company account, please open the company profile by clicking the company name on top of the screen. In the Contact Information area on the left-hand side, click Edit and choose the new person to be the main contact.


Build Your Network

Why do I need to be connected to my customers or suppliers?

Being connected is a prerequisite for exchanging data. A customer, for example, can only send a survey to his suppliers if these suppliers are connected. A supplier can only receive a survey from a customer if he is connected to that specific customer.

How do I see if I am connected to a specific company?

There are different ways to see if you are connected to a company. For both ways you need go to the work center Network. In the All Companies tab you can set the filter Connection Status to Connected. All companies that are connected to you, whether they are suppliers or customers, are listed here. Additionally, customers connected to you are listed under My Customers and suppliers connected to you are listed under My Suppliers. You can also filter for suppliers and customers to whom you sent a request (Requests) and for those which you have uploaded but which haven't been invited yet (Pending Suppliers).

Where can I see if someone has sent me a connection request?

In the work center Home under Overview, you will find a tile Customers and another tile Suppliers with the number of connection requests you received as soon as you have received a connection request from a customer/supplier. If you click on the tile you will see a list of connection requests. Click on a request to confirm or reject it. Additionally, you receive a notification in your inbox for every connection request that was sent to you. Your inbox can be accessed by clicking on the tile Notifications.

How can I connect to someone?

If you did not register based on an email invitation from one of your suppliers or customers, you do not have any connection on SAP Product Stewardship Network. But you can easily connect to your customers and suppliers. Either you can click on Build Your Network under Overview or go to Network and All Companies. Here you can search the respective customer or supplier you wish to connect to. Then click on Actions and choose Add as Customer for your customer or Add as Supplier for your supplier.

Why is there no tile Build Your Network on my Overview tab?

If you are already connected to at least one company, the tile does not appear anymore. In order to connect to another company, please follow these instructions: go to Network and All Companies, search the respective company and add it as supplier or customer.


Sustainability Assessments

What types of organizations should participate in the survey?

Whether large or small, companies that want to evaluate their own and their supply chain’s sustainability efforts can participate in the Sustainability assessment surveys. These questionnaires were designed to help better understand how sustainable a company performs its business on its own and with others, along with any improvements that can be made.

What does the survey cover?

The Sustainability Assessment scenario currently offers 93 product categories which belong to different toolkits with specific KPI’s. Each survey is based on one of these toolkits and the coverage of a survey therefore highly depends on which toolkit it is based on. To learn more about the content of a survey you received, please check the KPI document that is attached to each corresponding toolkit.

How are the survey scored? Where can I see how many points each question is worth?

  • Each question is weighed equally.
  • Respondents can only select one of the lettered response options. When certain response options are selected, additional entry options may become available, primarily to enter a percentage value related to the question. See the question below.
  • For some questions, “Not applicable” responses are allowed without penalty when it’s possible that a question is not relevant for a supplier or their supply chain.
  • Lettered response options are laddered so that response option “B” is worth more points than “A”, “C” is worth more points than “B”, and so on.
  • In general, a question’s value is divided equally across the responses. If there are six possible multiple-choice responses, for example, the response values would be 0, 0.20, 0.40, 0.60, 0.80, or 1.00.

How are multiple-choice questions that contain a nested percentage option scored?

In some questions, once you answer “D”, for example, the survey asks you the percentage of your supply chain that meets the criteria described in “D”. You receive credit for both the underlying best practice and the percentage of your supply meeting this. In these cases, the majority of the question’s available value is distributed across the range of percentage response values available in the final response option. An example with response options A to D follows, where D allows a percentage to be added: Scoring:
  • A = 0.
  • B = 0.167 (1/6)
  • C = 0.333 (1/3)
  • D/D1 = 0.333 + (0.667 x NN%)

How much does participation in a survey cost?

A Basic Account on SAPs Product Stewardship Network is free. However in order to complete a survey you will need to buy a TSC Product Sustainability Toolkit® License. To find out which license is best for you and how much they cost please visit Activating and Buying Toolkits.

How will this help make my business more successful?

Companies and their customers take more and more interest in their suppliers’ sustainability. The transparency of your production ensured via the participation in a survey on the Sustainability Assessment Scenario helps them to identify your strengths and weaknesses in this field and will help you to become more sustainable with will strengthen your connection to your customer. It will also help you to set yourself apart from other not as sustainable suppliers and can therefore make you more successful in the future.

There is a Work With Suppliers and a Work With Customers work center. What are these work centers for?

These “postboxes” correspond to the upstream (suppliers) and downstream (customers) portion of your supply chain. When working on surveys for your customers, use the Work With Customers work center, when working on surveys for your suppliers, use the Work With Suppliers work center.

I can only see the Work With Suppliers / Work With Customers work center. How can I see both work centers?

The work centers are displayed role-specific. You may see only one of the work centers, because you may have been invited by another company as supplier or as customer. As a supplier you only see the Work With Customers work center, as a customer you only see the Work With Suppliers work center. If you want to see both, simply open your company profile by clicking on the company name at the top of the screen, navigate to Account & Users, mark your user, click Edit and mark the missing check box Supplier Contact/Customer Contact. Next time you log in, changes will become effective and both work centers will be displayed to you.

Where can I see the surveys I need to respond to?

On the Overview screen different tiles are displayed, which give you access to most important transactions. Should you have received one or more surveys, a tile Take Surveys is displayed. Once you click on it, you will see a list of surveys that have been sent to you.


How do I take surveys received from customers?

As a supplier, you receive product category-specific surveys from your customers to assess and track your performance on critical sustainability issues. You are able to take surveys if you have purchased and activated the TSC® Product Sustainability Toolkit for the category to which the survey applies.To take a survey, proceed as follows:

  1. Go to the Overview tab of the Home work center and click Take Surveys, or go to the Take Surveys tab of the Work with Customers work center.
  2. Click the survey you want to answer. If you are not yet connected with the customer that has sent you the survey, click Confirm in the dialog box that appears. If you have not yet activated the Toolkit for the survey you want to answer, click Activate Toolkit in the dialog box that appears.
  3. Review the KPI (Key Performance Indicators) and CSP (Category Sustainability Profiles) documents available under Additional Information.
  4. Begin answering questions in the survey. For each question, additional guidance regarding the KPI is available.
  5. If you have not answered all the questions and want to save and close the survey, click Close. If you have answered all questions and are ready to submit the survey, click Submit... in the dialog box that appears. If you have answered all questions and are not yet ready to submit the survey, click Submit Later in the dialog box.
  6. If you have clicked Submit..., a dialog box appears. In this dialog box, select the Confirm checkbox and enter the requested information.
  7. Click Sign and Submit and close the Confirmation dialog box. Your supplier scorecard opens automatically.

I received a survey which does not apply to my products, what shall I do?


If you have received a survey, which does not apply to your products you can decline it. Open the survey and click Decline Survey. Your customer will be informed about the rejection and will then decide whether to resend or withdraw the survey. If he resends the survey, he expects you to complete it, you cannot decline the survey a second time.

You can search for surveys, which better suit your products. To do so, go to Work With Customers --> Take surveys. Here all surveys that have been sent to you are listed. Right on top of the list you can click Find Surveys and enter a search term.

Can I reopen a survey after I submitted it?

Yes. If you want to change your answers to a survey after you have submitted it but before it expires, proceed as follows:

  1. On the survey, click Reopen.
  2. In the dialog box that appears, click OK.
  3. Proceed to change your answers.
  4. When you are ready to submit your survey again, click Submit and repeat the confirmation procedure.

Please note: Even if you had submitted the survey previously, you must submit it again before it expires in order for the customer to receive it.

I am a supplier. How do I view my scorecards?

If you are a supplier, you can view a supplier scorecard that indicates your score and improvement potential for each key performance indicator (KPI) as well as how you rank against other suppliers for a particular survey. You can view your supplier scorecard in theTake Surveys tab of the Work with Customers work center by clicking Open Scorecard for the desired survey.

The scorecard contains the following information:

  • Information: The customer name, survey name, questionnaire name, supplier due date, and a message from the customer, if available
  • Score: Your survey score based on your answers. If you are using the Professional or Enterprise edition, you can also view your rank against other participating suppliers who have submitted the survey as well as the average score of all participating suppliers who have submitted the survey.
  • Supplier Ranking: If you are using the Professional or Enterprise edition, you can view a ranking of survey participants, including the four suppliers ranked higher and the four suppliers ranked lower than your company and their scores. The names of the other suppliers are kept anonymous. The supplier ranking is available only if 5 or more suppliers have submitted the survey.

How do I print a scorecard once I submitted a survey?

Please note: Printing is fully supported only in Google Chrome (latest version). Other browsers supported by SAP Product Stewardship Network provide only limited print functionality. To access supplier scorecards, you must be either a customer using the Professional or Enterprise edition of SAP Product Stewardship Network or a supplier.

To print a supplier scorecard, proceed as follows:

  1. Open the desired supplier scorecard in one of the following ways:
    • If you are a supplier, open the scorecard for the desired survey in the in the Take Surveys tab of theWork with Customers work center.
    • If you are a customer using the Professional or Enterprise edition, open the desired survey in the Surveys tab of the Work with Suppliers work center, and click Open Scorecard for the desired supplier.
  2. Click Print at the bottom of the scorecard.
  3. Ensure that the following settings are made:
    • The option for headers and footers is disabled.
    • The option for background colors and images is enabled.
  4. Make other settings as desired and proceed to print the document.

When I try to open a questionnaire, the system displays a message saying I have no licenses left. What does that mean?

A questionnaire is part of a TSC ® Product Sustainability Toolkit. To be able to access a questionnaire you need to purchase a license for a TSC ® Product Sustainability Toolkit. To do so, click Open SAP Online Store and follow the steps. After you have purchased licenses, your account will be updated shortly. You will receive a confirmation email indicating your account has been updated. Now you can log on to SAP Product Stewardship Network, open the survey, activate the corresponding toolkit and access the questionnaire.

When creating a survey, I want to choose a questionnaire, but the dropdown box is empty.

The dropdown box is empty if you have not yet activated a TSC ® Product Sustainability Toolkit. Go to Content Library, choose the category you want to use and click on Activate. Please note that you need to have licenses left in order to activate a toolkit.


Buying TSC® Product Sustainability Toolkits

What are TSC ® Product Sustainability Toolkits?

A TSC ® Product Sustainability Toolkit provides the items you need to send out or take a survey: questionnaires, a scoring model, and additional help texts and suggestions for improvement. Each Toolkit is specific to one product category, for example, baby wipes or greeting cards.

Where can I buy TSC ® Product Sustainability Toolkits licenses?

You can buy TSC ® Product Sustainability Toolkits in the SAP Store.


Community

What is the SAP Product Stewardship Network community (SCN)?

The SAP Product Stewardship Network community is the main support channel. Here a user can find documentation, video tutorials, etc.
It is a separate platform and requires a separate user registration.

I cannot post my questions to the community. Why is that?

In order to post questions in the community you need to have a registered account in the community and be logged in.

How can I register on the community?

Registering on the SCN community is quick and easy. All you need is a valid email address. Just click Register at the top of this page.
  • Note that email addresses can be used only once. Also, we allow only one account per person.
  • During the registration process, the system will ask you to verify your email.


Inbox & Notifications

Where can I find my inbox?

Your inbox is available in the Home work center.

Notifications remain in the inbox after I have read them. How can I delete them?

It is correct that notifications remain in the Home work center after you have read them. They will not be deleted automatically. To remove notifications, click on the Delete notification button for the corresponding notification.

Can I also receive email notifications?

Yes, to receive email notifications, click on your user name at the top of the screen. Here you can select how frequently you want to receive e-mail updates about activity on SAP Product Stewardship Network. Note that the notification e-mail will be sent only if updates exist, to avoid spamming.
December 18, 2014 at 17:04 PM
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