Most of the data a passport needs sits with your suppliers. There are two ways to get it, and both avoid a spreadsheet arriving by email.
Option one, a partner login
A partner gets a login that reaches only the products you grant them, and only the tabs their role allows.
- Open Partners and choose Grant Partner Access.
- Pick the partner from your library, or add it with New Supplier.
- Enter the login email, tick the role and grant access to specific purchase orders, styles or batches.
- Choose Grant and Invite to send the invitation by email.
They set their own password and see a stripped-down view: the products in their grant, the fields their role can edit, and nothing else. No pricing, no other suppliers, no other orders.
One person can represent several partners, such as a trading-company contact who handles two factories. Grant the second partner to the same email: the login is linked without a new invitation, and the partner picks who they are acting for under your organization name in the sidebar.
If an invitation does not arrive, find the login's row on the Partners page: the copy icon copies the invite link to send yourself, and the send icon sends the email again.
The roles
Economic Operator and Business Partner see every tab, with Basics read-only.
Assembly Factory also sees every tab, with Basics read-only, and fills in composition, trims and care.
Packaging Supplier sees only Basics (read-only, for context), Packaging and Missing Data.
Whatever the role, a partner can never publish. They can submit a product for approval, which notifies you to review it.
Option two, a data request
For suppliers who will not log in to anything, send a data request: open Libraries, choose Collect Data on the supplier and pick Request Data. Seamdex builds an Excel workbook tailored to what that supplier does, with a sheet for certificates, one for materials if they make fabric or yarn, one for packaging items if they supply packaging, and an Instructions sheet. Send it from Seamdex with a message, or download it and attach it yourself. Certificates you already hold are pre-filled.
When the file comes back, choose Upload Returned File. Renewed certificates keep their record, new ones are added, materials and packaging items land on the supplier, and the same file uploaded twice never creates duplicates. Certificate PDFs and Declarations of Conformity arrive as attachments to the reply; add them to the supplier record by hand. The workbook is documented for your suppliers in Filling in a data request; building your library from a list is the supplier import reference.
Certificates
Certificates are records, not attachments: a number, an issuing body, a scope and an expiry date. Recorded that way, an expiring certificate can warn you before it lapses rather than after.
You get a weekly alert for certificates expiring soon.
Revoking access
Revoke a grant at any time from the Partners view. The access stops immediately. The data they contributed stays, because it is your product record. Delete removes the partner and its revoked logins from the page for good, and can take the supplier record in the Library with it; the Activity log keeps the history.
What partners see about each other
Nothing. A partner sees only their own grant. Two suppliers working on the same garment cannot see each other's data.
