Create a passport

Step 1 of 5

Choose a product group

The product group decides which fields the passport holds. Read the implementation guide for the group you are placing a product in first: it lists every field, says which of them are mandatory, and states the regulation each mandatory one rests on.

Step 2 of 5

Say what the product is

Identity comes first — the product’s name, its image, the trade item number printed in its barcode, and the date it was first made available. These are the fields every group shares, and they are what a reader scanning a passport sees before anything else.

Step 3 of 5

Fill in the fields the schema makes mandatory

A mandatory field is marked as mandatory in the builder, and the reference page behind it quotes the text of the regulation it was read from, with the source and the date that text was retrieved. A field that is mandatory only in some cases says which case, and the builder asks for it once you have answered the field the condition turns on.

Step 4 of 5

Publish a version

Publishing checks the passport against the schema and then writes a numbered, immutable snapshot of it. Editing a published passport does not change what a reader sees: the draft carries your changes until you publish again, and every earlier version stays readable at its own address.

Step 5 of 5

Put the carrier on the product

A published passport answers at a public web address of its own, which is what the QR code or data-matrix on the product, its label or its packaging points at. Nothing a reader sees there comes from a draft.

This track is the outline of the sequence rather than a walkthrough of each screen; the screen-by-screen guidance is still to be written.