What chemicals and substances are in your products? You often need to reach out to a list your suppliers for this information. 3E Exchange helps you automatically survey your suppliers and incorporate their data throughout your Products and Materials Library. Our supplier survey functionality is extremely customizable and has a variety of options to meet your needs. 

Table of Contents:
​Types of Surveys
​3E Exchange Starter Template
​Language Options
​Verifying your Email
​Sending Reminders
​Other Resources

The first step to creating your Supplier Survey is to choose who you are going to be sending the surveys to; this can be done in a few ways:

If you would like to choose one supplier to survey:

From your "My Supplier's" page, click into a supplier to view their page:

Step 1) Select any products associated with this supplier that you would like to include in the survey.

Step 2) Switch to the materials tab to include any materials in the survey that are already associated with this supplier

Step 3) Click on the Create Survey button to start the workflow!

If you would like to send a survey to many suppliers at once:

From your "My Supplier" page, select the checkboxes next to the supplier(s) you would like to send a survey to.

After clicking the "Create Survey" button you will be brought to the survey customization page:

From here, you can select the materials you would like to associate with a supplier:

The "+ Materials" button will open up a tab that allows you to select any Products or materials

Whereas the "+ All Suppliers' Materials" button will automatically include all products and materials associated with all suppliers in the survey.

If no products and materials are chosen, you will be sending an "open" survey. This means that the supplier will be able to add as many products and materials as they wish to send you information. However, you will still choose the questions that are required within the survey. In this next section, we will discuss how to change which questions are being asked within your survey.

To begin editing your survey, navigate to the template dropdown and select edit template:

-Change survey name

-Edit names of Products/materials

-Choose pre-made questions to include in your survey

-Include questionnaires (Pro subscription) to ask custom ancillary questions about suppliers and products/materials

-Customize reminder email messages and the frequency being sent

Use the reminders page to write a message and schedule emails to your suppliers to remind them to fill out the survey.

Use the message settings to customize the message included in the initial email to your supplier. You have the option to change the language at the top or to use a template you created earlier.

After you have configured your survey how you would like, you can save these settings so it's as easy as pressing "send" when its time to collect more information from your suppliers.

Select the "Templates" dropdown at the top of the screen and click on "Save Current Settings as a Template"; you can then overwrite another template, or make a new template.

You can change which survey template you would like to use as your default via the global settings.

We have simplified the supplier survey process for you by creating the 3E Exchange Starter Template. This template is already available in your 3E Exchange account. You can either use this template as is, or as a starting point for customizing your own survey template.
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This survey includes a general supplier questionnaire, and a BOM questionnaire that includes questions about CA Prop 65 compliance, recycled content, and internal sustainability policies. It also has default language settings to allow suppliers to choose between English, Spanish, and Chinese. 

Within the Survey functionality, you have the option to change the language that the questionnaires are available in to best suit the needs of your suppliers. Our default options are English, Spanish, and Chinese. The 3E Exchange Starter Template questionnaires are available in English, Spanish, and Chinese. For any other languages AND custom questions, you will need to translate the questions into the correct language yourself and add them into 3E Exchange. 

To change the language of the questionnaires, first navigate to the "Supply Chain" drop down and select "My Questionnaires". From here, you can either edit one of our standard questionnaires, or create your own. Once you're in a questionnaire, select the language drop down (as pictured in the image below), where you can add or remove languages. You can also see how the questions are appearing in the other languages or add in your custom questions/translations by selecting the specific language from the drop down. 

For more information on Questionnaires, visit the article here: Questionnaires. 

By default, survey request emails generated in 3E Exchange are sent using the support@3eco.com email address. Often, it can be useful to send the request directly from your email - the supplier will be able to recognize your information and can reach out to you directly with compliance questions for your requested survey.

You can verify your email address with 3E Exchange so that survey requests you send will come directly from your email. 

To verify your email, navigate to your Profile and click "Connect Microsoft Email Account" or "Sign in with Google". 

You will receive an email containing an activation link, and you will have 24 hours to verify your email address. Upon verification, new survey requests will come from your email address via Amazon Web Services, the simple email service that 3E Exchange uses.

First, click anywhere on the survey line in your "My Surveys" tab. 

Once you're in the survey, you can select "Send Reminder" at the top of the page. Or you can send the survey again.

A dialog box will then appear, allowing you to enter a message to your supplier such as the use of the survey data and expected data of completion. An email will then be sent to the supplier with your message, as well as a link to complete the survey.

You can now bulk-add reminders to outstanding surveys.

If the above instructions did not answer your questions, refer to the below resources for more information on supplier surveys. 

Survey Attestations
​Manage Surveys Using Templates
​Survey About Compliance Using 3E Exchange Standard Pages
​Accepting Supplier Responses & Asking for Revisions

Do you have a question about the workflow or issues you've found?
Use the Intercom chat service in the bottom-right of your screen to connect to a 3E Exchange Customer Success Engineer, and we'll get back to you with the information or help you need.