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Import and Extract Material Data from an SDS/MSDS
Import and Extract Material Data from an SDS/MSDS

Have a detailed SDS for a material? Use it to create your initial material data and then survey and report from that information.

Evelyn Ritter avatar
Written by Evelyn Ritter
Updated over a week ago

Safety Data Sheets (SDS) are often the first line of communication for companies that share what chemicals are in their products. Because of that, we made sure 3E Exchange can both store those forms and extract the included data into the material information. You can also do this in bulk by selecting more than one SDS at a time!

When you import your MSDS or SDS, 3E Exchange will read it and fill in any available BOM information from the MSDS automatically. Read below on how to use this feature. 

Import a new material/product from an SDS

If you are importing this product/material information for the first time, go ahead and import the data straight from the MSDS when you make your product/material. First, select the "My Products" or "My Materials" tab, then select the "Import Data" workflow and select either Single Product (SDS) or Single Material (SDS). If you are not sure which to select, click the "Help me decide..." button for more information.

Next, attach the SDS document and enter the name for your new product/material. We suggest using the 3E Exchange Standard Auto-calculations. You can learn more about our auto-calculation modes here

Next, 3E Exchange will read what it can from the file and fill out the information about that material from the SDS. For my example, pictured below is the information it pulled from the SDS sheet. You can change/adjust chemical information on this page, or you can wait until the next step. Once you're satisfied, you can select "Save & Next" (don't worry, you can still make changes on the next page).

Our platform includes AI-driven confidence results; after importing an SDS, each field will include a QA Quality level to indicate the confidence level of the information the AI was able to pull. We still recommend checking all sections for accuracy of data, however this section should be able to help when importing your SDS's.

On this page, you will see the SDS sheet that you uploaded.

All of your product and material in records in Exchange can now store multiple SDSs per record. Now collect, import, or instantly download from the Passport Library any number of versions of SDSs of your products and materials to be available in one place. 3E Exchange allows leveraging the ingredient data from multiple SDSs by adding respective ingredients to the BOM view for easy analysis.

However, the Ingredient data will not automatically appear in the BOM view. You need to navigate to the "Safety Data Sheet" summary data page on the menu to access the SDSs related to that record and then click on "Import to BOM" under Section 3 of the SDS fields:

This will add the Ingredient data from the selected SDS to your Product or Material BOM view:

You can decide which SDS to use for filling in the BOM ingredient data in case you have uploaded more than 1 SDS for a Product or a Material.

Import SDS in Bulk

Importing materials using the SDS Bulk Import is almost identical to the process listed out above, with a few minor changes.


Start by selecting the "Import Data" workflow from your library and "SDS Library" from the drop-down.

Next, select the SDS files you wish to import. We suggest using the 3E Exchange Standard Auto-calculations. You can learn more about our auto-calculation modes here.

Once your SDS' have been imported, you will be directed to a page similar to the one below, listing the SDS' and their QA status. You can revisit this page at any time and QA the SDS when it is convenient for you.

To begin the QA process, start by selecting the first SDS listed, or whichever one you would like to start with.

During the QA process, you will be able to see the SDS you uploaded alongside the data fields. Here you can double-check the information to ensure the data is high quality and accurate. Our AI has confidence levels indicated next to each section to aid in reviewing SDS imports.

Once you're done with one SDS, you can select "Save & Next" to move onto the next. Once you're done with all of the sheets, your SDS Library page will look just like the one listed above, but with the status set as "Completed".

It's as simple as that! You can revisit your uploads at anytime by navigating back to the "Import tab".

Add material data from an SDS to an existing material

Now, let's say you have an existing material that you would like to upload an MSDS to replace any data in the material. 

First, view that material's BOM from your Materials library by clicking on the material name. 

Once you are in the material BOM, first confirm that you are alright to replace all the data in this BOM. Importing SDS data will replace all existing content data in the material (Read below to strictly store the SDS without replacing the content information). Select the "Import Data" workflow and select "BOM Data (SDS)", which will take you through the same SDS import workflow as above.

If you want to simply store the SDS with the material information, select the "Documents" from the navigation panel and add the file under "SDS File."

3E Exchange allows you to collect, import, and add up to 100 SDSs to any record.

If you're interested in sending a supplier survey with the information you've just added to 3E Exchange, visit the following article. 

Getting Help

If you have questions about using 3E Exchange or the material covered in this help article, reach out in chat in the bottom right-hand corner or email support@3eco.com.

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