Creating New Draft EPDs
Curators and Admins can create new draft EPDs, attach a workflow to each one, and work on them until they are ready to publish. Draft EPDs are visible only to those working on them (and Admins) until they are Published (and thus become public EPDs).
To create a new Draft EPD, open Create & Edit EPDs from the sidebar and select Create Draft EPD.
Next, you will need to select the material category. The Category controls the declared unit type, material specs and other properties of the EPD. Brows the category tree or start typing in the box at the top. Mousing over a category label brings up a description. Be as specific as possible.
Click 'Next'.
The next step is to select the correct Product Category Rules, Program Operator, and Workflow.
Once you start typing the name of a PCR or Program Operator, options will appear in the dropdown. By default, only the most recent version of a PCRs applicable to the current category will be shown, but you can override that by selecting the 'More...' options at the bottom.
A draft EPD should be associated with a Workflow, which is a checklist of the tasks required to fill out, verify, and publish it. Assigning people to parts of the Workflow is also how we give them edit access to the draft EPD.
'Select the workflow to use. A workflow is a Workflows configured for the PCR or Program Operator will appear first; if you don't know, select the default, and then Next.
Creating the Draft EPD Record
You are now at a screen for doing an initial input of the draft EPD. Draft EPDs are by definition not complete, so not all fields will need to be entered in order to create the initial draft; any value is changeable up until the point we publish the EPD. At a minimum, enter the product name and manufacturer, otherwise it can be hard to find the EPD to reopen it. You can now Create the EPD, which will enter it into the database.
Organizing EPD Entry with the Workflow Task List
To the right of the EPD entry form, you will see the Workflow Task List, which is a set of checklists for tasks to complete the EPD. All the checklists are editable, so you can customize as necessary. As the creator, you are assigned the first task. When all the checklists are complete, it will become possible to publish the EPD.
Each Checklist has:
A Workflow State, which controls some aspects of the UI (to avoid spamming the user with warnings early on). You can only publish an EPD from the Publication Review state.
An Assignee. This person will be alerted when their part of the job becomes active, and gets edit rights to the draft EPD until their checklist is complete.
A due date, which controls when reminders will be sent. It gets set when the checklist becomes active (based on the task duration in the workflow template) but can be edited.
A list of tasks, each of which starts in the 'To Do' state. The Assignee can set each one to N/A or Done. When all tasks are either N/A or Done, the assignee can advance the workflow to the next checklist, which will alert the assignee of that checklist.
Optional comments on each task. These are useful for adding explanations. But you can also return a previous task to the 'To Do' state and add a comment about what needs fixing. If you need to attach a document, put it in secure cloud storage (e.g. Sharepoint, Box) and add a hyperlink to the comment (so that only authorized people can see the document).
As the assignee:
Complete or mark N/A each task. Add the reason it's N/A as a comment.
If previous tasks need revision (e.g. you need more data, or more explanation) change the corresponding task in the past to 'ToDo' and note any problems or changes required in comments. Note that you can add a link to an external documents - you do not need to put everything in the comment section.
Advance the workflow to the next state.
The workflow, including the tasks and comments, are preserved as a record after publication but are not published.
Excel Integration
For projects set up with Excel/Sharepoint data entry for the LCA or the Datasheet and/or automated PDF generation, see the Internal documentation.
Pasting Results
Impact, Resource Use, and Waste flows in tabular form can be pasted in using the Paste From Excel function (this also works from Google Sheets and many other kinds of tabular data).
openLCA Integration
openLCA 2 added a new data object within its software called EPDs and supports two-way transfer of data between openLCA and EC3. You can learn more about how to create EPDs in openLCA here. The idea is to create an LCA model, save results, and easily push them to the openEPD database in draft form. Once additional information is added in openEPD (or EC3), the EPD can be published. This means the data is created and transfered digitally all the way, no need for creating PDFs as an intermediate step (although you can create PDFs using the digital EPD).
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