An SDS (Material Safety Data Sheet) is a document describing a product and its various properties: physical properties, chemical ingredients, hazards associated with handling the product, and more. This document is usually composed and released by the product's manufacturer.
Your system can contain many SDSs, both archived (outdated revisions) and active (current revisions); each active SDS typically represents a product used at your company. When you find and view an SDS, you can not only read the original SDS document, but also view additional data pertaining to the product's usage at your company: the sites (and locations within each site) where the product is used or stored, hazard information specific to each site, extra documents providing supplementary data, and much more. Users with administrative permissions can also edit this data; in order to keep SDS searches, reports, and other operations yielding accurate results, administrative users must keep an SDS's data up to date.
Comply Plus provides a number of different tools for searching your SDS database. When searching your system for a specific SDS, see Searching for SDSs for details on these tools.
When you find the SDS you seek and open it, this opens the SDS Home page. See below for details on this page and the features it offers.
The SDS Home page is the first page you see when you open an SDS. This page shows a general overview of the SDS and serves as a hub where you can access every detail of the SDS's associated data. This page includes the following sections:
● Identification: The blue top bar
shows the SDS’s basic identifying data: manufacturer, common name, document
ID, Corporate (
) internal ID, site (
)
internal ID (which appears only when you are logged in at a local site),
revision date, language, and format. If the SDS has been archived—locally
or at Corporate—the date of that archiving is shown here. If the SDS has
replaced or been replaced by another SDS, this area also shows a link
to the SDS’s Revision
History.
● SDS Contents/Files: The beige section on the left of this page shows all SDS files (text or images files of the SDS's content)uploaded to the SDS. These are shown under one or more of the following headings:
● SDS Contents: This heading appears if the SDS has a primary text (.TXT) file, which is shown in full at the bottom of the SDS Home page. If this file has defined section headers, these headers are listed. Click one to jump to that section in the text. with defined (a list of links to each section of the SDS text) and links to any text or image files that the SDS may have instead of, or in addition to, a primary text file.
● Additional SDS Files: This heading appears if the SDS has other SDS files in addition to its primary text file. Click a file to open it.
● SDS Files: This heading appears if the SDS has no primary text file, but does have other SDS files. Click a file to open it.
● No SDS File Available: Indicates the SDS has no SDS files.
Note: For details on managing the SDS files of an SDS, see SDS Files.
● Additional Details: This section shows the following:
● The product’s hazard ratings (shown in NFPA, HMIS, and/or HMIS III pictograms (depending on administrative settings; see Hiding/Showing Hazard Ratings) and hazard classifications, which can include additional pictograms, codes, and other indicators of specific hazards or safety practices. These are selected on the SDS’s Hazards page. Here you can:
● Mouse-over a hazard classification for more details.
● Click the More… link to read full details on every hazard rating and classification appearing on the page.
Note: If any
assigned hazard classification is missing a required user entry, it shows
a warning (
)
icon. When you click More..., the classification with the missing
entry is displayed in red. For details on correcting a missing hazard
classification entry, see Editing
SDS Hazard Classifications.
● The SDS’s various
types of indexed data, each of which is discussed in the topics listed
below. The SDS has data recorded for each data type showing an information
(
) icon.
To open and view any of these SDS data types, click its expand (
) icon.
● SDS Toolbar: This toolbar shows icons that let you perform operations with the SDS as a whole, such as printing it, editing its text, e-mailing it, archiving it, and more. These functions are also listed below.
● SDS Home Page Message: If a general SDS Home page message is defined for your local site (such as a disclaimer or helpful contact information), this message appears below the SDS toolbar. If you are logged in at the Corporate site or a local site with no defined message, the message defined for the Corporate site is shown. (For details on this and other site settings, see Site Settings.)
● SDS Primary Text File: If the SDS
has a primary text file, this text is shown in full. If the file has defined
section headers, you can click any header's jump-to-top (
) icon to jump back to the
top of the SDS Home page.
See the following topics for details on finding, creating, viewing, and working with an individual SDS:
● Searching for SDSs: Search your database of SDSs and open the desired one.
● Creating SDSs: Use one of several methods to create a new SDS and add it to your database.
● SDS Revisions and Archiving: Navigate an SDS's history of revisions and learn how to archive and replace outdated revisions with new ones.
● SDS Files: View and manage the text and image files representing an SDS's content.
● SDS Primary Information: View and edit an SDS's identification, primary settings, and the physical properties of its product.
● SDS Ingredients: View and edit the chemical ingredients in an SDS's product.
● SDS Sites and Locations: View and edit the sites—and the locations within each site—where an SDS's product is found.
● SDS Attachments: View and edit the supplementary documents attached to an SDS.
● SDS Synonyms: View and edit the alternate names used by an SDS's product.
● SDS Hazards: View and edit the hazard ratings and classifications assigned to an SDS's product from a variety of regulatory standards.
● SDS User-Defined Data: View and edit any additional SDS data not covered in the standard Comply Plus data areas.
● SDS Exposure Limits: View and edit worker exposure limits defined for an SDS's product.
● SDS Related Parts: View and edit the list of parts in your system related to an SDS.
● SDS Inventory Records and Activities: View and enter inventory activities involving an SDS's product and manage related data. (Requires the Chemical Inventory module.)
● SDS Requests and Approvals: View the material requests for which the SDS has been selected to represent a related product. (Requires the Material Request & Approval module.)
● Printing SDS Text, Data, and Labels: Print various SDS data in various formats.
● Adding an SDS to a Collection: Add an SDS to a collection of other SDSs for easy reference and group data operations. (For details, see Collections.)
● Emailing an SDS: Email an SDS and its text/image files to one or more recipients.
● Viewing an SDS Service History: View the history of major data events an SDS has undergone in your system.
● Viewing and Working with Parts
● Viewing and Working with Lots
● Viewing and Working with Transactions
● Viewing and Working with Chemicals
