Terms which will be used throughout this article:

Customers (Internal users) - members of the company who is a paying customer of Veratrak platform.

Supply chain partners (Guest users) - members of different companies who collaborate with internal users.

Quality module is a module within the Veratrak platform. It enables internal users to securely collaborate on quality related documents with their supply chain partners. Internal users can manage products and batches while their supply chain partners can submit complaints about a production run against any product and/or batch. Quality Module significantly improves the security and efficiency of the complaint submission and resolution process. All activity is tracked in Veratrak's blockchain based Audit Log, giving customers confidence in activity history and visibility.

The products page and the batches page display an inventory of items. Products are defined by stock keeping unit (SKU) and a description (name, size and form) while batches are defined by batch ID, associated product, quantity and associated company. The product SKU and description can be different for the internal user and their supply chain partner, therefore optional fields are available. Similarly, The batch ID can be different for the user and their supply chain partner, so an optional external batch ID field is available.

Creating products and batches

New products and batches can be manually created by internal users only who have quality:create permission. Only products can be created in bulk by importing from a CSV file. When creating a product manually, the SKU field must be unique in the system and cannot be duplicated. Likewise, for batches, the batch ID field must be unique in the system and cannot be duplicated.

Existing products and batches can be updated by internal users only who have quality:update permission and deleted by internal users only who have quality:delete permission.

The import button is located in the products page in the top right corner. Clicking on the import button will open a dialog where users will be able to select a single .csv file from their system.

After the file is selected a quick validation will run against the contents. If the headers are incorrect or required values are missing, an error message will be shown in the top right corner. If the file is correct, the number of files to be imported are shown and can be finalised by clicking the import button.

When importing from a CSV file, products with existing SKU will be overridden with the imported data.

A complaint is a supply chain partner initiated process to inform the internal users about an undesired effect of a production run on products and batches. Veratrak complaints allow internal users and their supply chain partners to submit, collaborate on, access and resolve on-going and historical complaints in a centralised portal.

Configuring complaints

Before a complaint could be created by a guest user, an internal user must configure complaint settings.

Internal users must enter a notification e-mail and select a complaint form. Notification email is an email address where the notifications about created complaints and submitted comments will go. Complaint form is the form guest users will need to fill out when creating and submitting complaints.

Creating and submitting a complaint

Only guest users can create and submit complaints.

To create a complaint, a guest user will need to click on the “Create complaint” button on the complaints page or in the dashboard. The guest user will then be asked to fill out the complaint form which was previously configured by internal users. Fields in the complaint form will depend on which complaint form was selected previously, but will usually include selecting products and batches that the complaint is against, attaching additional documents and elaborating on why the complaint is being submitted.

Once a complaint has been submitted, Internal users will receive an e-mail notification to the e-mail address that was specified when configuring complaints.

Viewing complaints

Internal users can view and access all complaints on the complaints page regardless of the status or who submitted it, while guest users can view and access complaints submitted by anyone who is assigned to their company only.

The oldest 5 complaints with the status "New" will be visible and accessible from the dashboard as well.

Viewing complaints details

The complaint details page displays all relevant information about the complaint.

Both internal and guest users can see the details about the complaint, contact details of the user who submitted the complaint, any linked products and batches as well as the resolution status.

Linking additional products and/or batches

Internal users only are able to link additional products and/or batches to an existing complaint by clicking on the "Link resource" button in the complaint details page.

Collaborating on complaints

Live comments

The live comments section allows users to ask and answer questions. It resembles a chat app; where messages are displayed in chronological order, new ones at the bottom just above the comment input box.

All internal users and Guests who belong to the same company as the company of the user who submitted the complaint will be able to see and send comments.

Internal and guest users have the ability to:

Internal users only have the ability to see and use quick replies by clicking on the quick replies icon. Users are able to configure quick replies settings by clicking on the settings icon which allows them to:

Resolving complaints

The complaint resolution section allows internal users to update the status of the complaint and to upload any attachments related to the status change.

The complaint resolution status is set to "New" when a complaint has been created. It can be updated to the following statuses:

The user who created the complaint will receive an e-mail notification every time the status of the complaint changes.