CHEMINTRO

Chemintro is information management software which securely collects your input and processes it against the Industrial Chemicals Act 2019, the Industrial Chemicals (General) Rules 2019 and AICIS's Industrial Chemicals Categorisation Guidelines and which:

• Searches the AIIC inventory to see if your chemical is listed and if not ...
• Categorises it as Exempted, Reported <= 10kg, Reported, or Assessed
• Securely stores and protects all your information against unauthorised access
• Gives your Admin user complete control over who sees what
• Produces a data report to audit all entered, auto-collected and auto-generated data
• Produces an introduction report so you can make AICIS declarations correctly
• Produces an annual summary so you can correctly make your AICIS annual declaration
• Produces a specific list of studies/test results which may be requested by AICIS
• Produces a formal Memorandum of Understanding between you and an overseas supplier which shows the real consequences of not providing information requested by AICIS
• Produces Useful links to many websites for online research for your specific chemical - including cosmetic ingredients
• Handles chemical blends as well as individual chemical ingredients
• Products can be branded for more detailed information analysis
• Generates workflow management notes under IUCLID6 headings for chemical dossiers for AICIS assessments including links to assembled documentation
• Archives information each year to reflect that year's annual declaration
• Provides a "what if" capability for product volumes and ingredients to help with business decisions

No. The Act requires that you personally make a legal declaration. Unlike public accountants with the ATO, we are not an agent of AICIS. Chemintro plus your input delivers results used by you to guide your declarations on the AICIS website.

Perhaps someone else has already registered your company. If so, the only person who can give you a login is your company's Admin user. Otherwise, get in touch to discuss possible alternatives.

For general info start on the home page. Click links in the page footer. Some are repeated in the top-left triple-bar menu. Clicking CHEMINTRO in the header always gets you back to the home page. Clicking CHEMINTRO in the footer always gets you to the top of the current page.

After login (top right) in the data entry part of the site, there is always a Main menu and 'breadcrumbs' navigation near the top of each page.

Look for the Chemical menu and select your chemical or click the Industrial chemicals + Add button or select your product or click the Products + Add button.

The chemical screen is a single page for all your data entry where (SHOW) and (HIDE) links keep things neat.

Introduction category and other detail in the Chemical screen can be computed when sufficient data, including product volumes, have been entered.

What you can see and do at the 'Main menu' depends on your assigned roles. Check them in your user profile or hover your mouse over the 'Logged in/Logout' links (top right).

To get back to the website home page or this FAQ page from data entry, click the 'Website home' or 'FAQ' link visible at the top of every data entry page.

Information is managed to satisfy the Act, the Rules, AICIS guidance and most importantly, to make life easier for you!

For a raw material (eg Product #1 in the diagram) the chemical being introduced is its only ingredient. Products (eg Products #2, #3 and #4) have other ingredients.

When any product's volume changes, all its ingredient chemicals volumes change according to individual proportions. This may change some categorisations where volumes are near a tipping point.

Data report is for reviewing data entry and workflow management. Introduction report shows categorisation and reveals the answers you want during AICIS online introduction.

If the AICIS listing field is blank, Chemintro will automatically check the AIIC inventory to see if your chemical is listed and will make the appropriate selection in that field from ...

• Searched for but not found
• Listed with standard reporting obligations and restrictions
• Listed with a defined scope of assessment
• Listed with conditions of introduction or use
• Listed with specific information requirements

There is another (manual) selection "Listed but NOT within any defined scope or conditions of introduction" in case you cannot comply. In that case, you need to apply to AICIS for a variation or simply categorise your chemical.

You can make the software search again by blanking the field out and saving.

On first saving with a valid CAS number, Chemintro also automatically creates three Useful links.

Scroll down to see this ...

You probably want "AICIS CAS number search".

If not found, the other two Useful links may throw light on your chemical from AICIS's viewpoint. In particular, the Google search should find all available documents containing your CAS number on the AICIS website.

In any case, you should make the applicable selection in the Chemintro AICIS listing field

You can re-generate these links by deleting them and selecting 'AICIS' in the Useful link creator field.

1. Enter the mandatory fields at the top of the Add chemical page and click which searches the internet and creates a few Useful links.
2. Assuming your chemical is not listed, the AICIS listing field will be set to 'Searched for but not found'
3. One at a time, open the first four (Show/Hide) concertina sections below the AICIS listing field and work your way down the page entering data
4. Ignore Auto-collected and structural information for the time being. Likewise ignore Checklist creator and Useful link creator. These may be handy later.
5. In the Chemical Hazards section, add any known hazards. Some may have been added already if you saved after entering properties or the system found your CAS number in any of the hazard databases it searches.
6. If your chemical is a polymer, add a polymer record. Enter the polymer data.
7. In the Product-Chemical Proportions section, the first record has been auto-created with a generated name and zero kilograms. For this FAQ we will assume just one product!
8. Reveal the record and click the yellow pencil icon to pop up the Product page. Correct the name of the product, select an End use and answer the 'Yes/No' questions. Finally enter Product volume and click Save to close the product popup page.
9. Adjust Precise proportion and Maximum end use concentration and click to calculate chemical volume.
10. At the top of the page, click to review the Data report. Click the back button or the link at the bottom of the report to return.
11. Reveal the Introduction section. Read the Report type help text regarding payment processing. This section carries all the categorisation results after saving with 'Introduction report' selected.
12. With 'Introduction report' saved, click to review the Introduction report. The link to the AICIS introduction page appears at the foot of the report.
13. Save Report type as 'Memorandum of Understanding' if you wish to reach an understanding with your overseas information provider.

In late November 2022, AICIS changed the Rules to allow introductions of up to 10kg per year with somewhat relaxed rigour around proving the categorisation. Risk being a function of hazard and exposure, obviously having a few hurdles to eliminate the most hazardous chemicals, and smaller quantities, the risk is logically lower.

You still need to declare what you know in a pre-introduction report. But AICIS will not insist on studies and test reports unless your declaration worries them

Chemintro will categorise your chemical as Reported <= 10 kg - Low risk if you wish. It will also create a note for you detailing any hurdles not cleared and - if so - will re-categorise into the correct category.

AICIS guidance is absolutely clear. They are only interested in individual chemicals being introduced in a blend.

Even so, blends are a great boon for data entry. In Chemintro you can pre-assemble blends and add them to products as desired!

If different blends have some of the same chemicals - proportions get automatically adjusted!

Here are the instructions for making blends work in Chemintro.

Yes.

Here are the instructions for making brands work in Chemintro.

No ... but it helps. Chemintro uses it to collect information from the internet on the first save.

Also, not knowing the CAS number when it exists means you need a written undertaking from the person who does know, that they will provide it if requested by AICIS.

Best practice is to create a separate company for each client.

For very small clients, you might create a separate division per client within your own company to segregate their chemicals. Chemintro Support would be able to manually swap such a division to a new client company on request.

As you enter or change data on screen, that information needs to be saved to the database. The button lives at the top and/or bottom of each data entry page. If this smaller version appears in the middle of a page, clicking it will usually relocate to the top of the page where the real button is.

But that isn't the entire picture - it also triggers an immediate re-computation of outputs.

But that's still not all! If your re-computation depends on data stored in the database - as it usually does - if the data you are saving is the data needed in that computation and it isn't yet stored, you would have to click the button again to re-compute with the latest data.

In the data entry screen, means there is a report to be seen.

In the Chemical page, that link defaults to the Data Report. It shows all entered, generated and collected data. That includes Useful Links and Notes¹.

To switch across to the Introduction Report instead, open the Introduction section of the chemical page and change Report type from Data Report to Introduction Report as described by the help text.

There is also a third report - Memorandum of Understanding for Exempted and Reported introductions. This emphasises the need for suppliers to provide information to AICIS if requested.

¹ Usually Notes are shown at the end of the Data report in alphabetic order. However, if the exact wording of a field label appears in a Note title, that Note will relocate itself higher up in the Data report, directly below the field and its contents.

AICIS cares about declared end-uses and maximum concentrations of introduced chemicals in actual products to really understand the risk. Chemintro therefore needs that same product information to categorise the chemical.

Chemintro accurately keeps track of all your chemicals in all your products at all the different concentrations and accurately calculates total introduction volume for each chemical ingredient and considering product end-uses, computes AICIS categorisation for each chemical.

This functionality provides a bonus "what if" ability for chemical categorisations around volume tipping points.

Chemintro can categorise equally accurately based on a single pseudo-product per chemical with declared volume, product end-use and maximum concentration. Please note that pseudo-products are not permitted if chemical identity is opaque.

Yes, but ... for data entry efficiency, chemicals first or products first depends on commonality of ingredient chemicals in your product portfolio. If in doubt, chemicals first - or get in touch to discuss!

AICIS guidance includes a page of links to acceptable in-silico applications for QSAR/read-across chemical characteristics for both health and environment ...

https://www.industrialchemicals.gov.au/guide-categorising-your-chemical-importation-and-manufacture/appendix-silico-predictions-categorisation

For test guidelines, Chemintro has an OECD role which reveals (in the main menu) all the OECD tests which AICIS finds acceptable. Ask your Admin to give you that role.

AICIS says those hazards exist, therefore Chemintro adds them.

In this case the software creates a Note entitled Salt and/or ester parent hazards showing which parental hazards have been auto-inserted.

You can always add your own hazards in Chemintro to influence categorisation but if in your expert judgement one or more salt and/or ester parent hazards are inappropriate, you may defeat the software! This is how:

1. Edit the parental hazards Note title to append 'Not applicable'
2. Document which hazard(s) you are deleting and why - in the Note
3. Delete only those hazards which do not apply
4. Click twice

See also the Useful link creator and Checklist creator section nearer the top of the chemical page. It has a Link creator selector which can make useful links to various public databases around the web for your chemical.

Simple Kanban-style document management in Chemintro is tailored for AICIS assessments and assumes documents are downloadable.

Notes represent documentation to be acquired and Useful links retrieve items when desired.

This can always be done manually using for any document management, but ...

If a chemical is categorised as 'Assessed', the process commences automatically. Chemintro creates two chemical Notes. These are specific checklists of IUCLID6 topics. One is for 'Required' and the other 'If available' documentation.

Different 'Checklist' notes can be generated, even for 'Exempted' and 'Reported' categories - for optional assessments. See the Checklist creator field in Chemical data entry.

Document management is also workflow management and checklists, like in the cockpit of an airliner, merely list things to be done. You also need a physical and visual cue to signal when the undercarriage has been selected 'down'.

This is how ...

1.   In the Checklist creator field, select 'Generate a Note for every item in the Required checklist'

2.   Acquire the document specified in a generated Note and upload to your private storage

3.   Put the URL in the Note, change the Link field from 'No' to 'Yes' and

NB: Any Note can be converted to a Useful link in this way, making it an ideal mechanism for any workflow management. The above-mentioned checklists just auto-create notes for AICIS assessments.

Yes ... we save two secure snapshots per day. Name the day and time and we can launch the Time Machine with your data loaded.

Also. Annual summaries have archived copies of Introductions for each year. These are archived on the Date submitted which is documented in each annual summary report.

Only if you leave your machine unattended in an insecure environment. Best practice is to log out manually when appropriate. Your own in-house policies will define your responsibilities here.

When adding a new user please observe the following security rules:

1. Add the new user with their correct email address. See 5 below
2. Protect the account with any strong temporary password - no need to write it down or remember it. See 4 below
3. Assign only the roles required for the new user to perform their work
4. Pass on the website URL (https://chemintro.com) to the new user BUT NOT the password
5. Ask the user to click 'Forgotten password' at login to get a password reset token via email

and

6. Always disable the user account when someone leaves or takes holidays

See also, summary table of role permissions below

Allows creation of new users for the company plus the ability to assign any role (including Admin) to those users. Only the Admin role can see all users in their company. This role is auto-assigned to the first user, created during initial registration.

By assigning specific roles, the Admin user has complete control over data editing and visibility. See below.

Allows read-only access to Chemintro Introduction reports (not Data Reports) but no access to chemical data. Designed for keeping trade secrets when no other roles are assigned. Allows a local Agent to deal with AICIS when full disclosure is not immediately appropriate.

Allows chemical data entry for introductions. This is the key and only role required for a competent person hired to do chemical data entry for you. This role is also auto-assigned to the first user, created during initial registration.

The introducer needs this role. Allows adjusting company profile information, submitting Annual Declarations, purchasing bulk package deals and monitoring invoicing and receipted transactions. This role is manually assigned by the Admin user(s).

If assigned, reveals the list of all OECD tests of interest to AICIS. Each entry in the list carries the URL address for that test. Authors are interested in such detail because required tests are listed in Chemintro chemical notes accompanying categorisation.

Allows viewing company detail on a read-only basis, editing your own profile and changing your own password. Everyone gets this role. Top