Use this guide to take one traceable coffee shipment from the Dashboard to a filed DDS and a five-year audit record. You identify the farms, resolve risks and make the negligible-risk decision. For filing details, keep the TRACES-NT filing guide and TRACES credentials guide nearby.
Step 1: set the filing identity from the Dashboard
The Dashboard shows organisation-wide progress, not one case per shipment. Give the shipment a stable lot reference for filenames and the DDS. Then open Settings. Under Operator identity, enter Company name, Country (ISO2), EORI number and Actor route, then select Save identity. The legal name and EORI must match the TRACES-NT operator. These fields are in Settings, not sign-up.
Under How you file, choose File it yourself and connect your TRACES web-service credentials. Gather the supplier, contract, invoice, lot reference, production country, production period, net quantity and contributing-farm list for one shipment.
Step 2: collect the production plots
Article 9 requires the geolocation of the land where the coffee was grown. Collect every plot contributing to this shipment, not the cooperative office, washing station, mill, warehouse, village or port. A cooperative membership list is not enough unless its allocation records identify the farms in this lot.
Ask for GeoJSON, WKT or KML, use the supplier portal, or capture the plot by GPS or drawing. Share the geolocation requirements, smallholder guide and GeoJSON guide with the relevant supplier or technician.
Give each plot a stable farmer or plot identifier and reconcile the returned list with the cooperative’s lot allocation. If pooled coffee cannot be traced to its farms, pause and have the supplier reconstruct the allocation.
Step 3: upload and correct the plot file
In Plots, select Add plots. Under Upload plots, set From supplier, Commodity and Production period, then upload the file. A coffee plot of 4 hectares or less can use a point; a plot above 4 hectares needs a boundary polygon.
Compare the parsed count with the farm list and read every issue. Select Save 4 plots in this example, then correct flagged rows with Edit before screening. Do not invent a coordinate, shrink a boundary or delete a farm merely to obtain a valid status.
Step 4: reconcile the saved register
A VALID badge means the geometry can be processed. It does not prove deforestation-free production, legality, ownership or a link to this shipment. Check country, growing region, area and plot count against supplier records.
Investigate map outliers and retain the correction evidence. Select only plots allocated to this shipment, then compare the number on Screen 2 plots with your reconciled list.
Step 5: run the deforestation screening
Open Checks, select the shipment’s validated plots and choose Run screening. The check provides forest and land-cover evidence relevant to the 31 December 2020 cutoff.
Results are labelled Low risk, Needs review or High risk. None is an EU approval or customs clearance. Satellite evidence does not prove legality, land tenure, labour compliance or traceability to the lot.
Keep the lot out of the DDS until every Needs review or High risk result is understood and any required mitigation is complete. A Low risk result still needs the rest of the due diligence assessment.
Step 6: assess and mitigate the risk
Select Explain beside a screened plot. Confirm the geometry and obtain plot-specific material such as dated imagery, historical farm records, land documents, field notes or a corrected boundary.
Your written Article 10 risk assessment must combine screening, supplier reliability, traceability, legality and contradictory information. In Assess, complete Legality evidence by country. If risk is not negligible, use Flagged plots and Add measure to document Article 11 mitigation, then reassess or exclude the coffee.
Step 7: build the DDS
Open Statements and choose Select screened plots. Under Statement details, set Activity type to IMPORT, enter Internal reference (optional, ≤35 chars), confirm HS 0901 and add Net weight (kg).
Producer countries, geolocations and production periods come from the selected plot records. There is no separate harvest-window field in the DDS builder. Use product net mass, not bags, pallets or container weight, and remove any plots from an earlier shipment before continuing.
Step 8: preview and submit in TRACES-NT
Under Preview & submit, review the filing role, activity, internal reference, commodity, HS heading, net weight and producers. The preview can show the SubmitDdsRequest XML, but it does not show your own company name or EORI because that identity comes from the TRACES operator profile bound to your credentials.
If the page says Mock TRACES is on, the submission is simulated. In production, select Submit DDS to TRACES. You submit the DDS in TRACES-NT. Then use Filed statements and Check status to retrieve the reference and verification numbers.
A mock response, preview or draft is not an official DDS. Record the real identifiers against the shipment before telling a broker or buyer that filing is complete.
Step 9: build the five-year record
Open Records to reach Document pack. Select Generate full pack for the Due Diligence Procedure (Art. 8 and 12(1)), Risk Assessment and Mitigation Report (Art. 10(2)), prefilled and blank Supplier Declarations (Art. 2(40)), and Records Retention Register (Art. 12(5)). Each generation creates dated versions.
Keep the generated pack with the allocation, contracts, invoices, transport records, original plot file, legality evidence, screening explanations, mitigation, correspondence, submitted DDS and TRACES result for 5 years. The pack indexes the evidence but does not replace it. Use the record-keeping guide for the full retention framework.
After the first DDS
Keep Watch on for filed plots and investigate change alerts. For later shipments, reuse evidence only after confirming the farms, allocation, legality and risk picture. Assign owners for data requests, exceptions, negligible-risk approval and broker handoff, then use the EUDR checklist as the repeatable control.