Adding Scope 3 spend-based data by using AI Assist
You can use AI Assist to add Scope 3, category 1 purchased goods and services, spend-based data. The AI Assist feature uses a natural language processing (NLP) engine to identify the commodity category from spend transaction descriptions that are provided by you in the template, and assigns account styles. You can use the AI Assist template to pre-process your transactional spend-based records, review the account styles allocated by AI, and then submit the file for loading directly, or modify the account style allocations manually and re-upload a modified file for loading. You can also use the template to overwrite previously loaded records, provided the file names remain the same.
Before you begin
Download a predefined template for account data from Manage > Data Upload Templates. The template is named ‘Account Setup and Data Load - AI Assist.xlsx’.
The AI Assist template and data loading is part the of ‘Emissions Management - Scope 3 GHG Accounting and Reporting’ module.
About this task
The template is used to pre-process and load Scope 3 category 1 spend data by using AI assistance to automatically categorize records and assign appropriate account styles that are tied to the Eora 66 emission factors set, based on the spend transaction descriptions that you have provided in the template.
The AI Assist function is useful for processing a large amount of text for categorization. If you have a smaller dataset and you would like to manually categorize your data, this excel file provides a good description of the contents of each of the Eora66 data types.
Steps
Review the instructions on the Guidance tab of the template.
Populate the template with your data.
From the Manage menu, click AI Assist File Processing.
Upload the file.
Click Upload for AI Processing.
Specify a file name.
Optional. Add a description.
Attach the spend data file.
Click Upload to upload and process the file.
Review the processed file. Select the file, and from the pop-up menu, click Action > Download Processed File.
If you want to proceed with the task, submit the file.
If you want to submit the file without changes, from the pop-up menu, click Action > Submit for Data Loading.
If you made changes to the processed file, click Upload Directly to Data Loading. AI Assist is not used to upload the file.
If you do not want to process with the task, cancel the file. Select the file, and from the pop-up. menu, click Mark as Cancelled for Data Loading.
Optional. Download the original file. Select the file, and from the pop-up menu, click Action > Download Original File.
Note
This AI assist process uses a built-in AI NLP (Natural Language Processing) model to auto allocate scope 3 spend-based activity data to an Eora 66 based account style. The AI assist process is done to the best capability of the AI model and you must download the AI output file and review the account style allocation result before uploading the data.
If you use AI Assists assignment, you can submit for loading directly. If you modify the output to change account style allocations, you can upload from here, but it is not going through the AI assist.
If the scope 3 data that you upload includes a description that sounds like a description of scope 3 category 1 data but in fact it is not or is likely not, the AI Assist process might incorrectly map that data to a scope 3 category 1 account style. For example, descriptions such as business travel and fuel and gas extraction might be mistaken for scope 3 category 1 purchased goods and services data.
If you do not fill in the Spend in USD column, this primary measure is calculated when the data is uploaded. The local currency is identified from Spend in Local Currency. The local currency is converted to USD.
The accounts data is loaded by using the account number naming pattern of Location_Account Style Caption_Supplier. When data is uploaded, new accounts are created if accounts with the account number pattern do not exist. New accounts will be created in a default location called ‘Unallocated Accounts’ and the records will be loaded. When an account is created initially, it will set the Account details including Account Style Caption & Account Supplier.
If an existing account with the account number pattern exists, data is loaded into the existing account without creating a new account.
Connectors validate the file name, file extension and column headings in the file. Check these conform to the requirements listed on this page if your file does not load successfully.
When loading data into an existing account, records loaded via this connector overwrite existing records, where the Start Date and End Date of new records are identical to one or more records that were already loaded into that account. The existing records aer overwritten only when incoming file name is the same as the file name of the incumbent records.
When loading data into an existing account, if the incoming file name is different from the previously loaded file name of the incumbent records, records from the incoming file will be inserted into the existing account without overwriting any of the existing records.
If the incoming file contains multiple records for the same account with the same Start Date and End Date, these will all be inserted into the platform as part of the load.
For spend data related to scope 3 categories 2, 4, 6, and 9, you should use the universal data load template and process instead as described in Universal Account Setup and Data Loading with Primary Measure & Cost. In the universal PM&C template, quantity is specified in US dollar. The total cost is specified in the local currency of the location. If you do not enter a value in the quantity column, the value is generated based on a total cost. The total cost in USD is converted into the local currency.
For detailed guidance about how to use the template, see the Guidance tab of the template.
Template fields
Table 1 describes the available fields in the template:
Field | Field type | Mandatory | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
Organization | String | Yes | The name of an organization in the Envizi platform. |
Location | String | Yes | A location, which must exist in the Envizi platform. For spend data, the best practice is to create locations that represent the country where you have suppliers. For example, US Suppliers, England Suppliers, France Suppliers, Australia Suppliers. |
Account Style Caption | String | No | Leave this field blank if you require the AI Assist process to automatically allocate a Scope 3 Category 1 account style for you. Otherwise, the Account Style Caption name must match one of the supported account style captions that are provided in the template. |
Account Supplier | String | No | Specify an account supplier if you are creating an account for the first time. |
Record Start YYYY-MM-DD | Date | Yes | The start date must be formatted by using the ISO standard date, YYYY-MM-DD. For example, the 30th December 2023 is represented as 2023-12-30. |
Record End YYYY-MM-DD | Date | Yes | The end date must be formatted as YYYY-MM-DD. For example, 30th December 2023 is represented as 2023-12-30. |
Spend in USD | Decimal | No* | Spend in US dollars, if it is available. Note: You must populate either the ‘Spend in USD’ field or the ‘Spend in Local Currency’ field. If both values are supplied, the converted value from the ‘Spend in Local Currency' field overwrites the value in the 'Spend in USD’ field. |
Spend in Local Currency | Decimal | No* | Spend in local currency if its equivalent USD amount is not available. The system will convert the local currency into USD during the file loading process. Note: You must populate either the ‘Spend in USD’ field or the ‘Spend in Local Currency’ field. If both values are supplied, the converted value from the ‘Spend in Local Currency' field overwrites the value in the 'Spend in USD’ field. |
Record Reference | String | No | Reference to be added to the record if the data file is loaded. Record reference are not be used by the AI Assist process. |
NLP Reference 1 | String | Yes* | Reference text, which is typically financial transaction description, to be passed into the AI NLP process to determine an appropriate Scope 3 Category 1 account style, based on the Eora 66 spend data categorization. Note: Mandatory only when you require the AI Assist process to automatically allocate a Scope 3 Category 1 account style for you. |
NLP Reference 2 | String | No | Additional reference text to be sent into the AI Assist process. The value is concatenated with other NLP references before it is sent to the AI NLP process. |
NLP Reference 3 | String | No | Additional reference text to be sent into the AI Assist process. The value is concatenated with other NLP references before it is sent to the AI NLP process. |
NLP Reference 4 | String | No | Additional reference text to be sent into the AI Assist process. The value is concatenated with other NLP references before it is sent to the AI NLP process. |
NLP Reference 5 | String | No | Additional reference text to be sent into the AI Assist process. The value is concatenated with other NLP references before it is sent to the AI NLP process. |
AI Output Status | String | N/A | The AI Assist process uses the field to show the status of of the allocation of account styles. Leave this field blank. |
Do not change the order of the tabs/worksheets in the file
Do not use these characters in the reference fields: \n and \r
The total aggregated length of the NLP Reference 1 to 5 fields shall not be more than 512 characters. References exceeding 512 characters will likely receive an ‘Error’ status for AI Processing.
Multilingual Support
The AI NLP model has been trained to support multilingual inputs. The ‘NLP Reference 1’ to ‘NLP Reference 5’ fields in the template can be populated with descriptions in languages other than English. Currently it accepts inputs in 95 languages, including most languages officially supported by the Envizi platform.
File formats
The supported file format is XLS(X). The file name convention starts with the prefix 'Account Setup and Data Load - AI Assist'. With the prefix in place, it is best practice to append the name with some text relevant to the data you are loading.
Some examples of valid files names include:
Account Setup and Data Load - AI Assist Spend data 2023.xlsx
Account Setup and Data Load - AI Assist - Purchased IT equipments FY2023.xlsx
What to do next
Verify that the account data was added or updated. From Manage, click Files Processed - Account and Setup.
The Data Receipt report will be sent to all users with the Data Manager work role.
Note:
New files are picked up for processing every 30 seconds. It may take a few minutes for your file to appear in Files Processed - Account and Setup after it is picked up.
If connector data processing fails due to a critical error, such as when the file name is incorrect, then the Data Receipt report is not generated and the file does not appear in Files Processed - Account and Setup.