PIM and the Digital Product Passport: Why Your Product Data Is Already Half the Compliance Work

What the EU Digital Product Passport requires, why your entitys product data already covers most of it, and how our integration partner dpp.cloud turns the rest into a compliant, live passport.

The Digital Product Passport stopped being theoretical in July 2026

For most manufacturers, the Digital Product Passport was something to deal with "eventually." That changed on 19 July 2026, when the EU's central DPP Registry went live, backed by Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2026/1736, which finalized the harmonized technical standards for how passports get built and read. The legal basis, Regulation (EU) 2024/1781 (ESPR, the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation), has been in force since 2024. Now the infrastructure to actually run passports through it exists too.

The category rollout is staggered, not simultaneous. Battery passports become mandatory first, from 18 February 2027, and only for larger batteries: EV batteries, industrial batteries above 2 kWh, and batteries in e-bikes, e-scooters, and similar light vehicles. Textiles follow later, once the delegated act is finalized, with current EU work pointing to roughly 2028 to 2029. That timeline is based on a draft catalog of 49 data points across four categories that the Joint Research Centre published for consultation earlier this year.

What this means in practice: if you sell batteries, e-bikes, or equipment with battery components, the deadline is closer than most planning cycles account for. If you're in textiles or another later category, you have more runway, but the underlying data work doesn't get smaller by waiting.

A DPP is a data problem before it's a compliance problem

Strip away the regulation and a Digital Product Passport is, at its core, a structured, machine-readable version of information you likely already collect: what a product is made of, where it comes from, which certifications apply, how to care for it, and, the newer part, what happens to it at end of life.

If you manage your product data in entitys, a meaningful share of that already exists in your system. Product classes and attributes cover material, origin, and certifications. BMEcat and ECLASS give you the structured, standardized format regulators actually want, instead of free text buried in a spec sheet PDF. Your DAM holds the certificates, care instructions, and technical documents a passport needs to link to, already tagged and versioned.

What's usually missing is circular economy data: recyclability, repairability, take-back information. In practice, that's typically three to five new attributes, not a rebuild of your data model.

dpp.cloud is one of our native integrations

Getting from "the data exists in entitys" to "the data is a live, compliant passport" is where dpp.cloud comes in. dpp.cloud is a PIM-native Digital Product Passport platform, and it's listed as one of our native integrations, alongside eData-Pool and nexmart. The connection is built. What usually needs deciding on a specific project is the mapping. dpp.cloud also keeps a full category-by-category timeline and a dedicated textiles deadline breakdown, useful reading if you want the specifics for your category.

In practice, dpp.cloud works like a backend extension to entitys, not a second platform your team has to log into. entitys stays your single source of truth and the place where the actual work happens, a pattern dpp.cloud documents more generally in its guide to creating a DPP from PIM data. A connector reads your product classes and attributes and maps them to the DPP schema field by field. dpp.cloud validates the result and assembles the passport plus a QR code in the background, GS1 Digital Link compatible so it also works as a standard barcode at the point of sale, or a plain link if that fits your setup better. The data and the DPP content itself stay in entitys and stay editable there, the same way any other product attribute does. What comes back from dpp.cloud is the QR code and the GS1 Digital Link or plain link, written into entitys as fields, so they flow straight into your existing exports, labels, and DAM workflows. Nobody on your team logs into a second platform to manage any of it.

Our DAM does extra work here. Manuals, safety data sheets, and care instructions you already store as assets attach directly to the passport instead of needing a parallel upload process. And because entitys already runs SAP MM/PM synchronization for spare parts, the same product identity that feeds your passport can double as the reference for parts lookups and service history, if you decide to use it that way later.

Compliance is the entry point, not the ceiling

The regulatory deadline is the reason most manufacturers start this project. It's rarely the reason they keep investing in the data once it's live. A serial or batch-level QR code that already exists for compliance is also a channel: for warranty registration, spare parts ordering, repair instructions, and manufacturer-to-customer communication that doesn't run through a marketplace. dpp.cloud breaks down the actual mechanics of turning a scan into a support ticket or a parts order in more depth than we can cover here.

None of that changes the first project. It's just worth knowing the same data structure pays twice.

What a first project typically looks like

Timelines vary with SKU count and how clean the source data already is, but the shape repeats: a short kickoff to agree which categories and attributes are in scope, a data review to spot the gaps (almost always the circular economy fields), a mapping phase where entitys attributes get matched to DPP fields, a pilot on a handful of products end to end, and then a rollout across the category. For most mid-sized catalogs, that's weeks, not the six-plus months a from-scratch build would take. dpp.cloud has laid out the real cost and time difference in Build or Buy Your Digital Product Passport, and scored the main platform options in its DPP software buyer's guide, useful reading if you're comparing more than one vendor.

Next step

If you're wondering whether your entitys product data is DPP-ready, the fastest way to find out is to check your actual attribute structure against the schema, not to guess. Talk to your entitys success manager about activating the dpp.cloud integration, or book a short, free strategy session directly with dpp.cloud.