When you open Zhengdao’s item screening assistant, you are building a reviewable case record from a plain-language product or technology description—not finishing a control classification. You capture what you know, mark what is still missing, and receive candidate control families plus follow-up questions with decision value. Those candidates are leads for checking official text; they are not a clearance, prohibition or licence answer for your shipment. This page is literacy only, not legal advice.
When you use item screening vs catalog search vs an item page
You open item screening when you can describe what the item is and what it does, but you still need a bounded candidate set and a list of missing facts before you trust any catalogue row. You use the catalog search hub when your first job is locating a known product or technology measure by name, CAS, control code or HS digits. You open an item page when you already have a candidate measure card and need section-level reading of that one entry.
You treat the three surfaces as one workflow with different moments. First you may screen to turn incomplete facts into questions and candidate families. Then you may search the catalog or open a specific item page. You still verify the Chinese official text, compare scope for your transaction date and escalate when the workbench cannot answer your shipment question. For the catalog search method itself, keep How to Use Zhengdao’s China Import–Export Control Catalog (Without Over-Reading a Match) once; this article does not rewrite that hub walkthrough.
Build the case record—required fields and honest unknowns
You start under Build the case record. Live tool copy says to begin with the two required fields and that unknown facts are allowed—the output will tell you exactly what to ask next. You fill Product or technology name and What is it and what does it do? first. You then add what you already know from the optional blocks: trade direction (export of goods, import of goods, or technology transfer / technical data), destination country or region, known identifiers, operating principle and key parameters, and end-use, end-user and integrated platform.
You refuse to invent parameters just to look complete. A defensible screen depends on identity, technical thresholds, route, use and user—not a keyword alone. If a field is unknown, you leave it unknown so the follow-up list can name the gap for engineering, sales, the supplier, customer or end-user. Local-first behaviour on the live page means case details stay in your browser and are not submitted or stored by this tool; you still treat the session as orientation work, not as an archived determination.
Decision readiness and the screening result
You read Decision readiness as the evidence chain the tool expects you to assemble over time: item identity (name, model or identifier); function and principle; technical thresholds that decide scope; transaction route (direction and destination); and use and user (end-use, end-user and platform). You start with the item name and its function, then you let missing thresholds or route facts become explicit asks rather than silent assumptions.
Under Screening result, you treat the panels as a hand-off package. Ask these next converts uncertainty into specific requests. Evidence completeness shows how thin or thick your case still is. Candidate entries to verify shows only the most relevant candidate families—leads for checking the official text, not final determinations. You can copy a case brief or add missing facts and re-run; either way, you keep known facts, open questions and candidate sources together so the next reviewer can reproduce the reasoning.
Three useful outputs—and why candidates are not a decision
A useful first screen on the live page should deliver three things: a bounded candidate set grouped by control family; questions with decision value; and a hand-off record. You inspect the few entries that deserve verification first—not a wall of keyword hits. You open the official text for those leads, then you compare complete item description, technical notes, exclusions, destination scope and any later adjustments with your real goods or technology facts.
You likewise refuse to treat a candidate set as a finished “controlled / uncontrolled / licensed” answer. Live boundary language states that the result is a screening lead, not a classification or legal opinion; a match requires verification; and no match never means the item is uncontrolled. Catalogue index last verified and content-updated stamps on the live page can change—your audit trail should show which official text you opened for which date. Keep Editorial and regulatory verification policy nearby when you need Zhengdao’s sourcing and “not legal advice” boundary in one place.
If your confusion is specifically customs tariff identifiers versus dual-use or other control codes, open HS Codes vs Control Codes: When Tariff Lookup Is Not Enough once. If you already have a catalogue row and need card anatomy instead of a workbench loop, leave this article for the catalog hub or an item page rather than forcing item screening to answer a different question.
