Minutes of Pacific UBL TC call 21|22 February 2005

[jon.bosak@sun.com]

MINUTES OF THE PACIFIC UBL TC MEETING
00H30 - 02H30 UTC TUESDAY 22 FEBRUARY 2005

ATTENDANCE

   Jon Bosak (chair)
   Betty Harvey
   Tim McGrath
   Sylvia Webb

STANDING ITEMS

   Additions to the calendar (http://ibiblio.org/bosak/ubl/calendar.htm)

      Discussions regarding the May TC meeting in China continue.
      Depending on negotiations between our hosts at CNIS and the
      hotel, there is a possibility that it might prove advisable
      to hold the meeting in Beijing rather than Hangzhou; JonB
      has told our hosts that this will not be a problem.  The
      best plan for the time being would be to make travel
      requests for Hangzhou but be ready to buy tickets for
      Beijing if that turns out to be the venue.

   Liaison reports

      None.

   Subcommittee reports

      SSC (SylviaW): The SSC met last week.  AnneH is working on
      the schema format proposal [NDR GXS1].  We reviewed the
      "other issues" and have not found any disagreement with the
      categorization of some issues as falling into UBL 2.0.  We
      also had a couple of questions for the Atlantic call
      regarding how NDR releases are matched up with UBL releases
      and whether the UBL 1.1 NDRs will be backward-compatible
      with the UBL 1.0 schemas.

      JonB: The UBL 1.1 NDRs will go out with the UBL 1.1 package;
      the only reason that didn't happen with 1.0 was that we
      couldn't get the editorial work done in time.

      TimM: If you want 1.1 compliance, then you must use the 1.1
      NDRs.  If you used 1.0 NDRs with the 1.1 data model, you
      might be able to interoperate, but you would not be
      compliant.

      Agreed: Discuss this further in the Atlantic TC call and
      document the conclusion.

   Team reports

      COML (TimM): The team working on Certificate of Origin is
      now meeting in a semiformal weekly conference call.  Every
      time we discuss this, we find new ways of using existing UBL
      structures rather than adding new ones, so the additional
      BIEs required for CO are becoming fewer with each meeting.
      We are about to go through the final iteration this week.
      At the same time, we're going to invite SueP as a liaison
      with eDocs to determine how far away this work is from the
      eDocs version.  We did receive material from Sue about four
      months ago; that has been incorporated into the
      design. Hopefully this project will be a testing ground for
      harmonization with the eDocs work.

      EuroGov (TimM): The group is operating independent of the TC
      to formalize a coordinated set of inputs to UBL from
      European governments.  It's now on a weekly schedule and has
      approved the following terms of reference:

         "To provide a forum for European countries and the
         eProcurement initiative of European Commission/IDA(BC)
         Programme, to submit their proposals as additions to the
         UBL 1.1 library and document schemas. The group will
         operate as a group of experts providing input to the
         OASIS UBL Technical Committee."

      On this basis, the group is being extended to include
      Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian government agencies looking
      at eprocurement initiatives; all the agencies that have
      submitted work to the IDA group are being invited to
      participate.  The work will adopt a twofold approach: update
      the IDA requirements and UBL gap analysis, and at the same
      time do the same with the UK OGC analysis.

CONTENT WORK SESSION

   We note that the new set of proposed additions from the JPLSC
   take us into a different area from where we've been working
   recently.  Most of our recent discussions have focused on
   requests from the Swedish Association of Local Governments
   pertaining to Invoice; this new set from the JPLSC relates to
   Order.

   BettyH to add the JPLSC proposals to the issues list.

   We note that items 1 and 2 from the agenda correspond to lines
   13 and 14 of the new issues list from BettyH.  We have already
   discussed InvoiceTaxAmount, but we need to talk about the idea
   of adding Credit Note.

   TimM: Arguably the 1.0 business process is not a complete
   procurement scenario, because it does not include financial
   reconciliation.  We've gotten requests (and will get more from
   the EuroGov group) to extend our model to include a
   reconciliation phase following Invoice: Remittance Advice,
   Credit Note, Amended Invoice...  Call this the "accounting
   process".

   JonB: Would we be competing with the payment process announced
   last year by OAG, SWIFT, et al.?

   SylviaW: This was also discussed at the X12 and Tax XML
   meetings. The movement by SWIFT to align with CC is currently
   stalled; nothing so far beyond the meetings with OAGIS.  SWIFT
   is still very committed to ISO 20022, and we're seeing nothing
   that would change that.  So our users still need messages
   conforming to CCTS.

   JonB: It appears therefore that UBL users still need
   reconciliation document types to go with the original
   procurement scenario; whatever the other groups are doing will
   not satisfy the needs of our users in the short term.  (General
   agreement)

   TimM: We must first decide what transactions we want to include
   in the process model.  UBL currently addresses the middle
   collaboration of the process, but does not provide for the
   tender and quotation phase that precedes it or the payment phase
   that follows Invoice.  We're saying that UBL 1.1 should address
   the payment collaboration.

   JonB: This should come from EuroGov.

   TimM: They have already defined their requirements.

   TimM to send IDA, OGC, and existing UBL process models to this
   group; we will work on a proposed extension to the procurement
   model next week.

   One other item for today: PaymentInstructionID in
   FinancialAccount (row 14 in the issues list).

   Discussion: ... We don't cover multiple payments, each with its
   own pi-id... this number matches with individual invoice
   lines... pi-id is the key that tells the payee what the payment
   is for...  we need to look at the reconciliation process before
   we can design a good solution to meet this requirement, which
   should be included in discussion an extension of the busines
   process.

   Agreed: A specific recommendation is contingent on the
   definition of a extended process model that will include
   payment and reconciliation; defer further work on this item
   till the extended process model has been defined.  We will take
   up the JPLSC submissions immediately following next week's
   discussion of this.

   Homework: Read the JPLSC comments and be prepared to discuss
   them.

   SylviaW may be late calling in Wednesday and next Monday.

Jon Bosak
Chair, OASIS UBL TC