Minutes of Pacific UBL TC call 6|7 2005

[jon.bosak@sun.com]

MINUTES OF PACIFIC UBL TC MEETING
00H30 - 02H30 UTC TUESDAY 7 JUNE 2005

ATTENDANCE

   Jon Bosak (chair)
   Tim McGrath
   Micah Dubinko
   Stephen Green
   G. Ken Holman
   Kumar Sivaraman
   Sylvia Webb

ADMINISTRIVIA

   JonB: I am moving from California to New York (Ithaca) and will
   be on the road the week of 4 July.

   AGREED that in light of the chair's absence and the
   Independence Day holiday in the U.S., we will cancel the
   Pacific call normally scheduled for 4|5 July.  We will NOT
   cancel the Europe/Asia call that week, which will take place as
   usual 08h00-10h00 UTC Wednesday 6 July.  We MAY cancel the
   Atlantic call that week depending on how many participants will
   be unable to attend.

   JonB: Please review the weekly concall schedule and get back to
   me with corrections.

STANDING ITEMS

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

      TimM: Add to the CSW summer school, but remove from the CEN
      workshop 1 July.

      KenH: Looks like XTech 2006 will again be in Amsterdam in
      mid-may, but the SC34 2Q2006 meeting will be in Seoul.

   Liaison report: X12

      SylviaW: Just started the meeting; nothing to report yet.

   Subcommittee report: HISC

      KenH: Have rearranged the weekly schedule to accommodate a
      discussion with SueP and MichaelD regarding the work of
      TBG2; there may be collaboration opportunities. MicahD had
      some success talking to vendors in Amsterdam.  We are
      waiting to know how many docs will be in 2.0.

      TimM: This will be decided by two things: (1) the extended
      process model, which is not as stable as we thought; there
      will be 7-8 new doc types in the extended model, but we're
      not sure yet what they will be called.  Have told the group
      that we need to decide this week, so we should have a
      definite answer regarding the number of procurement docs by
      this time next week.  (2) Transport docs; this includes CO
      for sure, and if resources are available, we could accept a
      proposal from HK to add 3-4 of the most basic transport docs
      identified in the APEC Paperless Trade initiative, probably
      including Bill of Lading, Waybill, and Forwarding
      Instruction.  Including those three would add to the
      Reusable library about 90 percent of the elements needed to
      support transportation in general.

      KenH: So the task of the HISC would be to identify the UN
      Layout Key equivalents...

      TimM: These transport docs are what the UNLK was made for,
      so there are lots of examples.  Also, the preharmonization
      feasability study we're doing with UNeDocs may open the door
      for greater collaboration.

      JonB: We would want collaboration with UNeDocs in any event.

   Subcommittee report: SBSC

      StephenG: Just uploaded the (nearly) final package and have
      started a vote; we should have a package to recommend to the
      TC by next week.

      JonB: What about the RNG schemas?

      KenH: We're now providing both RNG and XSD schemas.  They
      express the same semantics, and either can be used for
      validation.

   Subcommittee report: SSC

      StephenG: The SSC meeting this week was well attended by
      GEFEG, who emphasized their commitment to the project and
      are aware that it's going to be difficult to get anything in
      before DavidK goes on vacation in July.  We can't ask him to
      proceed with anything we haven't completely decided, so that
      pushes us back till after his holiday.  He needs the changes
      to arrive in batches no closer that two weeks apart, so
      maybe we can get one batch to him in June and another after
      he gets back.

      TimM: Note that restructuring the models for 2.0 will have
      an impact on tools, and nothing has been decided about this
      yet.  One of the objectives for 2.0 has to be recognized
      compliance with ISO 15000-5, and that's hard to guarantee.
      Our best guides to compliance are MarkC and MichaelD, and we
      haven't heard from them yet with regard to the new model and
      whether it is CCTS compliant.

      ACTION: JonB to schedule a discussion of CCTS compliance
      that will include MarkC and MichaelD.

      TimM: In the meantime we have to proceed with what we've
      got; a decision must be in place by the end of July when we
      actually assemble the models.

   Team report: Transport [was COML]

      TimM: met with the HK group last week to discuss how to
      package their three additional doc types [see above].  The
      HK group started with UBL around 0.7, extended it to about
      twice the size, and developed 65 new doc types on this
      basis.  We're doing a bit of re-engineering to find out what
      they've extended and how to apply that to UBL 2.0.  This set
      is about the nearest thing to a UBL customization that we
      could hope for.  There are a few issues to resolve, but
      these overlap with some we've already received from the
      European procurement group and the Tax XML TC.  So ThomasL
      and I are working through the HK data models to perform a
      gap analysis.  We hope to finish this week and put it in a
      form we can use in developing UBL 2.0.  Incorporation of the
      CO work is now an action item with the DTTN/HK group, which
      is now meeting regularly once a week and is aware that we
      are performing the feasability study with UNeDocs.

   Team report: Government eProcurement

      TimM: Held a lengthy telecon last week.  The extended
      process model has gone from OGC/IDA to the plenary in
      Hangzhou and back to the European group, which has come back
      with more concerns, so we're not exactly sure what the
      process will look like yet; this is why we gave them a
      deadline.

CONTENT WORK SESSION

   Regarding Tax XML TC input:

      http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/ubl/200506/msg00002.html

   TimM: We thank the Tax XML TC for this input.  The two
   recurring issues we need to talk about are (1) the way we model
   parties and roles, and (2) the use of identifiers.  These are
   also key issues for government procurement and transport.

   StephenG: Not sure that attaching business rules to addresses
   is in scope for UBL.  We're being asked to represent rules in
   the data structure, but rules change.  UBL standardizes the
   structures on which the laws are based; we can't base our
   structures on the laws.

   AGREED that tax reporting is a different business process from
   the one we're developing for.  UBL is attempting to define a
   generic tax model, and what's missing are guides to explain how
   tax business rules are applied to UBL components. What we would
   like to have for 2.0 is an implementation guide for how to use
   UBL 2.0 to satisfy tax reporting requirements for various
   regulatory environments.  We need to invite the Tax XML TC to a
   joint discussion on this.

   TimM: It's a legitimate requirement to provide every value
   explicitly at the line item level rather than calculating some
   of them from values given for the others.  Beyond that, the
   main issues are roles and parties.  Input on this was one of
   the breakthroughs achieved in discussions with the European
   stakeholders, and we're awaiting a white paper on this from
   PeterB.  We also seem to be making progress on the idea of
   Role; the Tax XML TC has provided good input on the terminology
   for this, but we will probably model this not as types but
   rather as explicit qualifiers.

FOR NEXT WEEK

   TimM: We still need to update the 2.0 issues list, which is in
   the hands of PeterB at the moment; we need that for next week's
   call.  We have just a couple of weeks to complete this, and
   then we need to create the data model for 2.0.

   ACTION: PeterB to finish up the 2.0 issues list so that we can
   review it 13|14 June.

Jon Bosak
Chair, OASIS UBL TC