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27 October 2005
wd-20051027-UBL-2.0
This is the first draft (in progress) of the 2.0 index.html file.
Oops, looks like it's going to be Jon Bosak.
Members of the Technical Committee
This specification defines the Universal Business Language version 2.0.
This document is a [draft in progress] of the OASIS Universal Business Language (UBL) Technical Committee. The OASIS UBL Technical Committee invites interested parties to comment on this release using the comment link on the UBL TC web page:
Appendix A (Informative): Release Notes
Appendix B (Informative): UBL 2.0 Extended Procurement Process
Since its approval as a W3C recommendation in 1998, XML has been adopted in a number of industries as a framework for the definition of the messages exchanged in electronic commerce. The widespread use of XML has led to the development of multiple industry-specific XML versions of such basic documents as purchase orders, shipping notices, and invoices.
While industry-specific data formats have the advantage of maximal optimization for their business context, the existence of different formats to accomplish the same purpose in different business domains is attended by a number of significant disadvantages as well.
Developing and maintaining multiple versions of common business documents like purchase orders and invoices is a major duplication of effort.
Creating and maintaining multiple adapters to enable trading relationships across domain boundaries is an even greater effort.
The existence of multiple XML formats makes it much harder to integrate XML business messages with back-office systems.
The need to support an arbitrary number of XML formats makes tools more expensive and trained workers harder to find.
The OASIS Universal Business Language (UBL) is intended to help solve these problems by defining a generic XML interchange format for business documents that can be extended to meet the requirements of particular industries. Specifically, UBL provides the following:
A library of XML schemas for reusable data components such as “Address,” “Item,” and “Payment” — the common data elements of everyday business documents.
A small set of XML schemas for common business documents such as “Order,” “Despatch Advice,” and “Invoice” that are constructed from the UBL library components and can be used in a generic order-to-invoice trading context.
Support for the customization of UBL in specific trading relationships.
A standard basis for XML business schemas is expected to provide the following advantages:
Lower cost of integration, both among and within enterprises, through the reuse of common data structures.
Lower cost of commercial software, because software written to process a given XML tag set is much easier to develop than software that can handle an unlimited number of tag sets.
An easier learning curve, because users need master just a single library.
Lower cost of entry and therefore quicker adoption by small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs).
Standardized training, resulting in many skilled workers.
A universally available pool of system integrators.
Standardized, inexpensive data input and output tools.
A standard target for inexpensive off-the-shelf business software.
UBL is designed to provide a universally understood and recognized commercial syntax for legally binding business documents and to operate within a standard business framework such as ISO 15000 (ebXML) to provide a complete, standards-based infrastructure that can extend the benefits of existing EDI systems to businesses of all sizes. UBL is freely available to everyone without legal encumbrance or licensing fees.
UBL schemas are modular, reusable, and extensible in XML-aware ways. As the first standard implementation of ebXML Core Components Technical Specification 2.01, the UBL Library is based on a conceptual model of information components known as Business Information Entities (BIEs). These components are assembled into specific document models such as Order and Invoice. These document assembly models are then transformed in accordance with UBL Naming and Design Rules into W3C XSD schema syntax. This approach facilitates the creation of UBL-based document types beyond those specified in this release.
At the core of UBL 2.0 is the same essential procurement process established in UBL 1.0. That process, based on eight basic document types shown in bold outline, is illustrated in the diagram below.
![[ubl 1.0 order-to-invoice diagram]](art/UBL-1.0-ProcurementActivity-096dpi.jpg)
Figure 1. UBL 1.0 Order-to-Invoice Business Process
Though much more limited in scope than traditional EDI message sets, the eight documents provided in UBL 1.0 are applicable to a very large number of real-world use cases and have been widely deployed. A description of this basic procurement process is contained in the UBL 1.0 Standard at http://docs.oasis-open.org/ubl/cd-UBL-1.0/#PROCURE.
Adoption of UBL 1.0 following ratification as an OASIS Standard in November 2004 has resulted in major inputs of new content beyond the eight basic order-to-invoice business documents specified in the original release. In particular, contributions from representatives of government procurement, taxation, and transportation agencies in Europe, Asia, and the United States have resulted in greatly expanded pre-order and post-invoice capabilities together with the addition of several transport-related document types.
New pre-order UBL document types: Request for Catalogue, Reject Request for Catalogue, Catalogue, Catalogue Replacement, Catalogue Deletion, Catalogue Item Update, Catalogue Pricing Update, Negative Receipt, Positive Receipt, Request for Classification Scheme, Reject Request for Classification Scheme, Classification Scheme, Request for Quotation, Quotation
New post-invoice UBL document types: Credit Note, Account Response, Self-billed Invoice, Self-billing Credit Note, Debit Note, Remittance Advice, Statement of Account
New UBL transport documents: Bill of Lading, Waybill, Forwarding Instruction, Certificate of Origin
The role of these new documents is described in further detail below.
While every effort has been made to keep UBL 2.0 backward-compatible with UBL 1.0, several changes resulting from experience with 1.0 are extensive enough to make this a major release instead of a minor version update. These changes must be considered in upgrading existing UBL-based systems to take advantage of the greatly expanded scope of UBL 2.0.
Global scoping. In UBL 1.0, the great majority of element types were globally scoped, the only exceptions being ID and Code. In UBL 2.0, all types are globally scoped.
Code lists. The UBL mechanism for specifying and validating code lists has been completely revamped using the power of Schematron (ISO/IEC 19757-3) to make it easier to modify code lists and perform basic business rule checking. See the section on code lists below.
Element renaming. Several tag names have been changed to reflect actual practice. These include: [exhaustive list goes here]
As an aid to deployment, the standard XML schemas in UBL 1.0 were accompanied by a large quantity of supporting materials, most of them included in the UBL 1.0 release package as informative appendices and the remainder available from sites referenced in the release package. These materials included UML class diagrams of the document components on which the schemas were based, UML class diagrams describing all the document assemblies, spreadsheet models defining the document assemblies, descriptions of example implementations, sample instances of each of the UBL documents used in the example implementations, formatting specifications for the United Nations Layout Keys corresponding to each of the UBL basic business document types, and an ASN.1 specification to enable the transmission of UBL messages in binary form. Also included were documents describing the UBL 1.0 Naming and Design Rules, the UBL 1.0 code list mechanism, and UBL 1.0 customization guidelines.
Due to the greatly increased scope of UBL 2.0, the supporting documents and informative materials corresponding to those in the UBL 1.0 Standard are being provided in a separate UBL 2.0 Support Package in order to reduce scheduling dependencies between the normative and informative parts of the specification. The Support Package is being developed in parallel with the UBL 2.0 specification and will be made available after ratification of UBL 2.0 as an OASIS Standard.
The methods used to develop the UBL content models and schemas were described in detail in the UBL 1.0 Standard. UBL 2.0 uses essentially the same methodology employed in the final round of UBL 1.0 development, a description of which can be found at http://docs.oasis-open.org/ubl/cd-UBL-1.0/#METHOD.
[Many of these will be eliminated after this revision is done]
The terms Core Component (CC), Basic Core Component (BCC), Aggregate Core Component (ACC), Association Core Component (ASCC), Business Information Entity (BIE), Basic Business Information Entity (BBIE), and Aggregate Business Information Entity (ABIE) are used in this specification with the meanings given in [CCTS].
The terms Object Class, Property Term, Representation Term, and Qualifier are used in this specification with the meanings given in [ISO11179].
The keywords MUST, MUST NOT, REQUIRED, SHALL, SHALL NOT, SHOULD, SHOULD NOT, RECOMMENDED, MAY and OPTIONAL, when they appear in this document, are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].
The UBL 2.0 XSD schemas are the only normative representations of the UBL 2.0 document types and library components.
All of the UBL 2.0 XSD schemas are contained in the xsd/
subdirectory of the UBL 2.0 release package (see Appendix
*** AAA *** for more
information regarding the structure of the 2.0 release package
and Section *** NNN ***
for information regarding dependencies among the schema modules). The
xsd/ directory is further subdivided into
xsd/maindoc/, xsd/common/, and
xsd/codelist/ subdirectories.
For convenience in implementing the schemas, a parallel (and
technically non-normative) “runtime” set with
the annotation elements stripped out is provided in
the xsdrt/ directory.
The XSD schemas defining the eight basic document types that support the
generic UBL 1.0 order-to-invoice process are located in the
xsd/maindoc/ directory, as listed below.
- Order
- xsd/maindoc/UBL-Order-1.0.xsd
- Order Response
- xsd/maindoc/UBL-OrderResponse-1.0.xsd
- Order Response Simple
- xsd/maindoc/UBL-OrderResponseSimple-1.0.xsd
- Order Change
- xsd/maindoc/UBL-OrderChange-1.0.xsd
- Order Cancellation
- xsd/maindoc/UBL-OrderCancellation-1.0.xsd
- Despatch Advice
- xsd/maindoc/UBL-DespatchAdvice-1.0.xsd
- Receipt Advice
- xsd/maindoc/UBL-ReceiptAdvice-1.0.xsd
- Invoice
- xsd/maindoc/UBL-Invoice-1.0.xsd
The xsd/common directory contains six schemas
referenced by the eight document schemas in
xsd/maindoc. Two of these common schemas
contain the UBL library of reusable data components from
which the main document schemas are assembled; three
contain definitions needed to implement [CCTS] conformance; and one provides a
consistent format for schema metadata. The name of each
schema file together with a brief description of its
contents is given below.
- Common Basic Components
- xsd/common/UBL-CommonBasicComponents-1.0.xsd
- This schema defines the global Basic Business Information Entities (BBIEs) that are used throughout UBL, serving, in effect, as a “global BBIE type database” for constructing documents. As specified by the UBL Naming and Design Rules, this schema does not include BBIEs having Code or Identifier datatypes; these are defined locally wherever they are used.
- Common Aggregate Components
- xsd/common/UBL-CommonAggregateComponents-1.0.xsd
- This schema defines the Aggregate Business Information Entities (ABIEs) that are used throughout UBL, serving, in effect, as an “ABIE type database” for constructing the main documents.
- Core Component Types
- xsd/common/UBL-CoreComponentTypes-1.0.xsd
- This schema provides Core Component Types as defined by [CCTS]. These types are used to construct higher-level datatypes in a standardized and consistent manner. This schema should not be modified.
- Unspecialized Datatypes
- xsd/common/UBL-UnspecializedDatatypes-1.0.xsd
- This schema defines Unqualified Data Types for primary and secondary representation terms as specified by [CCTS]. Derived from Core Component Types, these XSD complexType structures are the basic data types from which all other data types must derive. This schema should not be modified.
- Specialized Datatypes
- xsd/common/UBL-SpecializedDatatypes-1.0.xsd
- This schema provides Qualified Data Types as defined by [CCTS]. These XSD complexType structures are derived from Unspecialized Datatypes by extension, restriction, and other contextual constraints, such as facets. The Specialized Datatypes have been customized for the UBL 1.0 procurement process and may be further extended to support additional datatypes required for other business contexts.
NOTE: The terms “specialized” and “unspecialized” are used instead of the terms “qualified” and “unqualified” in order to avoid confusion with qualified and unqualified names in [XSD1][XSD2].
- Core Component Parameters
- xsd/common/UBL-CoreComponentParameters-1.0.xsd
- This schema defines the structure of the annotation/documentation sections that appear in all the other schemas, providing a consistent format for metadata such as object class, representation terms, semantic descriptions, and other supplementary information.
The thirteen code list schemas required for UBL 1.0 are included in the
xsd/codelist directory. These code list
schemas allow component instances conformant to any of
the main document schemas to be validated against code
list values. See Appendix E for further information about
the form of representation used for UBL code lists.
- Acknowledgement Response Code
- xsd/codelist/UBL-CodeList-AcknowledgementResponseCode-1.0.xsd
- Allowance Charge Reason Code
- xsd/codelist/UBL-CodeList-AllowanceChargeReasonCode-1.0.xsd
- Channel Code
- xsd/codelist/UBL-CodeList-ChannelCode-1.0.xsd
- Chip Code
- xsd/codelist/UBL-CodeList-ChipCode-1.0.xsd
- Country Identification Code
- xsd/codelist/UBL-CodeList-CountryIdentificationCode-1.0.xsd
- Currency Code
- xsd/codelist/UBL-CodeList-CurrencyCode-1.0.xsd
- Document Status Code
- xsd/codelist/UBL-CodeList-DocumentStatusCode-1.0.xsd
- Latitude Direction Code
- xsd/codelist/UBL-CodeList-LatitudeDirectionCode-1.0.xsd
- Line Status Code
- xsd/codelist/UBL-CodeList-LineStatusCode-1.0.xsd
- Longitude Direction Code
- xsd/codelist/UBL-CodeList-LongitudeDirectionCode-1.0.xsd
- Operator Code
- xsd/codelist/UBL-CodeList-OperatorCode-1.0.xsd
- Payment Means Code
- xsd/codelist/UBL-CodeList-PaymentMeansCode-1.0.xsd
- Substitution Status Code
- xsd/codelist/UBL-CodeList-SubstitutionStatusCode-1.0.xsd
The following diagram shows the dependencies among the schema modules comprising a UBL 1.0 document schema. Note that (as in the other UML diagrams used in this release) dependent components point to the components upon which they depend.
![[schema dependency diagram]](art/UBL-1.0-SchemaDependency.jpg)
Figure 2. UBL Schema Dependencies
Online and downloadable versions of this release are available from the locations specified at the top of this document.
The UBL 1.0 specification is published as a zip archive named cd-UBL-1.0.zip. Unzipping this archive creates a directory named cd-UBL-1.0 containing a master hypertext document (this document, index.html) and a number of subdirectories. The files in these subdirectories, linked to from index.html, contain the various normative and informational pieces of the 1.0 release. A description of each subdirectory is given below.
art/- Diagrams and illustrations used in this specification
doc/- Supporting documents created by the UBL TC and referenced in this specification
xsd/- XSD schemas; see Section 6
xsdrt/- “Runtime” XSD schemas; see Section 6
UBL has inspired the creation of both free and commercial UBL tools. A list of tools currently available for UBL can be found on the web page of the UBL Software Subcommittee:
UBL is a volunteer project of the international business community. Inquiries regarding UBL may be posted to the public ubl-dev list, archives for which are located at
Subscriptions to ubl-dev can be made through the OASIS list manager at
Certain components in the library allow recursive nesting. For example, a Package may contain other Packages, a Delivery may specify another Delivery, etc. These are legitimate business data structures. Most real-world applications will limit the depth of recursion in such structures, but XSD schemas are incapable of expressing this constraint. Implementors should be aware of this and may wish to set limits on the depth of recursive structures in their applications.
The process in which the UBL 2.0 procurement documents are intended to function is described in ./doc/extended-process.pdf [*** needs to be replaced by final document ***]. Note that this description is informative, not normative; it is possible to use UBL 2.0 document types in contexts that fall outside of the process model assumed during their development.
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