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Subject: Re: [ubl] Information items in 2-prd2-cd minimal instances


i agree with sylvia but i think she is reading too much into this.  what i see in ken's documents is simply the "only mandatory" items.  that is, an automatic generation of a model that only contains the items flagged as mandatory in the schema.

no business rules are used to guide this model and as such it is fairly meaningless.  no-one could use this model as-is.  consider the waybill - it only decribes a shipment and no parties involved!

i suspect ken was seeing value in a "meets all mandatory requirements" generic model for minimum compliance checking. but i am think this is more a technical objective than a business one.

in fact there is a danger here that this type of model may become a target for compliance in application interfaces.  i am not sure we want that.

nice try though ;-)

Sylvia Webb wrote:
Ken,
Based on my experience, I have serious reservations that there can be a
universal minimum subset defined by the UBL TC. Such a subset can run afoul
of local, regional, and international laws which specify minimum data
requirements for specific transactions. Additionally, purchasing or contract
law can dictate what a minimum subset should be between trading partners. 

As an example, if I establish a business relationship with a EU company or
government agency, I have different minimum data requirements that may be
specified in their subsets or guidelines plus additional requirements
specified by U.S. and California laws. If I am shipping hazardous goods, I
have yet another minimum subset of data required. Finally, depending on what
is specified in any purchase order or contract that I receive, I can have
multiple minimum subset requirements based on the legally binding
requirements of those documents. These minimum data requirements do not
include additional data that I may wish to include to satisfy any best
practices which my company wishes to follow.

IMO, there isn't any way that a standards body can have access to all of the
subject matter experts needed to consider all of the business rules and laws
which would be needed to determine an internationally acceptable minimum
subset.

Regards,
Sylvia

-----Original Message-----
From: G. Ken Holman [mailto:gkholman@CraneSoftwrights.com] 
Sent: Friday, August 11, 2006 8:34 PM
To: Universal Business Language
Subject: [ubl] Information items in 2-prd2-cd minimal instances

As part of the analysis of 2-prd2-cd in the context of the extension
methodology and my concepts of working with minimal instances of only
mandatory elements, I thought it best to supplement the XPath report files
with a "minimal mandatory report" for each of the 31 document types:

   http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/document.php?document_id=19695

Each report enumerates the absolute minimum mandatory element and attribute
information items for the given document type.  The smallest instance that
would validate with the schema would be an instance with only (and all)
these information items.

The reference numbers at the left are the XPath reference number from the
complete XPath file that enumerates one of every information item.  I am
unable to put the complete 283Mb XPath package in the repository, so I've
corresponded with OASIS staff to see how I might do this.

By reviewing the minimal instance information items, I wonder if the UBL
subject matter experts might detect any faults in the model design.

I was interested to see what information items are, I believe, those that
would need to be supported in a "minimal implementation" as I described to
Jay in my response quoted below.

While the vast majority of transactions accepted and processed by a system
would be instances meeting all of the business rules of the recipient, in a
"minimal mode of operation" 
selectively engaged by the recipient in order to transact with a new
business partner not meeting the business rules, the system could act solely
on the minimal mandatory information which is guaranteed to be found in
instances of *all* UBL implementations.  This suspension of business rules
would not be the norm as eventually the sender would change their system, or
the transaction with the sender might just be a one-off, but for that period
of time that the sender does not meet the complete business rules of the
receiver, the receiver could transact (with the required non-electronic
support
information) with the minimal instances.

The question is, are there sufficient mandatory information items in the
minimal document models with which to do this?

I hope this is considered helpful.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . Ken

At 2006-08-11 10:11 -0500, I wrote:
  
At 2006-07-31 16:10 +0100, Jay Cousins wrote:
    
3rd para. So serendipity is conformance to the UBL model *without* 
extensions - yes?
      
Yes.

    
- which makes perfect sense - but for this a UBL compliant system 
would need to implement the entire UBL model, including all optional 
content, no?
      
I don't think so ...

For example the absolute minimum invoice instance has only the 
following information items:

/in:Invoice/
/in:Invoice/cbc:ID
/in:Invoice/cbc:IssueDate
/in:Invoice/cac:AccountingSupplierParty/
/in:Invoice/cac:AccountingCustomerParty/
/in:Invoice/cac:LegalTotal/
/in:Invoice/cac:LegalTotal/cbc:PayableAmount
/in:Invoice/cac:InvoiceLine/
/in:Invoice/cac:InvoiceLine/cbc:ID
/in:Invoice/cac:InvoiceLine/cbc:LineExtensionAmount
/in:Invoice/cac:InvoiceLine/cac:Item/

    
If not how can serendipity apply? It's not clear to me if the minimum 
requirements are stated or not.  I assume that 'minimum requirements' 
are support for the whole UBL model.
      
Personally, I think that 'minimum requirements' 
is support for only the mandatory elements.

If an invoice processing system supported only the absolute minimum 
elements above, and the invoice gets paid without need for *any* 
optional elements, then payee gets his money from the payer without 
either having to change their systems.  Obviously this would probably 
be an optional mode of operation, as having a number of the optional 
items would often be required to meet business needs by the paying 
organization.  But by encouraging deployments to have such a mode of 
operation, then two brand new trading partners could use their existing 
implementations of UBL with an agreement to work, perhaps just one-off 
or for a temporary period of time, in this "minimal mode" until such 
time as their systems can be modified to meet more business requirements.

Without propagating this concept of being able to work, even just 
optionally, in such a minimum mode of operation, I'm worried that UBL 
deployments will create obstacles for new trading partners to either 
quickly or just temporarily do business by mandating changes to 
existing implementations.

    
However, Section 5 of the document shows that a system that does 
support the UBL model is 'UBL-open'.  So I think the meaning here is 
that serendipity requires a UBL-open system?  Can you make this explicit?
      
Yes, my thought was that a UBL-open system is one that supports the 
absolute minimum in a mode of operation that suspends business rules 
that would otherwise cause the instance to be rejected.

Whereas a UBL-conformant system is one where the business rules are not 
suspended and a UBL-conformant instance not meeting the rules is 
rejected, but one that does meet the rules is accepted.
    




--
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G. Ken Holman                 mailto:gkholman@CraneSoftwrights.com
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-- 
regards
tim mcgrath
phone: +618 93352228  
postal: po box 1289   fremantle    western australia 6160
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