UBL TransportationStatus to multiple parties?

["Duvekot, Kees" <kduvekot@Wehkamp.nl>]

All,

 

When I look at the description that is given in the TransportationStatus document then I read the following:

 

     “A document to circulate reports of transportation status or changes in status (events) among a group of participants.”

 

The description of “a group of participants.” is not in completely in  line with what is described in the main UBL specification document (paragraph 2.16) where it says:

 

     “Freight Status Reporting is the process by which a Transport Service Provider (such as a Carrier or

      Freight Forwarder) communicates the status of shipments currently under their management to the

     Transport Users (such as a Freight Forwarder, Consignee, or Consignor).”

 

So here it mentions “Transport Users” (plural) but the diagram in that paragraph only mentions one TransportUser. In all other documents around Transportation the TransportUser is the party requesting a TransportServiceProvider to perform a service, so that only be one party, not multiple.

 

So when I look at the actual elements in the UBL TransportationStatus document then I see the following:

 

     cac:SenderParty [0..1]    The party sending this Transportation Status report.

     cac:ReceiverParty [0..1]    The party receiving this Transportation Status report.

 

This means that I can not specify “a group of participants” in this document because the ReceiverParty is 0 to 1 .. and not 0 to n.

 

So this raises some question for me …

 

Is this difference between single/multiple intentional?

Should it be one or multiple?

If I want to send a TransportationStatus to multiple recipients do I need to create multiple TransportationStatus documents? (each listing a different cac:ReceiverParty) or leave the cac:ReceiverParty empty?

Do I need to give each document it’s own document ID or all the same document ID?

How do the participants know who else has received the document? (do they need to know?)

Etc

Etc

 

But overall …

 

What is the “standard UBL way” of dealing with documents which should be send to multiple parties?

How does that relate back to the whole logic around actual sending these documents? (like PEPPOL Transport Infrastructure, Standard Business Document Header etc etc)

 

Just some questions that came to mind while going through the TransportationStatus document.

 

Kees