RE: [ciq] Reminder: CIQ TC SPECIFICATIONS REVIEW

Ram, I have reviewed the xNAL, XAL, and XNL specifications, especially in terms of the formatting of the international addresses, including those from the UPU, and have the following comments to make:

1) I was concerned about the lack of backward compatibility to former versions since we had been able to make 1-to-1 mappings of the detail level elements with the UPU elements successfully in the past. Now I can see that what you are presenting is a different approach from its predecessors, which places somewhat less emphasis on enumerating all conceivable elements and more on letting users extend a core of elements to meet specific needs, or enabling them to deploy a reduced set of composite constructs if that is what they want to do. The documentation makes it clear that there is always a price for sacrificing precision. At the same time, it makes clear that there is also a price for user extensions, namely that each initial communication with a trading partner needs pre-negotiation.

2) New UPU address elements that may be added for S42-5 include two that you might consider as address elements. One is multi-country region, often used for helping others to direct mail to islands in the Caribbean, for example. See the UPU example for Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. This element should be used with caution to make sure that mail is properly directed. It was felt that this should not be combined with the region within a country because it would not take the same position in a formatted address. Another is for international routing information. See the UPU example for Tristan da Cunha for an example of this. This kind of information should not be stored in the name of the country because it can make table matching difficult.

3) The reference to the GCA/IDEAlliance ADIS project in the General Introduction and Overview is more than fair. ADIS has not been approved by the UPU, though ADIS has much in common in its methodology with UPU S42. What can be said is that ADIS shares many features with UPU S42. Among them are the basic commitment to address element methodology, the use of element sub-types for instances and parts, an emphasis on rendition of addresses to produce deliverable addresses under space constraints, the capability for validation of postal delivery points, and the template language PATDL (Postal Address Template Description Language), which supports the importing of CIQ TC elements.

4) On the subject of templates, will the CIQ specification discuss the work of the OASIS CAM TC as it relates to formatting addresses? Perhaps this has been done and I didn't find it. Or is this being left for the future?

5) Should there be an entry in the xAL types for country? I found the element in the xAL schema but it does not reference a type. This is also the case for some others such as PostCode. Even if these elements do not actually need types, was it considered whether all the elements should have types for consistency?

6) As an editorial point, check for the misspelling "thoroughare" which is found in some places rather than "thoroughfare", sometimes as part of a more complex term, such as in the xAL types which include "SubThoroughareConnector".

All in all, this is an impressive body of work and those primarily responsible for it deserve commendation for all the effort.

----- Original Message -----

From: Ram Kumar

To: ciq@lists.oasis-open.org

Sent: Friday, August 05, 2005 6:38 AM

Subject: [ciq] Reminder: CIQ TC SPECIFICATIONS REVIEW

CIQ TC,

This is a reminder that the 30 day review period for the CIQ TC
Specifications (Version 3.0) ends on 7 August 2005

Regards,

Ram

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