RE: [ebxml-bp] Comments on NameID/IDRef and UID and Late Binding and Document References

["Dale Moberg" <dmoberg@cyclonecommerce.com>]

Martin writes:

"Late Binding has some interesting and curious requirements.  We tried
to model the ordering process in BT.  We found that the use of the
overall TimeToPerform for a BinaryCollaboration was unworkable.  If I
have a PO that has a standard lead teim of 5 days do I set the TTP to 5
days?  But what happens if the customer does not want their goods for
30days.  The process would time out.  So I would like to treat all Times
and possible documents as being variables that may, but not necessarily,
be overidden by data sent within the Business Documents.  At the moment
there is lots of data that is passed between our customers that effect
the times and documents which we can not use as there is no way to
reference that information within the BPSS."

Martin, I think you are joining other people who have commented that
TimeToPerform (and also TimeToAcknowledge) can be difficult to know how
to define at BP definition time. This makes me wonder whether they
should be optional to place in BPSS for cases where the time constraints
are known at design time? (Are there any cases of these?)

In fact, the use cases being presented seem to suggest that
configuration time may also be too early to decide on these values (so
the CPPA really should also have some way to indicate that precise
values will be set at runtime). Would it still be useful to enter into
agreements on the "floor" or "ceiling" for these values? Would this
interval be a configuration aspect of a CPA agreement (or part of BPSS,
or in a UBAC agreement)? Is there any need to retain in CPPA or BPSS any
support for declaring values for these parameters?  

If it is runtime only, should it be part of Messaging headers? Or
possibly in business headers (such as those of ATG SBDH ?) Or both,
depending on which software components need to set or get the values.

It seems to me that while these values certainly pertain to the business
process commitments, they are not clearly part of the design-time
machinery. It is difficult to know which software components need these
values, or at what layer of specification, the values that are used need
to be declared.

I am sorry to be raising so many questions but those are ones that occur
to me while reading your remarks.