Re: [ubl-dev] Mapping business model fields to UBL 2.0

[Stephen Green <stephengreenubl@gmail.com>]

NOTE: maybe UBL TC should consider adding Offer at line level to RFQ
then ensure it can be followed through the procurement process. At least
this use case seems to require it.

I don't have time to do more than CC this to UBL-comment list and the 

deadline for content additions for UBL 2.1 means it might be too close to
be taken up.

So for UBL-Comment - maybe the UBL RFQ document should cater for the
inclusion of an Offer by the party requesting the quotation. This would be

a similar structure in the RFQ Line to the Quotation Line's price structure.
There needs to be a way to pass a reference to such an Offer through the
procurement process as far as the Invoice (possibly via
RFQ Line > Quotation Line > Order Line > Invoice Line ).

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Stephen D Green
Document Engineering Services Ltd

2009/7/13 Stephen Green <stephen.green@documentengineeringservices.com>

Regarding #2, Offer reference (how to derive from a UBL 2.0 Invoice)

The natural place for an Offer in the UBL processes is probably the RequestForQuotation
where a potential buyer would possibly want to include their offer in the line of the RFQ.
UBL doesn't itself support this in a structured way in the UBL 2.0 RFQ but has a place
for a note which could perhaps include the offer made by the potential customer. In other
cases it might be that in your scenario UBL isn't being use for the RFQ but that doesn't
matter with the invoice. The natural place for the offer ID in the Quotation document is
(if it is a potential customer's offer to the supplier) in the
RequestForQuotationDocumentReference but it might be likely that in your scenario
the UBL 2.0 Quotation document isn't necessarily used. As far as the Order is concerned,
it might include a reference to the Quotation and then by following
/default:Order/cac:OrderLine/cac:QuotationLineReference/cbc:LineID through to the
Quotation line and from there to the RFQ line you can at least match an Order Line to
any Offer contained somehow (either as text in Note or Description - a bit messy) in UBL
RFQ or as extension in UBL RFQ (also tricky) or, more likely in some other format RFQ
like paper or internal format plus website, say. Now all you need to do is make sure the
Order contains the link at line level to the Quotation and the Quotation contains the link,
somehow, at line level to the RFQ which itself contains the offer information (at line level).
Then you just need to ensure the invoice line references the order line. This allows tracing
the invoice back to the offer. I think that's how it's meant to work (not just in UBL but in
business documents in general). Good news is UBL Invoice does have line level reference
to an order line
/Invoice/cac:InvoiceLine/cac:OrderLineReference/cac:OrderReference/cbc:ID
together with
/Invoice/cac:InvoiceLine/cac:OrderLineReference/cbc:LineID
The bad news is maybe not all systems can support such line level detail, but since you
are asking it seems a safe assumption those you have in mind do support such detail
(but througout the documents process?).

Best regards

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Stephen D Green
Document Engineering Services Ltd