Re: Which message format to use?

[jon.bosak@sun.com]

Hello Fred,

I'm a bit surprised that proponents of other XML business
languages haven't jumped at this opportunity to advertise their
solutions on the ubl-dev list as they usually do; perhaps summer
vacations are making them slow to respond.

Without engaging in specific comparisons, I would sum up the key
factors differentiating UBL from the alternatives as follows.

 - UBL is not an attempt to reinvent business.  Instead, it seeks
   to bring existing business, legal, auditing, and records
   management practices onto the internet and thus enable
   businesses of all sizes to enjoy the benefits of electronic
   commerce with a minimum of disruption to their existing
   infrastructure.  It does this by defining standard XML formats
   for common business documents such as invoices and purchase
   orders and by providing detailed mappings from its documents to
   their paper representations, specifically to the standard UN
   Layout Key versions of those documents.  Free stylesheets that
   enable the generation of UN Layout Key printouts of any UBL
   document are available from Crane Softwrights at

      http://www.cranesoftwrights.com/u/

   A free java formatter that will generate an HTML representation
   of any UBL document is available from Ambrosoft at

      http://www.ambrosoft.com/

 - In service of this goal, UBL is strongly oriented towards a
   high-level document-based business-to-business approach rather
   than a lower-level process-oriented application-to-application
   approach.  To put it another way, UBL is designed to be equally
   usable by people and machines.  The focus in UBL is on the data
   rather than the processes that produce and consume that data.
   This makes the data representations both humanly understandable
   and usable in contexts that arise long after the original data
   exchange.  UBL relies upon other layers of the collaboration
   stack for process definition.  In the ebXML context from which
   UBL originally came, for example, the process definition takes
   place in the BPSS and CPP/A layers.  (You should note that
   ebXML itself does not provide standard business document
   schemas; that is the role intended for UBL.)

 - UBL is the product of an open, accountable, vendor-neutral
   OASIS Technical Committee whose proceedings are visible to
   everyone via its archived and publicly visible mailing list.
   Participation in the UBL TC is open to all OASIS members, both
   individuals and organizations.  The UBL mail archive can be found at

      http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/ubl/

 - UBL started with the donation of xCBL 3.0 by CommerceOne and
   SAP.  This grounding in a freely available, mature, well
   architected technology already widely deployed in real-world
   electronic marketplaces has given UBL a development lead that
   it continues to enjoy to this day.  Building on CBL 1.0 (1998),
   CBL 2.0 (1999), xCBL 3.0 (2000), and UBL 0.7 (2003), UBL 1.0
   (2004) is the fifth generation of a specification that at this
   point represents more than six years of continuous development
   in the creation of a standard XML business syntax.  You can
   find the UBL 1.0 Standard at

      http://docs.oasis-open.org/ubl/cd-UBL-1.0.zip

   You will note in examining this package that UBL 1.0 includes a
   massive amount of supporting materials for users -- far more
   than is usually made available in standards of this kind.

 - UBL is the first true standards body implementation of the
   ebXML Core Components Technical Specification (ISO 15000-5).
   UBL continues to collaborate with UN/CEFACT TBG17 as that body
   works toward the eventual definition of a standard Core
   Component library.

 - UBL localization subcommittees have translated the UBL library
   and data definitions into Chinese (Traditional and Simplified),
   Japanese, Korean, and Spanish.  This work has been collated and
   published as the UBL 1.0 International Data Dictionary, which
   contains more than 600 standard data elements and their
   translations -- a unique resource available only for UBL that
   makes UBL instances understandable to more than two-thirds of
   the world's current online population.  The IDD is available at

      http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/12242/cd-UBL-1.0-IDD-1.xls
      http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/12243/cd-UBL-1.0-IDD-1.sxc

 - The UBL schema Naming and Design Rules have been adopted in
   whole or in part by major industries (including chemicals,
   petroleum, agriculture, and real estate), by the
   U.S. Department of the Navy, and by the U.S. Internal Revenue
   Service.  The UN/CEFACT Naming and Design Rules are also based
   to a large extent on the UBL NDRs.  The quality of the UBL
   design work can be judged by the extent to which other projects
   have borrowed from it; no other XML business definition effort
   has had this kind of influence on other initiatives.  The UBL
   NDR document (itself an OASIS Standard) is available at

      http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/9943/cd-UBL-NDR-1.0Rev1b.pdf

 - The UBL Small Business Subcommittee has just released a subset
   of UBL 1.0 specifically designed for small businesses.  The UBL
   1.0 Small Business Subset (SBS), which will soon begin public
   review, is expected to receive wide distribution in XML
   products.  If other business languages have defined and
   published a profile specifically for small business users, I
   haven't heard of it.  The most recent draft of the UBL 1.0 SBS
   specificaton is available at

      http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/13672/UBL-1-0-SBS-1-0-cd.zip

 - In Denmark, UBL has been adopted by law for all invoicing in
   the public sector.  Within three months of its initial
   deployment in February 2005, some 1.4 million UBL invoices a
   month were being exchanged in Denmark.  The Danish government
   estimates that the adoption of UBL invoice alone will save it
   94 million euros annually.  The implementation of UBL purchase
   order next year is expected to increase this savings to 160
   million euros annually.  This is real adoption and real
   savings, not just marketing smoke based on download statistics.

 - UBL 2.0, scheduled for initial release in the first quarter of
   2006, will be semantically compatible with UBL 1.0 and as
   currently targeted will include:

    - A set of input specifications to enable the creation of
      UBL-compliant forms input software in addition to the
      standard forms output functions already supported in UBL 1.0.

    - Support for European taxation requirements specified by the
      OASIS Tax XML TC.

    - Four new document types donated by government-funded
      projects in Hong Kong and Singapore to support international
      shipping (Bill of Lading, Waybill, Forwarding Instruction,
      and Certificate of Origin).

    - Ten new document types for an extended UBL procurement model
      proposed by IDA (EC) and OGC (UK) that implements a common
      European government eprocurement process; the result will
      provide document types for a pre-ordering phase (Catalogue,
      Request for Quotation, Quotation) and a post-ordering phase
      (Credit Note, Account Response, Self-billed Invoice,
      Self-billing Credit Note, Debit Note, Remittance Advice,
      Statement of Account).  A description of the UBL 2.0
      extended procurement model can be found at

         http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/ubl/200507/msg00033.html

With regard to your particular application area in the
Netherlands, the early and very successful adoption of UBL in
Denmark for purposes very similar to yours and the major input of
European government and taxation requirements for UBL 2.0 makes
UBL the obvious choice for use by the Ministry of Finance.  I
suggest that you contact your peers in the Danish National IT and
Telecom Agency for their experiences with UBL; please email me for
contact information if you'd like to follow up on this.

Best regards,

Jon Bosak
Chair, OASIS UBL TC

   From: f.verheul@belastingdienst.nl
   Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2005 14:33:52 +0200

   Hi all,

   I'm a SAP XI development consultant working at the Ministry of Finance (in
   particular, the IT-department of the Tax and Customs Office) in the
   Netherlands.
   Like many other firms, we're planning to use the exchange of electronic
   messages in the business process of purchasing. Specifically, we plan (at
   least initially) to send purchase orders to the vendors and get invoices
   back.
   Now the question of which message format to use pops up.
   We're using SAP Idocs internally, but are looking for a generic format to
   communicate with the outside world.
   I've been looking on internet, and I've found several standards (cXML,
   xCBL, OAGIS BOD's, UBL(!), ebXML), that seem to provide these formats.
   They all claim to be the 'best' solution.
   So where am I left?

   Does anyone have any thoughts on choosing between them?

   All possible arguments are welcome (and not only those in favor of UBL
   ;-)).

   Thank you for your votes.

   Fred Verheul