Re: [ubl-dev] UBL vs xCBL 4.0 - and SAP implementations

["Roger Bass" <roger@traxian.com>]

Fulton, Stephen et al,

Thanks for your replies (including yours below, Stephen, re UK gov't
status etc). These raise a couple of points about potential UBL
opportunities - but also possible building blocks that might facilitate
the next steps in broadening adoption of UBL, and indeed B2B generally.
Some further background/perspective first:

The central point I think is that implementation drives more
implementation - and mostly that means from big to small. Also, in my
company's practical experience, what's most important in getting
additional business relationships connected end-to-end is:
a) implementation of a B2B interface that's reasonably easy for partners
to connect with (especially for SMBs), and
b) willingness, or better yet, active promotion of that interface to a
community of trading partners (typically suppliers)
c) ability to connect applications & processes end to end (pointy
bracket implementation details being very secondary, and not the hard
part). For SMBs, this mostly means solution availability - very few will
do this themselves.

As far as XML-based B2B goes, I see a fair amount of this out there
around cXML, albeit still small scale. Bigger suppliers are always first
- the usual 80/20. cXML seems to have started filtering down to SMBs,
and we're doing some of that. Vertical industry XML standards are
generally more business critical by definition, which tends to mean more
complexity and cost - either from reliable/secure messaging requirements
(any of them are harder than plain https), and/or needs for tighter
coupling of processes (which drives importance of various kinds of
special tags or data). Given all that, indirect purchasing, and perhaps
government in particular, seems like a relatively sweet spot for SMB B2B
adoption. Where the conditions I described above are met, e.g. with a
government or enterprise that has implemented an XML interface, and
wants to see SMB partners adopt it, my company can connect applications
the SMB suppliers are using - QuickBooks in particular, but others too
via more loosely coupled approaches.

So, to your different points, Fulton, Stephen this points to a few
things that, if they existed, might facilitate broader use of UBL. Given
that, any thoughts as to:
1. Has any UK government entity actually implemented a UBL interface for
suppliers? Or if not, eBIS-XML even?
2. How are the Danes implementing UBL at the government end? On what
platform? Is any of this open source, or commercially provided product
that might be available to others?
3. Re SAP otherwise, is anyone aware packaged/standardized integration
components supporting UBL or indeed any transactional standard? From the
page you sent, Fulton, I saw this showing the various integration
scenarios supported through different product releases (it's now called
SRM) - it's all about catalogs/puchout via OCI... and appears not to
have been touched since 2003! There's another page on 'XI integration of
industry standards' - but that seems rather generic, rather than talking
about any particular XML standard.
SRM
https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn?rid=/webcontent/uuid/0c492373-0501-0010-
7b8f-d7a65dc9fb07 
Industry standards
https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn?rid=/webcontent/uuid/9d43fb8f-0801-0010-
45b9-b0a530c40db7 



-----Original Message-----
From: Stephen Green [mailto:stephen_green@bristol-city.gov.uk] 
Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2007 7:53 AM
To: Roger Bass
Subject: Re: [ubl-dev] UBL vs xCBL 4.0 - and SAP implementations

Hi Roger

I can't help much with xCBL 4 except to offer a few UK Gov-oriented
points about the pros and cons.

1. the perception is that xCBL has a reputation for being expensive to 
implement (if there were some well-known small business apps using it
or able to use it it might help xCBL). Perhaps this links to its
pedigree
with SAP. That is subjective so disregardable but a key factor too.

2. the UK Gov has of course an 'e-GIF' (interoperibility framework)
which
hasn't been updated for a few years it seems (since version 6) which
includes a 'standards catalogue' (version 6.2 I think) and for
e-commerce
ther are only two standards mentioned as recommended - UBL and eBIS-XML.
cXML is dow3n as under consideration and nothing is down as adopted (for
political reasons). So UK public systems there is really close to a
requirement
(mandate almost) to either use one or other of these or have good reason
for using another. UBL, however, seems to be harder to adopt but
eBIS-XML
is qualified in the eGIF as only for invoices and orders. So the mandate
is
in the UK to seriously consider UBL as the only option for documents
other
than order and invoice (or for a whole suite of the same kind). But then
there
is some possibility of a new eGIF in the future and xCBL 4 probably
wasn't
around for the last eGIF. If there were a need for just one it would, it
seems,
have to be UBL. What would clinch this and help convergence would be a
decent small business-affordable implementation of UBL. That might save
a national fortune, let alone the impact on the EU where eGIFs have a
place
in public sectors too. UBL seems to be the standard of choice there too.

All the best

Stephen Green



>>> "Roger Bass" <roger@traxian.com> 10/01/07 01:51:47 >>>
 

I'd be interested in comments anyone might have comparing UBL with xCBL
4.0, which I understand to have been  "conformed" to UBL from earlier
versions of xCBL.  (Of course, this list won't need reminding that xCBL
was the original basis for UBL), and the pros and cons of each.

 

The context for this is that I'm interested to identify communities of
application users have support for one or other XML standard "out of the
box".  Ariba's cXML standard has a fair amount of traction out there -
but has various IP disadvantages.  My particular focus here is SAP -
which had a historical relationship with CommerceOne, originator of xCBL
(via Veo Systems).  I'm working this through various folks I know at SAP
- but would welcome any additional pointers.  In particular, I was
interested to note that AT&T's supplier facing website includes a
document that talks about their support of xCBL 3.0 and 4.0 
http://www.attsuppliers.com/downloads.asp 

 

I'm guessing that AT&T's support of this standard comes via some
software/mapping component running on their SAP XI infrastructure -
perhaps provided by SAP itself.  For UBL (or any other XML standard) to
become widely adopted by corporates, I suspect its availability (and
*very* easy activation with trading partners) would be a requirement.
While SAP has been quite engaged with UBL and other standards
historically, I'm not aware of any one standard being favored in its
"shrink wrap" availability.  If anyone is aware of packages that are
"ready-to-run" on SAP XI (with hooks to standard procurement / AP
processes) for UBL, xCBL or other standards, open source or otherwise,
I'd be interested to hear about it.

 

Incidentally - Oracle seems well ahead of SAP here (an observation I've
shared with my SAP contacts).  Certain of their applications seem to
support OAGXML natively, and cXML via a standard mapping service -
details of the implementation make it *extremely easy* to connect SMB
suppliers.  Can discuss more offline if anyone's interested.

 

Regards,

Roger Bass

 

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