Re: [ubl-dev] UBL DespatchAdvice - Delivered Quantity - Who to represent in another quantity/Unit of Measure

["G. Ken Holman" <gkholman@CraneSoftwrights.com>]

At 2013-07-10 10:43 -0300, Carlos Martin wrote:
> Could be the  DespatchLine\cbc:DeliveredQuantity\cbc:PackQuantity 
> element to represent 3 coils and 
> the  DespatchLine\cbc:DeliveredQuantity\cbc:PackSizeNumeric to 
> represent that a coil has 300 meters?

"Basic" elements are atomic values and do not have children, so 
looking at the XPath addresses (with backwards slashes ... they 
should be "/" instead), I can tell those are inappropriate.  Anything 
with cbc: cannot have children.  Children are always under either 
cac: or the document element (which XML defines as the top-most 
element in the document tree).

I've never tried to use DespatchAdvice before, but I'm looking at its 
constituent members here and I can see some ideas to experiment with:

http://docs.oasis-open.org/ubl/prd4-UBL-2.1/mod/summary/reports/UBL-DespatchAdvice-2.1.html#Table_DespatchAdvice.Details

I hope that others will critique my analysis below and suggest 
improvements.  I'm offering this as an exercise in exploring the UBL 
document model and hope that community members benefit from the 
excursion.  Please tell me where I have gone wrong in my analysis.

da:DespatchAdvice/cac:DespatchLine takes us to the line, where I see 
that cac:Item is mandatory.  By its having children, the despatch 
line has an associated cbc:DeliveredQuantity and 
cac:OrderLineReference.  I would assume that you would want the 
delivered quantity to reflect the total quantity for the despatch 
line, so cbc:DeliveredQuantity might be where you would indicate 
1200m as the total.

We need somewhere to say that "3" pieces were despatched at "400m" each piece.

So I looked in cac:Item:

http://docs.oasis-open.org/ubl/prd4-UBL-2.1/mod/summary/reports/UBL-DespatchAdvice-2.1.html#Table_Item.Details

... and I see information available with respect to package quantity 
and number of items, but then I discounted using these because the 
definitions are the inverse of what is needed.  The definitions 
indicate that a unit of measure is used for the total quantity found 
in a pack and the pack size is how many items are found in the 
pack.  So that doesn't help us.  The cac:Item is still mandatory, so 
that is where the item itself is being described, that being cable.

What is left in cac:DespatchLine?  Let's look at cac:Shipment:

http://docs.oasis-open.org/ubl/prd4-UBL-2.1/mod/summary/reports/UBL-DespatchAdvice-2.1.html#Table_Shipment.Details

I see that cac:GoodsItem describes items included in the shipment, 
and it is repeatable, so we could describe multiple pieces included 
in the shipment for the despatch line.  I think this is important, 
because in your example there is a single breakdown of 3 coils of 
400m each coil, but what if there were 2 coils of 500m and 1 coil of 200m?

So, looking at cac:GoodsItem:

http://docs.oasis-open.org/ubl/prd4-UBL-2.1/mod/summary/reports/UBL-DespatchAdvice-2.1.html#Table_GoodsItem.Details

... the description can be "coil".  cac:GoodsItem/cbc:Quantity would 
be 3 and cac:GoodsItem/cac:MeasurementDimension/cbc:Measure could be 
400m with cbc:AttributeID being "length".  Since the measurement 
dimension is repeatable, one could add another for "diameter" or 
other measurable properties.

Regarding the unit of measure, I can find "MTR" for "metre" in the 
units of measure code list:

http://docs.oasis-open.org/ubl/prd4-UBL-2.1/cva/UBL-DefaultDTQ-2.1.html#d30e1

So that would produce something along the lines of the following for 
three coils of 400m each:

  <cac:DespatchLine>
    <cbc:ID>...</>
    <cbc:DeliveredQuantity unitCode="MTR">1200</>
    <cac:OrderLineReference>
      ...
    </>
    <cac:Item>
      <cbc:Description>Cable</>
    </>
    <cac:Shipment>
      <cbc:ID>...</>
      <cac:GoodsItem>
        <cbc:Description>Coil</>
        <cbc:Quantity>3</>
        <cac:MeasurementDimension>
          <cbc:AttributeID>Length</>
          <cbc:Measure unitCode="MTR">400</>
        </>
      </>
    </>
  </>

And for my alternate shipping scenario of three coils with different lengths:

  <cac:DespatchLine>
    <cbc:ID>...</>
    <cbc:DeliveredQuantity unitCode="MTR">1200</>
    <cac:OrderLineReference>
      ...
    </>
    <cac:Item>
      <cbc:Description>Cable</>
    </>
    <cac:Shipment>
      <cbc:ID>...</>
      <cac:GoodsItem>
        <cbc:Description>Coil</>
        <cbc:Quantity>2</>
        <cac:MeasurementDimension>
          <cbc:AttributeID>Length</>
          <cbc:Measure unitCode="MTR">500</>
        </>
      </>
      <cac:GoodsItem>
        <cbc:Description>Coil</>
        <cbc:Quantity>1</>
        <cac:MeasurementDimension>
          <cbc:AttributeID>Length</>
          <cbc:Measure unitCode="MTR">200</>
        </>
      </>
    </>
  </>

Would others (particularly members of the UBL PSC) agree with the 
above analysis and proposed resulting markup?

If other members of the UBL Dev community would propose scenarios for 
analysis, then collectively we can propose different approaches to 
markup the required information.

Note my use of the HTML tables that expose the document model 
spreadsheets with numerous hyperlinks:

  http://docs.oasis-open.org/ubl/prd4-UBL-2.1/mod/summary/readme-Reports.html

I hope this is considered helpful, even if I'm wrong above and 
someone corrects me!  I know the exercise helps me ... I've never 
looked at DespatchAdvice before.

. . . . . . . . . . Ken

--
Contact us for world-wide XML consulting and instructor-led training |
Free 5-hour lecture: http://www.CraneSoftwrights.com/links/udemy.htm |
Crane Softwrights Ltd.            http://www.CraneSoftwrights.com/u/ |
G. Ken Holman                   mailto:gkholman@CraneSoftwrights.com |
Google+ profile: https://plus.google.com/116832879756988317389/about |
Legal business disclaimers:    http://www.CraneSoftwrights.com/legal |