Update on UBL and CEFACT: State of play and the way ahead

[Tim McGrath <tmcgrath@portcomm.com.au>]

In preparation for our scheduled discussion at the plenary (Wednesday 
09:15), I have drafted some briefing points...

* At the UN/CEFACT Plenary meeting in Geneva on May 22, the Chair 
(Stuart Feder) included the following  slide in his opening presentation:

> OASIS/UBL and UN/CEFACT collaboration plan
> - work together to build a common set of eBusiness document standards
> - work with all relevant Forum Groups
> - common core components and business processes
> - recognition of UBL v.2 as appropriate first-generation XML documents 
> for eBusiness


* Mark Palmer (Vice Chair of UN/CEFACT) and I propose we should act as 
the management team for issues related to UBL/CEFACT collaboration.  
There seems no point in adding further layers into the mix.

* The document entitled "UN/CEFACT and OASIS/UBL Collaboration Summary 
of the agreed current activities and next steps" 
(http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/18152/current%20activities%20and%20next%20steps.doc) 
describes the areas of collaboration required.

* The UBL-TBG1 team met with TBG1 representatives last month. To quote 
the UBL team lead, Mark Leitch, "the tone of the meeting was very 
co-operative and that we all agree that, rather than 'harmonising' our 
individual outputs, our task is to converge towards a third solution 
that combines the best of the individual standards. "
Two other points of note were:
1) in choosing the invoice, we have started with a difficult message 
(although it is the right one to start with)
2) structural differences have appeared straight away e.g. in delivery 
and allowance.  It is recognised that the successful convergence of 
ABIEs etc. depends on our submitting candidate components and change 
requests and on other groups working in this area.
The group started creating a formal gap-analysis where all gaps missing 
in the TBG1 Cross Industry Invoice are documented and resolved. There is 
a follow-up meeting scheduled in September in Brussels. Their 
deliverables included a draft work plan detailing the start and end 
dates for all UBL e-procurement dates.

* TBG3 have again given valuable feedback on the UBL 2.0 draft.  As with 
TBG1, this has identified useful areas for future collaboration and 
broader issues of alignment..

* My personal feeling is that for our overall collaboration with CEFACT 
to be effective we need the consider the true status of work within some 
key areas such as: the TBG17 Core Component Library, the Core Component 
Working Group of TMG and the Naming and Design Rules from ATG2. 

* We have a proposal for UBL's Naming and Design Rules team to identify 
significant gaps between the UBL and ATG2 NDRs and draft a plan for 
resolution.  We have been invited to table this for the next ATG2 
meeting on September 11.  However we must try to avoid a complex set of 
technical arguments that have no resolution. One strategy we may want to 
consider is establishing a testbed to demonstrate the possible way 
ahead.  We could  look at the work being done between UBL and TBG1 as 
providing a BRS/data model for a new descendant Invoice document.  This 
could then be implemented using both UBL and ATG2 Naming and Design 
Rules, allowing a reasoned debate on the merits of each approach.  That 
is, comparing apples to apples.

* My message to UBL members at present is plan for how we want to 
proceed, but recognize we cannot start doing much until October (post 
UBL 2.0 normative package finalization).  My message the Mark is that if 
CEFACT groups could reciprocate then it would prepare us for action as 
soon as possible.

* The next UN/CEFACT Forum meeting is in Delhi (October 2-6).  Do any 
UBL members plan to attend?  The subsequent venue (March 2007) has not 
been finalized.

-- 
regards
tim mcgrath
phone: +618 93352228  
postal: po box 1289   fremantle    western australia 6160
web: http://www.portcomm.com.au/tmcgrath