Business Document Headers and/or Envelopes

[Tim McGrath <tim.mcgrath@documentengineeringservices.com>]

In 2011 the UBL TC created a Business Document Envelope Task Group to develop a document enveloping strategy for the UBL user community as a whole that would identify requirements and recommend suitable technologies for satisfying those requirements.  

The deliverables of this work are available at:
https://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/ubl/download.php/54702/Archive.zip
This contains a ZIP file of the initial requirements and use cases, draft documents and straw man schema produced by the task group of the UBL TC

The UBL TC are pleased to offer this to the OASIS Business Document Exchange TC as input into the development of an OASIS publication that can provide the suitable technology currently missing in the standards world.

Unfortunately I will not be able to attend your next call in person but as the lead of the UBL Task Group I thought I would convey my thoughts on this in this email.

One thing that should be clarified from the beginning is that this requirement is independent of both the messaging protocol and the business content of the message. This work does not overlap with either business vocabularies (such as UBL) or messaging protocols (such as ebMS). This work addresses the interoperability layer that provides the connection between these two. A business header (or envelope) is required in situations where multiple documents are bundled into one message or document exchanges have metadata requirements related to the business process (such as tendering).   The powerpoint presentations in the archive zip file above try to explain why we need these different layers. I wasted many hours of my life before I understood this, so I hope you won’t have to.

I believe there is a real market need for an open and formal standard for packaging business documents using either headers (standalone structures) or envelopes (wrappers).  Standardising these can enable greater interoperability of messaging services and improve integrity for the business processes involved.  Currently we have a range of disparate and ‘make-do’ solutions that do not offer the governance and long term stability such interoperability requires. 

Significantly, I would like to see Business Document Header and/or Envelope specification brought to an OASIS publication in the very near future.  This may seem an odd request, given that it has sat in the UBL TC for nearly 4 years.  As you will note from the materials submitted most of the technical work had been completed by 2012.  The delay has been through trying to ensure the correct home for the governance of this specification.  After recent discussion in the UBL TC it was agreed to approach the BDXR TC to bring this forward.  We acknowledge that the function of the business document header appears to fit more clearly within your group’s charter.  

The urgency comes from requirements of the UBL user community to have a stable and open standard in place as several large scale projects are rolled out.

Clearly since 2011 there has been refinements to these requirements and there has been other work that needs to be recognised.  However I feel the work submitted here should provide the BDXR TC with enough to move ahead quickly to a version 1.0 publication.  Myself and I believe others from the UBL TC and the UBL user community are willing to contribute and assist as required.

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Regards 
Tim McGrath
tim.mcgrath@documentengineeringservices.com
Fremantle, Western Australia 6160
AUSTRALIA
Phone: +61438352228
Skype: t.mcgrath