OASIS Semantic Support for Electronic Business Document Interoperability (SET) TC Overview

July 11, 2008 OASIS SET TC

OASIS Semantic Support for Electronic Business Document Interoperability (SET) TC Overview


Talk Outline

A Brief Overview of Electronic Business Document Standards

UN/CEFACT Core Component Technical Specification

SET TC Goals, Deliverables and Similar Efforts


Development of Electronic Business Document Interoperability Standards The development of electronic business document

standards has been evolutionary based on: The traditional EDI technology Affected by the technological developments such as the

Internet and XML Affected by the interoperability needs of the current more

dynamic eBusiness applications No document standard is sufficient for all purposes

because the requirements significantly differ Amongst businesses, industries and geo-political regions


Some Example Business Document Standards Vertical Standards

RosettaNet, CIDX, PIDX, OTA, HL7, … Horizontal Standards

OAGIS, GS1 eCom, xCBL, cXML, UN/CEFACT CCL, UBL, … A survey and analysis of electronic business document

standards investigating: The document design principles The use of code lists The use of XML namespaces How the standards handle extensibility and customization

is available at: Kabak Y., Dogac A., “A Survey and Analysis of Electronic

Business Document Standards”, Submitted to ACM Computing Surveys

http://www.srdc.metu.edu.tr/webpage/publications


Talk Outline





UN/CEFACT Core Component Technical Specification (CCTS) The ultimate aim of business document

interoperability is to Exchange business data among partners without any prior

agreements related to the document syntax and semantics Hence support “Interoperability Service Utility (ISU)” at the

content level as defined by the Enterprise Interoperability Roadmap of European Commission

Therefore, document standard need to adapt to different contexts, be extensible and customizable

UN/CEFACT Core Component Technical Specification (CCTS) is an important landmark in this direction


UN/CEFACT Core Component Technical Specification (CCTS) UN/CEFACT CCTS provides a methodology to identify a set of

reusable building blocks, called Core Components to create electronic documents

Core Components represent the common data elements of everyday business documents such as “Address”, “Amount”, or “Line Item”

These reusable building blocks are then assembled into business documents such as “Order” or “Invoice” by using the CCTS methodology

UN/CEFACT CCTS Core Components are syntax independent


UN/CEFACT Core Component Technical Specification (CCTS) Core components are defined to be context-

independent so that they can later be restricted to different contexts: Business Process Context Product Classication Context Industry Classication Context Geopolitical Context Business Process Role Context Supporting Role Context System Capabilities Context Official Constraints Context


Main Features of CCTS Approach Business document schemas are composed of several basic and

aggregate components

Aggregate components themselves are collections of other basic and aggregate components in a recursive manner

Standard components are modified in response to contexual needs

When a document schema needs to be customized for a context, users need to discover or provide component versions applicable to that particular context


Why CCTS is important?

This concept of defining context-free reusable building blocks, which are available from a single common repository, is an important innovation: The incompatibility in electronic documents is incremental rather

than wholesale The users are expected to model their business documents by

using the existing core components and by restricting them to their context with well defined rules

Dynamic creation of interoperable documents becomes possible because if users cannot find proper components to model their documents, they can create and publish new core components

The horizontal interoperability among different industries is greatly facilitated by using a single common repository and by customizing the components to different industry contexts


Some of the UN/CEFACT CCTS based Business Document Standards UN/CEFACT Core Components Library (CCL) 07A

96 ACC, 212 ASCC, 636 BCC 184 ABIE, 337 ASBIE, 1011 BBIE 35 Datatypes

Universal Business Language (UBL) 2.0

Open Applications Group Integration Specification (OAGIS) 9.0

Global Standards One (GS1) XML

All standards implement CCTS differently!


OASIS Universal Business Language (UBL) 2.0 The first implementation of UN/CEFACT

CCTS in XML

31 Horizontal Business Document Schemas Invoice, Order, Dispatch Advice,…

Schemas for common reusable entities Amount, Payment, Item, …


The Problem continues: All CCTS based standards use CCTS differently


Providing semantic support for the interoperability of CCTS based electronic business documents Within the scope of the iSURF Project, we

developed tools: To provide machine processable semantic representations

of context domains

To utilize these semantics for automating tasks for the discovery, reuse and customization of components and document schemas

To provide a semantics based translation mechanism for the interoperability of schemas customized by independent parties


Talk Outline





The Motivation: Context Categories Eight categories has been defined for the business context Specific code lists and classification schemas are suggested for

each category: Code lists and classification taxonomies provide context values There are other relevant classifications in use today and there

may be others in future Quoting from an email in the Ontolog Forum by Duane Nickull:

“Even when the CCTS group decided to limit their context qualifier set to only 8 context aspects, they still had an almost infinite explosion of context. If you took 8 singular contexts and had only 300 enumerated values for each one, the number is so large no one group could ever possibly list all the combinations in a lifetime without computers”


SET TC Goals…

1. Providing Semantic Support for CCTS Context Domains

2. Providing Semantic Support for Customization of Core Components and Business Document Schemas

3. Providing Semantic Support for Document Translation


Similar Work: UN/CEFACT TMG UCM UN/CEFACT Techniques and Methodologies Group (TMG)

through its UCM (UN/CEFACT Context Methodology) project aims to provide rules for clarifying how to structure and use CCs in specific contexts

Use cases and requirements are collected from the industry

An initial draft of Context Methodology Technical Specification exists (confidential to the committee)

Some initial specifications are available at:http://www.unstandards.org:8080/x/6QI6


SET TC Deliverables…

Specification of semantic support mechanisms to provide machine processable semantic representations for the context domains to annotate core components to facilitate their discovery and reuse Final version due December 2008

Specification of Semantic Support for Customization of Core Components and Business Document Schemas Final version due June 2009

Specification of machine processable mechanism that can express the structure and the semantics of components together with their correspondences in different versions Final version due December 2009


SET TC Next Meetings…

Month of August 2008: August 14, 2008 Month of September 2008: September 26,

2008 Month of October 2008: October 30, 2008 Month of November 2008: November 21,

2008 Month of December 2008: December 19,

2008


Thank you for your attention!

Documents

OASIS Semantic Support for Electronic Business Document Interoperability (SET) TC Overview