CSDAT

1. CSDAT UN/CEFACT Standards Development Advisory Team (CSDAT) Findings and Recommendations August 2010 CSDAT Aug 2010

2. CSDAT CSDAT Aug 2010 Purpose: Provide a framework for all UN/CEFACT deliverables that will help both internal UN/CEFACT working groups and external UN/CEFACT standards users to understand how the collection of UN/CEFACT deliverables work together to contribute to the UN/CEFACT trade facilitation mission.

3. CSDAT Goal: Get UN/CEFACT deliverables through our organization to the users as fast and as effective as possible. Approach: Developed ten specific questions/focus areas and investigated and documented each of the ten. These focus areas are linked and are each critical to the framework. CSDAT Aug 2010 3

4. CSDAT Ten focus areas: • Mission and Architecture • Audience • Relationship with other organizations • Standard development approaches • Interoperability • Re-use • Main principles of a standards framework • Technologies used for standards development • Deliverables and their interdependencies • UN/CEFACT Programme Of Work (PoW) – tying it all together CSDAT Aug 2010

5. CSDAT – Focus 1 UN/CEFACT Mission taken from PoW The United Nations, through UN/CEFACT, supports activities dedicated to improving the ability of business, trade and administrative organizations, from developed, developing and transitional economies, to exchange products and relevant services effectively. Principal focus is on facilitating national and international transactions, through the simplification and harmonisation of processes, procedures and information flows, and so contribute to the growth of global commerce. This is achieved by: • Analysing and understanding the key elements of international processes, procedures and transactions and working for the elimination of constraints; • Developing methods to facilitate processes, procedures and transactions, including the relevant use of information technologies; • Promoting both the use of these methods, and associated best practices, through channels such as government, industry and service associations; • Coordinating its work with other international organizations such as the WTO, WCO, OECD, UNCITRAL, and UNCTAD; • Securing coherence in the development of Standards and Recommendations by co-operating with other interested parties, including international, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations. In particular, for UN/CEFACT Standards, this coherence is accomplished by cooperating with ISO, IEC, ITU, NGOs in the ISO/IEC/ITU/UNECE MoU CSDAT Aug 2010

6. CSDAT – Focus 1 Any future UN/CEFACT Technical Architecture* should support the UN/CEFACT Mission by: • enabling a better understanding of how UN/CEFACT produces its deliverables in support of trade facilitation • defining the relationship between the technical and business aspects of the UN/CEFACT body of work • defining the inter-dependencies between UN/CEFACT Technical Specifications * An enduring framework of technical standards and procedures that enables participants to fulfill the mission of UN/CEFACT. CSDAT Aug 2010

7. CSDAT – Focus 2 UN/CEFACT Audiences The requesters: • Users, any person/company who has a specific requirement. They can participate directly in the work of a TBG • HODs, could receive requirements from national policy makers or user associations or specific users. • UN/CEFACT plenary receive requirements from HODs and sometimes from UN/ECE (mainly policy) • SDOs could submit their own ‘standards” to become part of the UN/CEFACT standards The beneficiaries: • Users can implement the UN/CEFACT standards • HODs can help the policy makers (or user association or specific user) by providing them with UN/CEFACT standards • UN/CEFACT accomplishes its mission and satisfies UN/ECE requirements • SDOs can benefit from the fast track of some of their ‘standards” as UN/CEFACT standards CSDAT Aug 2010

8. CSDAT – Focus 2 Audiences Users Users FORUM Development and Delivery Our Beneficiaries HODs The Plenary Users Users National Policy Makers SDOs UNECE Policy UN/CEFACTPublications HODs The Plenary Our Requesters National Policy Makers SDOs UN/CEFACT the “Provider” UNECE Policy CSDAT Aug 2010

9. CSDAT – Focus 3 Different Types of Relationships with other Organizations • Contributors to UN/CEFACT Forum (26 identified) • Participating member of eb Management MoU (UNECE, ITU, ISO, IEC + 2 cosignatories) • Other MoUs (via UNECE) • Informal relationships/liaison (at least 8 identified) • Potential future relationships (at least 15 identified) CSDAT Aug 2010

10. CSDAT – Focus 4 Standards development approaches • Development of standards to support trade facilitation for organizations of any size, anywhere to conduct business through the exchange of electronic messages: • according to standard business processes • using standard message structures • with clear unambiguous business semantics • according to trading partner agreements CSDAT Aug 2010

11. CSDAT – Focus 4 4 Semantic Approaches identified including these extremes: Generic standard Subset A A BusinessDomain B Subsetting (Current UN/CEFACT Approach): Business Domain A B Subset B Subset C union Extending: Exten-sion A Exten-sion B A Business Domain A Business Domain B Core Standard intersection B Core Standard 11 CSDAT Aug 2010

12. Caring about choreographies - the interactions between business partners There may be different documents of the same type when used in different business collaboration protocols UN/CEFACT proposes deployment of the UMM to specify a choreography of document exchanges The definition of choreographies may be developed by Governments and legislators Industry consortia Supply chain leaders Software vendors Individual companies etc… Additionally, UN/CEFACT delivers reference models proposing business collaboration protocol - i.e. a choreography amongst the business transactions CSDAT – Focus 4 Process Orientated Approach 12 CSDAT Aug 2010

13. CSDAT – Focus 5 Interoperability The ‘EUROPEAN INTEROPERABILITY FRAMEWORK FOR PAN-EUROPEAN eGOVERNMENT SERVICES’ (EIF) definition of interoperability: ”the ability of information and communication technology (ICT) systems and of the business processes they support to exchange data and to enable the sharing of information and knowledge.” CSDAT Aug 2010

14. CSDAT – Focus 5 Interoperability – 5 Dimensions CSDAT Aug 2010

15. CSDAT – Focus 6 Reuse • The benefits of reuse are: • Interoperability • Maximizes resources • Faster implementations • Reduction of costly variance • Requirements for successful reuse: • Agreed methodology • Harmonization – at all levels • A restriction mechanism • ‘How to’ guides/recommendations CSDAT Aug 2010

16. CSDAT – Focus 6 Reusability is both advisable and beneficial for: • BRS – harmonized, conceptual business process and data models • RSM – harmonized data and message models • Libraries • Syntax-neutral to support interoperability between syntaxes, semantics & contexts • To reduce resource requirements, variance and ambiguity • Syntax-specific messages to provide interoperability at the data (semantic) level • Implementation Guides to provide interoperability between subsets of the same parent message structure CSDAT Aug 2010

17. CSDAT – Focus 7 Main principles of a standards framework (gathered from UN, ISO and WTO) • Consensus • Voluntary • Transparency • Openness • Impartiality • Support for developing economies • Coherence • Syntax Neutrality • Platform Independence • Open access (free) to the solution • Maintainability (versioning for each deliverable) • Backward and forward compatibility (regarding different versions) • Industry wide CSDAT Aug 2010

18. CSDAT – Focus 8 Tools & Technologies used for standards development • For Publication: • Identification of syntax(es) for publications • Do we want to have a visual graphical representation of certain deliverables? • Access technologies – registry etc. • For Working: • Communication tools such as web conferencing • Specification support tools such as modelling tools CSDAT Aug 2010

19. CSDAT – Focus 9 Deliverables and their interdependencies • In order to encourage widest implementation and to provide migration paths for SDOs and other users, UN/CEFACT deliverables should be published as consistent integrated packages including components as appropriate in each case from the following list: • Reference Models (Process and or Data Models) • Data Types • Core Components • Context Values • Business Information Entities • Code Lists • Messages • Trade Recommendations • Libraries (CCL, UN/EDIFACT, UNTDED) • Guidelines • Case Studies • Technical Specifications • Each UN/CEFACT package should indicate any internal or external dependencies • UN/CEFACT packages should be versioned following proven standard software paradigms • UN/CEFACT should provide road maps for package adoption CSDAT Aug 2010

20. C) CCTS 2.01 Package CCTS 2.01 (ISO TS 15000-5/ebXML Part 8) CCMA XML NDRs v. 2.0 DT Catalog UCM XML4CCTS SBDH CSDAT – Focus 10 UN/CEFACT Technical Specifications - how they fit together – Initial Analysis • B) UMM 2.0 Package • UMM 2.0 Base Module • UMM 2.0 Foundation Module • UMM 1.0 Package • UMM 1.0 Base Module • UMM 1.0 Foundation Module • D) CCTS 3.0 Package • CCTS 3.0 • XML NDRs v3.0 • DT Catalog • UCM • XML4CCTS • SBDH CSDAT Aug 2010

21. Single Window data harmonization and data modelling Capacity building materials especially for countries in transition International symposium on Single Window and Cross Border Data Exchange in collaboration with Member States and other stakeholders, including international organizations Enhanced cooperation with the European Union and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Enhancement and refinement of CCL & related XML Schemas Collaboration with WTO CSDAT – Focus 10 UN/CEFACT PoW Promised Key Deliverables CSDAT Aug 2010

22. CSDAT – Focus 10 POW Tying it all Together - Priorities • There are 37 individually deliverables identified in the UN/CEFACT PoW • While there are only 2 direct dependencies on the UN/CEFACT Tech Specs the UN/CEFACT Technical Specifications are the primary enablers of the TBG work and therefore support the following 2 specific items: These are: CSDAT Aug 2010

23. CSDAT CSDAT Aug 2010 This review determined that UN/CEFACT requires a well-defined technical architecture in order to successfully complete its Mission. Initial Recommendations • Determine the needs of the stakeholders (UN/CEFACT beneficiaries) following the eBGT advised approach • Change management is important and the impact on the UN/CEFACT audience must be considered for any change made • Further define the dependency packages beyond this initial effort and relate them to the interoperability layers • Develop a reuse methodology which supports harmonization at all levels and provides a restriction mechanism • Agree on a single semantic approach • Further investigation to show the relevance and the interdependencies of these findings within the framework • The use of open standards that are universally and freely available • Investigate potential relationships and formalize informal relationships with other organizations

24. CSDAT • Contributors • Alain Dechamps • Christian Huemer • Eduardo Gutentag • Jostein Fromyr • Martin Forsberg • Mary Kay Blantz • Niki Sahling • Peter Potgieser • Philipp Liegl • Scott Hinkelman • Sue Probert CSDAT Aug 2010