OASIS Adoption Forum, Wednesday, 6 October 2004 Mikkel Hippe Brun Chief Consultant, M.Cs.

1. The Danish Approach to Standardization of Public Sector XML-Interfaces and Localization of International Standards OASIS Adoption Forum, Wednesday, 6 October 2004 Mikkel Hippe Brun Chief Consultant, M.Cs. Office of IT Strategy, National IT and Telecom Agency The Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, Denmark mhb@itst.dk

2. Agenda • Experiences with UBL adoption and localization • Danish Standards Adoption Strategy • Organization, Philosophy and Tools • The importance of Naming and Design Rules in Adoption • A proposal for Core Components localization • A proposal for Naming and Design Rules specialization

3. Harvesting the crops of standards adoption • Denmark is about to harvest the crops of the seeds sown by the OASIS UBL TC. • Electronic invoices to the public sector will soon be exchanged using OASIS UBL

4. OASIS Universal Business Language • UBL is: • An OASIS Technical Committee • An implementation of ebXML Core Components • An XML-based business language standard-in-progress • A cross-sector XML solution • A Non-proprietary solution that is committed to freedom from royalties • A future legal standard for international trade • The ebXML missing link

5. The UBL adoption process in Denmark • Jun 2002 First meeting in Danish eCommerce TC • Dec 2002 Choice of UBL • Jun 2003 Decision to implement UBL between ministries and eProcurement portal by the Agency of Governmental Management • Nov 2003 Public hearing on 0p7-derived subset Evaluation of 1.0 and implementation in Agency of Governmental Management • Jan 2004 Official adoption of UBL (0.7-derived subset) • Oct 2004 Requirements to support UBL is written into Danish legislation • Jan 2005 95-99% of all invoices to public sector will be exchanged using UBL

6. Invoices sent to the public sector • No. of transactions (thousands) • Municipalities 13.421 74% • Regions 2.610 14% • State 2.200 12% • Total 18.231 100%

7. Potential savings • Each minute saved in invoice handling of 18 million invoices equals 9,4 million Euro saved • (11,7 million USD) • A very conservative estimate is that 10 minutes handling time is saved using the OASIS UBL invoice • 94 million Euro • 11,7 million USD • It is estimated that if ordering is also made electronic as much as 17 minutes will be saved in the handling of each invoice • Potential savings: 160 million Euro (199 million USD)

8. The Danish Standards Adoption Strategy • An international standard is identified as a candidate for national adoption • by the Office of IT Strategy or • by a domain (e.g. community of practice) • The adoption is discussed in • the national XML Committee and in • the national EA Committee • The proposed adoption enters 30 day public hearing • The standard is upon approval added to the e-GIF (Reference Profile)

9. The Reference Profile • e-Government Interoperability Framework (e-GIF) • Implementation of the European Interoperability Framework from the eEurope Action Plan 2005 • An overview of central IT-standards that are relevant to e-government, including status assessments • A cross-governmental resources for use in the planning, procurement and development of government IT-solutions. • A toolkit that can be used in various situations, for example as a dictionary (available as a webservice and in XML)

12. Organization of the Danish XML-project Danish XML Committee (Reps. from across the public sector) XML Secretariat (National IT and Telecom Agency) Health Domain Committee Health sector XXX Domain Committee XXX sector Danish Information and Documentation WG Metadata Danish Core Components WG Core Components XXX WG XXX WG YYY WG YYY WG Danish eBusiness WG Core eBusiness messages ZZZ WG XXX WG ZZZ WG

13. ISB Philosophy of the Danish XML-project • XML-based data re-use and exchange between public authorities and their partners • Coordination in a public sector XML Committee • Collaboration between state, regional and local authorities • Standardization of XML-interfaces between public IT systems • Reusable Data Definitions / Information Objects • Shared repository / Tools

14. Philosophy of the Danish XML-project • Development of a shared datamodel • Reuse from international standards • Participation in international standardization initiatives • Formalized rules and procedures (cookbooks) • Authorities and companies must take responsibility and contribute with their own definitions • Standard development in Communities of Practice

15. The InfoStructureBase: 4 tools • Infosite • Repository • Forum • Service Directory* http://isb.oio.dk * Universal Discovery, Description, and Integration (UDDI)

16. Cookbooks Handbook for Standardization Aimed at domain experts Modeling XML Schemas with UML Aimed at domain experts, system architects and XML Schema developers Implementation Handbook Aimed at project leaders XML Schema Handbook Aimed at XML Schema developers Integration Handbook Aimed at system architects http://isb.oio.dk/info/publications/

17. The purpose of XML SchemaNaming and Design Rules • Re-use of types and elements across vocabularies / messages • Re-use of software components • Reduce transformation needs • Easier to understand new vocabularies

18. Naming and Design Rules must address • Naming methodology • Versioning • Namespaces • Metadata • Design principles (modularity) • Strong data types vs. Weak data types • Restrictions in the use of XML Schema constructs • Handling codes and enumerated lists • Categories of standardized schemas • Standardization process

19. Classification of XML Schema based standards and components I • Two base classes: • Adopted International Standards and XML Schema Components • NDR Compliant National Standards and XML Schema Components

20. Classification of XML Schema based standards and components II • Two reuse classes of XML Schema Components: • Core Components • Domain Components

21. NDR Compliant XML Schema in the Core Components Class Adopted XML Schema in the Domain Components Class Adopted XML Schema outside a reuse class NDR compliant XML Schema outsidea reuse class Classification of XML Schema based standards and components III Core Components class Domain Components class Adopted Components Class NDR compliant

22. Foundation on ebXML and UBL but... • ebXML Core Components Technical Specification is hard to read and understand • Development of XML-interfaces in the public sector will be done • rapidly and • by IT-professionals with litle or no prior XML-background • Thus – the concepts of • Core Components (CC) • Core Component Types (CCT) • Basic Core Components • Aggregate Core Components (ACC) • Association Core Components (ASCC) • Business Information Entites (BIE) • Basic Business Information Entities (BBIE) • Aggregate Business Information Entities (ABIE) • Association Business Information Entities (ASBIE) • are too complex to be introduced in the Danish NDR

23. Adopting ebXML Core Components:Weak data types vs. strong data types ebXML Core Components CC Weak data types XSLT XSLT FRCC XSLT XSLT DKCC USCC UKCC Strong data types

24. Expressing PersonGenderCode...

25. Specialization of Core Components International CC Regional CC Specialization National CC Domain Components Domain CC

26. Sharing and specializing Core Components UN/CEFACT ebXML CC International eGov CC SC? UBL CC Regional EU CC US CC SE ASIA CC National DK CC UK CC Domain Health CC Energy CC Real estate CC

27. Adoption strategies • Adoption strategies should be coordinated • Succesfull adoption and reuse across vocabularies requires • consistent use of Naming and Design Rules (NDR) • An agreed upon strategy for specializing Naming and Design Rules regionally, nationaly and in domains.

28. Sharing and specializing NDR UN/CEFACT ATG NDR International eGov NDR SC? UBL NDR SC Regional EU NDR US NDR SE ASIA NDR National DK NDR UK NDR Domain Health Energy Real estate

29. Questions Isb.oio.dk (Infostructurebase) Isb.oio.dk/info/publications/ (Cookbooks) mhb@itst.dk