1 Agile Financial Data Services = XBRL + SSOA + Semantic Web 5 th Semantic Interoperability for E-Government Conference Brand L. Niemann (US EPA), Co-Chair, Semantic Interoperability Community of Practice (SICoP) Best Practices Committee (BPC), Federal CIO Council October 11, 2006

2 Abstract The “father” of the eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) embraces the Semantic Web as the way to do Extreme Financial Reporting. This presenter agrees, but suggests Agile Financial Data Services = XBRL + SSOA* + Semantic Web (RDF/OWL, SWRL, and SPARQL). Financial data is one of the W3C’s Semantic Web Activity “flagship areas” (also life and health sciences and geospatial), so SICoP has been working with the XBRL CoP since early February 2006 on the AFDS CoP. This presentation includes introductions to XBRL, DRM 2.0, Semantic Wikis, Networking Financial Management Communities, SOA CoP Demo, and the formation of an AFDS Community of Practice. * Semantic Service Oriented Architecture

3 1. eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) Financial Reporting Using XBRL: –Author Charles Hoffman, CPA The “father of XBRL”* – –Definition (page 16 and “The eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) provides an XML-based framework that the global business information supply chain can use to create, exchange, and analyze financial reporting information including, but not limited to, regulatory filings such as annual and quarterly financial statements, general ledger information, and audit schedules. XBRL is freely licensed and facilitates the automatic exchange and reliable extraction of financial information among various software applications anywhere in the world.” *See History of XBRL at

4 1. eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) Financial Reporting Using XBRL (continued): –Semantic Web (pp & ) “XBRL as infrastructure for the financial reporting supply chain will plug into the semantic web and derive the benefits of being plugged in.” “’Extreme financial reporting’ embraces the ideas of Service Oriented Architecture …and explains what the semantic web might be like in 2015.” –Understanding and Using Business Rules (page 22): “XBRL Formulas and Functions allow users to express semantics or information about a concept or the relationships between concepts and validate against those business rules or semantic meaning.”

5 1. eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) Financial Reporting Using XBRL (continued): –Taxonomy - An XBRL taxonomy defines the items allowed in an XBRL instance document in a particular domain or vocabulary. It consists of a taxonomy schema document and may also include one or more linkbases. See Also: Linkbase, Taxonomy Schema Document, XBRL Instance Document. –Taxonomy Schema Document - A taxonomy schema document is a part of an XBRL taxonomy. It is used to define the list of items (and the types of those items) allowed in a given domain or vocabulary. Taxonomy schema documents are required to be compliant with both the schema for schemas and xbrlinstance.xsd. They will therefore use the schema for schemas namespace and will import xbrlinstance.xsd. See Also: Schema For Schemas, Taxonomy, xbrlinstance.xsd, XML Schema. Source:

6 1. eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) UBmatrix Enterprise Application Suite is the industry’s leading enterprise software platform consisting of 6 components (only two listed): –UBmatrix ™ Taxonomy Manager: Allows your team to maintain/update existing metadata taxonomies and extensions. Includes full version management with check-in/check-out features to ensure consistency and to provide a complete audit trail. –UBmatrix ™ Advanced Processing Module: Supports complex instance documents of more than 1000 reported elements and includes a more powerful, high- volume business rules engine. Source:

7 1. eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) Key Questions: –Could all of this be done with Semantic Web standards, technologies, and applications? E.g., Composite Applications that use Business Ontologies like Digital Harbor. E.g., Semantic Wikis that use RDF/OWL and support rules and queries over the Internet. –Could this be piloted for the Federal Government? E.g., For The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of E.g., For integrating Strategic Planning, Budget Formulation, Performance and Financial Reporting, and Financial Management (like we need at EPA-see slides 16-17).

8 2. Federal Enterprise Architecture Data Reference Model 2.0 Source: Expanding E-Government, Improved Service Delivery for the American People Using Information Technology, December 2005, pp DRM 1.0 SICoP Ontologies All Three

9 2. Federal Enterprise Architecture Data Reference Model 2.0 Natural evolution of work on the Federal Enterprise Architecture Data Reference Model 2.0: –DRM 2.0 developed using the COLAB (Wiki). –DRM 2.0 evolved to a Knowledge Reference Model with semantic metadata (RDF and OWL) by SICoP. –SICoP asked if the Knowledge Reference Model can be implemented in a Semantic Wiki. The answer was yes! –SICoP is tracking the research and development of about 20 Semantic Wikis and piloting several early implementations (see next slide).

10 3. Semantic Wikis Can your WIKI do security, custom forms or even basic semantics? The Visual Knowledge Semantic Wiki lets you decide who can see what concepts, how they see them and ultimately allow even a computer to understand the concepts in your Community. Check out some semantic WIKIs and start your own Semantic Wiki (see next slide).

11 3. Semantic Wikis

12 3. Semantic Wikis Five steps for moving forward: –1. Prepare a CoP Mission Statement –2. Prepare a CoP Membership List –3. Prepare a CoP Strategy –4. Hold a Training Conference Call (with items 1-3 entered into the Semantic Wiki space) –5. Get commitments to collaboratively publish and edit trusted reference knowledge sources in the Semantic Wiki space.

13 4. Networking Financial Management Communities September 19, 2006, Networking Financial Management Communities to Advance Information-Sharing and Best Practices for Business Performance Excellence, at NSF: –FDIC –Department of the Treasury –Data Access Technologies (GSA Contractor for the Financial Management Line of Business and Lead for the SOA CoP Demo) –UNSYS –NIST –XBRL –SEC –AFDS (SICoP) –Etc. Proceedings at: – bin/wiki.pl?ExpeditionWorkshop/OpenCollaboration_NetworkingFinanci alManagementCommunities

14 4. Networking Financial Management Communities Have NOT shown support for CFO XBRL accounting workgroup: –CFO Council –Treasury GWA –GAO Have shown support for CFO XBRL accounting workgroup: –CIO Council’s AIC? –FSIO –OMB –FASAB Source: Don Geiger, September 19, 2006, Workshop Presentation.

15 4. Networking Financial Management Communities I suggested the following AFDS Pilot to connect what I thought were the "three principle dots" from the September 19 th Workshop: –1. The new Federal Law requiring improved public access to government financial data (agency spending) that OMB is deciding how to implement the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of S –2. The Federal Enterprise Architecture's Data Reference Model 2.0 for description, context, and sharing of the three types of data (structured, semi-structured, and unstructured). –3. The clear role for and benefit of XBRL in the previous two. Don Geiger talked about the 7,923 pages in the 25 CFO Act Agency PAR reports, mostly in PDF which is not DRM 2.0- compliant which I think is a great place to start showing how to make these reports DRM compliant using XBRL and developing the kind of taxonomy called for that could become an ontology. It was pointed out that EPA's PAR report is the largest at 557 pages and Leanne suggested an EPA pilot so I will start with EPA's PAR report! (see next slide)

16 4. Networking Financial Management Communities Note: Most only PDF (not DRM 2.0 compliant)

17 4. Networking Financial Management Communities Strategic Planning(1) Budget Formulation(2) Performance & Financial Reporting(3) Financial Management(4) EPA Office of the Chief Financial Officer

18 4. Networking Financial Management Communities EPA Office of the Chief Financial Officer: –1. Strategic Planning: Strategic Plan to Congress and OMB September 30, 2003, as required under the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) of Strategic Plan: Charting our Course, May 2006, DRAFT DOCUMENT FOR PUBLIC REVIEW. –2. Budget Formulation: For each fiscal year (which runs from October through September), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) develops a proposed Budget. FY –3. Performance & Financial Reporting: EPA's FY 2005 Performance and Accountability Report describes to Congress, the President, and the public the Agency's environmental, programmatic, and financial performance over the past fiscal year. This is EPA's seventh performance report since FY –4. Financial Management: Financial Management Five Year Plan FY 2005-FY 2009: EPA's Five-Year Plan addresses activities in the areas identified by OMB Circular A-11, Section 52, as components of Agency plans for Improving Financial Performance, Budget and Performance Integration, E-government, and Human Capital—four of the five President's Management Agenda (PMA) initiatives.

19 5. SOA CoP Demo 1. We know how to do agile financial data services with ontologies - the Digital Harbor pilots at the February 10th 4th SIEGOV Conference and at the October 11th AFDS CoP session at the 5th SIEGOV Conference. – bin/wiki.pl?FourthSemanticInteroperabilityforEGovernmentConference_ 2006_2_0910#nid31LS 2. We know how to do Semantic SOA from the NSA pilot honored at our 4th SIEGOV Conference and from other best practice examples like Arun Majumdar's Operationalizing SOA: Lessons Learned in our AFDS CoP Track on October 11th. – bin/wiki.pl?FourthSemanticInteroperabilityforEGovernmentConference_ 2006_2_0910#nid30ZL 3. We are trying to operationalize basic SOA across the HR and FM LoBs in the SOA CoP Demo for the October st 2nd SOA for E- Government Conference and invited XBRL experts to help us with the role of XBRL in that at our September 21st Meeting. –

20 5. SOA CoP Demo 4. We are refactoring to make DRM 2.0 compliant the "The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006“and several PAR reports (Treasury, EPA, AGA, etc.) to see if we can get an initial taxonomy / ontology from that content and show a role for XBRL in that. –See 5. The AFDS CoP could use help from the XBRL CoP with items 3 and 4 for the two upcoming presentations: –November 13 th, Association of Government Accountants Meeting. –December 5 th : 14 th International XBRL Conference in Philadelphia, PA.

21 5. SOA CoP Demo Demo Wiki page: – Last Meeting, October 3, 2006: – bin/wiki.pl?DemoMeeting PowerPoint Presentation: – Meeting2b.ppt Evolving Specification: – bin/wiki.pl?SoaLobDemoSpec

22 6. AFDS Community of Practice Preparation Meetings: –Brian Hankin, PCW, and Brand Niemann, US EPA Initial Plan: –1. Invitation of the co-chairs: Government (e.g. CFO) and Non-Government (e.g. XBRL community leader) –2. Gifting of the PWC XBRL taxonomy: Lawyers clear the IPR, etc. –3. Announcement of the first meeting to form the CoP: Who will host?, etc.

23 6. AFDS Community of Practice What is/would it be?: –Being developed carefully and thoughtfully as a public - private partnership. –Built on the success of the XBRL, DRM 2.0, Composite Application with Business Ontology, etc. –Piloted by Digital Harbor as part of the DRM 2.0 Implementation Through Iteration and Testing and reported at the February 8-9, 2006, 4th Semantic Interoperability for E-Government Conference. –Based on further pilot planning with the FDIC, SICoP, and Digital Harbor coming out of the February 1st XBRL Seminar. –Based on a recent series of presentations to the Wall Street financial community and discussions with Dick Burk, OMB Chief Architect. –Organized into a session track at the October 10-11, 2006, 5th Semantic Interoperability for E-Government Conference –Invited presentations for the Regulator Track, December 5 th, at the December 4-6, 2006, 14th International XBRL Conference and the November 13th, 2006, local chapter meeting of the Hawaii AGA (Advancing Government Accounting) Chapter.

24 6. AFDS Community of Practice For more information: –Brian Hankin: Washington Federal Practice, Advisory Services PricewatershouseCoopers –Brand Niemann: SICoP Co-chair and EPA Data Architect US Environmental Protection Agency