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

About Mikkel Hippe Brun M.Sc. Computer Science, University of Copenhagen SGML/XML since 1993 UC Irvine: Groupware/SGML 1994 Database publishing with markup technologies Retired XML evangelist Technical advisor to the XML project of the Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation since may Independent consultant since october 2002 Full time project coordinator at the XML-project since november 2002 Employed with the National IT- and Telecom Agency from december 2003 Member of OASIS eGov and UBL TC’s

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

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

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

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

Invoices sent to the public sector No. of transactions (thousands) Municipalities % Regions % State % Total %

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)

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)

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 web service and in XML)

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

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 ISB

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

The InfoStructureBase: 4 tools Infosite Repository Forum Service Directory* * Universal Discovery, Description, and Integration (UDDI)

Cookbooks

The purpose of XML Schema Naming 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

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

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

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

Classification of XML Schema based standards and components III NDR compliant Adopted Components Class Core Components class Domain Components class 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 outside a reuse class

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

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

Expressing PersonGenderCode...

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

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

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.

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

Questions Isb.oio.dk (Infostructurebase) Isb.oio.dk/info/publications/ (Cookbooks)