The HR-XML Consortium "is a global, independent, non-profit consortium dedicated to enabling e-commerce and inter-company exchange of human resources (HR) data. The work of the Consortium centers on the development and promotion of standardized XML vocabularies for HR. HR-XML's efforts are focused on standards for staffing and recruiting, compensation and benefits, training and workforce management. The Consortium has a membership of companies represented in 22 different countries.
HR-XML specifications have been completed for: Background Check, Benefits Enrollment, Competencies , Contact Method , DateTime Data Types, Effective Dating, Enrollment, Entity Identifiers, Job And Position Header, Payroll Benefit Contributions, PersonName, Postal Address, Provisional Envelope Specification, Resume, Staffing Exchange Protocol, Staffing Industry Data Exchange Standards (SIDES), Stock Plan Interface Specification, Time Expense Reporting, TimeCard Configuration, User Area, WorkSite and Environment.
The HR-XML specifications are freely available to the public using the registration/download interface. The specifications may be downloaded individually, or in the HR-XML Consolidated Distribution containing some 1697 files [2002-12-03]. See the 2002-11 file listing for an overview of the XML schema files and supporting documentation.
"The consortium is open to all interested parties, but membership is targeted toward: (1) Software Vendors. For example, vendors providing HRIS, staffing and recruiting, or workforce planning software solutions. (2) Employers. Particularly large, multinational employers seeking to rationalize workforce management processes. (3) HR Service Suppliers. For example, providers of recruiting, payroll, benefits consulting, and temporary staffing services. (4) XML Tool Vendors/Technology Companies. Vendors of XML editors, servers, and data management tools. (5) Non-Profit HR-Related Associations. SHRM, IHRIM, EMA, and other HR-industry groups. (6) Human resource professionals. Human resources and recruiting and staffing professionals, compensation and benefits administrators, and HRIS administrators."
[December 14, 1999] "The HR-XML Consortium has developed three provisional schemas. The schemas are very preliminary and are intended to generate discussion." JobPosting, CandidateProfile, Resume. The distribution files contain Document Type Definitions (DTDs) as well as Microsoft BizTalk-compatible schemas." See below.
References:
Project Status: Completed Specifications. This document lists and describes the key HR-XML specifications.
[December 08, 2003] "Oracle Launches HR-XML Product. Will Microsoft Word Follow?" By Ephraim Schwartz. In InfoWorld (December 08, 2003). "Human Resources recruiters will receive welcome news this week when Oracle announces that its Human Resources Management System will use the HR-XML standard for data exchange. Developed by the HR-XML Consortium, over the long run the standard promises to reduce time spent in manually re-inputting resumes into custom systems and fees expended for resume parsing software and services. Among the Consortium membership are Oracle, PeopleSoft, IBM, Monster.com, and Hire.com. If accepted industrywide, resumes from any source will interface with HR applications and with recruiting software such as RecruitSoft and with online recruitment services such as Monster.com. The standard may also get a boost from Microsoft, which already has incorporated XML schema in its Office products. Sources say the Redmond giant will incorporate the HR-XML standard as one of its document formats in a future version of Word. One industry analyst said that the HR-XML standard, unlike many other standards, is a real-world practical solution..."
[January 22, 2003] "ASC X12 and HR-XML Collaborate to Develop Common Data Standards in XML Formats." - "The Accredited Standards Committee (ASC) X12 and the Human Resources XML (HR-XML) Consortium announced today that they have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to collaborate on data standards development for the human resources and insurance/health care industries. HR-XML brings a wealth of XML vocabulary expertise from all aspects of the human resources industry while ASC X12 is a cross-industry standards body with more than 300 plus EDI transactions sets implemented around the world. The first area of mutual interest HR-XML and ASC X12 will focus on is data standards development in the benefits enrollment arena. Together, they will work to develop an XML version of X12 transaction set 834 Benefit Enrollment and Maintenance and any other related EDI transaction sets. In addition to joint development of this XML message, HR-XML and ASC X12 will identify and exchange best practices as the industries the respective organizations represent often share trading partners and the goal to streamline information flow. 'We are delighted to join forces with the HR-XML to leverage our respective expertise and develop XML business message standards that can improve efficiencies across human resources and insurance industries,' said ASC X12 Chair David Barkley of Freddie Mac. 'This strategic relationship advances ASC X12's vision of collaborating with organizations to build the best of breed XML business message standards for the global marketplace'..."
[May 24, 2002] "HR-XML Consortium Approves Background Checking Standard Specification Enables Easy Integration Between Employers and Background-Checking Services." - "The HR-XML Consortium, the global non-profit organization dedicated to creating data interchange standards for human resources, has approved a background-checking standard. The specification supports the generation of background-check requests using data sourced from HR systems or from applicant-tracking and similar recruiting systems. 'The background-checking specification is designed to support background-check requests to third-party screening services,' said Chuck Allen, Director HR-XML Consortium, Inc. 'Using a reputable third-party screening service can help employers ensure that legal requirements are met and can help support privacy by avoiding the needless replication of data back to employer systems,' according to Allen. The schema explicitly supports screenings relating to criminal records, department of motor vehicle records, education, employment history, and credit worthiness. In addition, the background checking standard is sufficiently flexible to transmit information required to execute custom screenings that a client might arrange with a background checking service provider. The specification also supports the transmission of background check results to a client of a background checking service provider..."
[May 24, 2002] "Background Checking 1.0." HR-XML Recommendation. 2002-April-29. Version reference: BackgroundChecking-1_0. Edited by Craig Corner (HireCheck) and Chuck Allen (HR-XML Consortium, Inc.). 82 pages. "HR-XML's Background Checking specification supports requests to third-party providers of background checking services and the return of search results. The specification defines messages to support background check requests and reports... Version 1.0 of the HR-XML Background Checking specification includes two schemas: (1) A schema to support background-check requests to third-party providers. The schema explicitly supports screenings relating to criminal records, department of motor vehicle records, education, employment history, and credit worthiness. In addition, the BackgroundCheck schema is sufficiently flexible to transmit information required to execute custom screenings that a client might arrange with a background checking service provider. (2) A simple schema to transmit background check results to a client of a background checking service provider..." See the ZIP archive for schemas and other documentation.
[May 16, 2002] "HR-XML Consortium Approves New XML Resume Specification. Versatile Specification Makes Resumes Easier To Search, Index, Match, and Manage." - "The HR-XML Consortium, the global non-profit organization dedicated to creating data interchange standards for human resources, has approved a new XML resume specification. HR-XML's Resume 2.0 specification will enable a range of innovative new applications and services that will benefit job seekers as well as employers. 'Today, employers are drowning in sea of unstructured resumes, which are difficult to match against business requirements,' according to Chuck Allen, Director, HR-XML Consortium, Inc. 'HR-XML's versatile, but structured XML Resume format, has great potential to change the search for qualified employees from a shot-gun approach' to a targeted exercise. Likewise, structured resumes may give job seekers an opportunity to more effectively communicate their unique abilities to potential employers,' according to Allen. The Resume 2.0 specification represents a substantial improvement over the resume definition included in HR-XML's Staffing Exchange Protocol 1.1. SEP 1.1 was defined using Document Type Definitions (DTDs). Resume 2.0 is defined using the World Wide Web Consortium's more powerful and flexible XML Schema Definition Language (XSD). This makes the Resume 2.0 specification more modular and extensible than the prior DTD-based version. Resume 2.0 has already been incorporated within HR-XML's Staffing Industry Data Exchange Standards (SIDES). The Employment History, Education History, and Military History modules within Resume 2.0 also are shared with HR-XML's new Background Checking specification. In addition, the Resume specification will be part of a future XSD-based version of HR-XML's Staffing Exchange Protocol... 'Resume 2.0 is an integral part of HR-XML's forthcoming Version 2.0 recruiting and staffing specifications,' said Nicholas Scobbo, HRIS Analyst, Mitre Corporation, and chair of HR-XML's Recruiting and Staffing Workgroup. 'HR-XML's Resume specification should go a long way in helping companies deal with the multiple sources and formats of resumes and in increasing the efficiency of recruiting systems and processes,' according to Scobbo..."
[December 31, 2001] Note from Chuck Allen (Director, HR-XML Consortium, Inc.): "To better serve its growing constituency, HR-XML has formed the Employer Advisory Council (EAC). The purpose of the EAC is to effectively channel the influence of the end-user community and to ensure that representatives from end-user companies are empowered in the activities of the Consortium. Ron Schaeffer, a 29-years veteran of the Human Resources function, will help facilitate the EAC. The EAC will officially kick-off its activities at next month's Jan. 14-16 [2002] HR-XML meeting in St. Pete Beach, FL. On the agenda is special EAC programming including a session led by Naomi Bloom that will examine why modeling matters in the deployment of complex HR systems. For further information, see the agenda... [in 2001] HR-XML has been phenomenally successful in attracting the participation of HRIT vendors... this success has somewhat overshadowed the growing participation in HR-XML by HRIT end-users. Some of the end-user companies represented within HR-XML are: Abbott Laboratories, American Standard Companies, Apple Computer, BP, Capital One, Chevron, Cisco Systems, Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS), Hewlett Packard, IBM, Mitre Corp, Northrop Grumman, Schlumberger, Shell, and Siemens. Clearly, there are many large, forward-thinking, and technologically sophisticated employers with an interest in HR-XML's success..."
[August 07, 2001] "HR-XML 1.1 Adds Flexibility for International, Temporary and Contract Users." By Rich Seeley. In Application Development Trends (August 4, 2001). "Chuck Allen, HR-XML Consortium director, said he and his colleagues 'learned a lot' from HR-XML Staffing Exchange Protocol (SEP) Version 1.0, which was approved last October. They incorporated much of what they learned into the newly released 1.1 version of the standard, which was designed for internal corporate human resources, financial departments and Internet job boards... Among the initial assumptions was that the standard would be used primarily for internal corporate HR systems. But staffing companies, such as Kelly, that were early adopters were interested in requisitions coming out of purchasing departments. Allen said there was some internal debate among HR-XML members as to whether they wanted to get into the procurement side of the hiring business or remain purely an HR standard. But looking at how a new hire or temporary position is handled in the interconnected world of the Internet convinced members to expand the standard for use by purchasing departments. SEP 1.1 now accounts for what Allen calls the 'chaining of information' that occurs as a request to hire a full-time, contract or temporary worker travels about the Internet. "You start with a requisition in the purchasing office that goes to a staffing agency; if they don't have a candidate, it will go out to a job board," he explained. "We realized that even if we designed the protocol for separate transactions, the data in this chain would get muddled. These are not entirely different transactions." The new version of HR-XML SEP 1.1 supports chaining of information; this means that if a company so desired, the purchasing manager would be able to track what happened to that requisition back through the staffing agency and out to a job board such as Monster.com..."
[November 01, 2001] "HR-XML 'XML Timecard' Standard Approved by the HR-XML Consortium. New Schema to Enable Billing Functionality, Increase Mobility, and Flexibility." - "The HR-XML Consortium, a global independent organization dedicated to creating worldwide XML standards for the human resources industry, has approved an XML 'timecard' standard. The timecard standard promises to save money for companies while reducing frustration for HRIS and payroll system managers trying to integrate time and expense data across time and attendance, HRIS, payroll, and other disparate systems. 'Global standards for time capture are sorely needed,' said Gail Bubsey, business analyst with Kelly Services and co-chair of HR-XML's Time Expense Workgroup. 'Currently, there are a wide variety of applications all attempting to exchange time worked data with each other. Payroll and time reporting are two of the most complicated and crucial elements of HR, so there really is no room for error,' according to Bubsey. One of the significant accomplishments of this project, according to Bill Kerr, principal software engineer for Oracle Corporation and workgroup co-chair, was meeting the changing needs of HR management. According to Kerr, 'the modern workplace demands functionality wherever and whenever the user requires it, and that requires a new way of thinking about data exchange. Time reporting might begin with a time capture device like a timeclock, but it is increasingly likely to begin with a browser, mobile phone, or personal digital assistant (PDA). HR-XML's timecard spec provides the neutral message between such reporting devices and an HRIS, ERP, or a time and attendance system,' Kerr said. The timecard specification supports the transmission of 'raw' time-worked data as well as pre-processed data optimized for direct submission to a payroll or HRIS. 'Because the timecard spec is flexible enough to support both processed and unprocessed time data, it can be extremely valuable in situations involving an intervening process, such as a time and attendance system, that provides enriched, summary information for submission directly to a payroll or HRIS process,' Kerr noted... The next steps for the group will be to include extra interactions and data flows within the standard. Organizations and individuals interested in reviewing the HR-XML timecard standard can download the specification from the Consortium's website."
[November 01, 2001] "Open Standard for Benefits Enrollment Approved by HR-XML Consortium. Breakthrough for Employers, Insurance Carriers, and Plan Administrators." - "The HR-XML Consortium has approved a new XML-based standard for employee benefit plan enrollments. The enrollment specification offers employers, third-party administrators, insurers, and payers new opportunities for reducing the costs and delivery times associated with communicating benefit plan enrollment information. 'Today, insurance carriers and third-party benefits administrators use either their own specifications or EDI formats for accepting employee enrollment from external systems,' said Elizabeth O'Neal, Director of Integration Technologies and Services at Employease, Inc., and leader of the HR-XML Benefits Enrollment Group. 'The HR-XML Consortium's enrollment specification provides a robust but easy-to-implement means of connecting employers and third-party administrators with insurance carriers and other benefit plan providers,' according to O'Neal... Version 1.0 of the HR-XML benefits enrollment specification supports enrollment and maintenance of employees in 'tier coverages,' such as medical, dental and vision. Other types of coverage (FSA, Life, 401(k), etc) will be supported in future releases of the standard. The initial specification supports benefits enrollments only within the United States. Profiles to support enrollments in other countries are a topic for possible future work. The new standard was developed to provide a ready path to the EDI transaction sets mandated under the U.S. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). The Consortium illustrated in a proof-of-concept demonstration how industry-standard XML can be leveraged to bring HRIS-sourced data in conformance with the HIPAA EDI transaction sets..."
[November 01, 2001] "Extending Schemas." Edited by Paul Kiel (HR-XML). Contributors: Members of the HR-XML Technical Steering Committee. Working Draft 2001-09-11, Version 1.0. "HR-XML Consortium specifications are meant to model specific business practices. Recognizing that it cannot satisfy the needs of all implementers all the time, the need for a standard way to extend schemas becomes clear. This document is aimed to provide guidance regarding the extension of XML Schemas so that trading partners can exchange information in the real world as well as experiment with new data that could be incorporated into a future specification... Given that extension is a reality, how can we accommodate extensions without undermining the principle of open standards? This document is meant to provide guidance on the best practice for extending schemas. Its goal is to show: (1) Official endorsement of different methods for implementation; (2) Conventions for creating extensions to encourage consistency... This document focuses on XML Schema extension methods. Where possible, references to DTD equivalent issues are included. Addressing all possible extension methods for DTDs (i.e., internal subsets) is not in scope... As discussed here, 'extending' is meant to 'add additional elements and attributes to an existing schema'. This is not to be confused with how Roger Costello uses it in the XML Schemas: Best Practices discussion; he refers to 'extending' meaning adding functionality to schema that does not currently exist... The Technical Steering Committee has approved two methods that enable extension of HR-XML schemas without undermining an open standards mission. The 'wrapper' and 'ANY' techniques are explained herein. Additionally, a 'Namespace' extension method was examined and rejected, details in Appendix C..." [Comment from Chuck Allen: "Like every other organization developing XML schemas, HR-XML is wrestling with 'standard' approaches to extending 'standards'. The editors welcome comments on the extension document; send email to Chuck Allen or Paul Kiel. [source .DOC]
[November 01, 2001] "[XML Schema] Enumeration Extension." By Paul Kiel (HR-XML). 2001-10-29. 5 pages. "HR-XML Consortium work groups are increasingly grappling with a common problem regarding the use of enumerations in schemas. The traditional use of enumerations consists of a fixed number of provided values, which are determined at the time of the schema design. The problem arises when a business process is modeled with a schema that includes enumerated lists that do not cover 100% of the foreseen cases. The main question arises: how can a work group standardize enumerated values when less than 100% of the foreseeable values are known at design time? The objective of this text is to endorse a method for standardizing enumerated values without preventing extensions to cover unknown or trading partner specific values... The two most debated approaches to standardizing incomplete enumeration lists are a union of values with a string, essentially a convention, and a union of values with a string pattern, known as pattern extension... The Technical Steering Committee has determined that while the principle of separating data from metadata has significant merit, in this case, making the best use of the parser can be more important. Consequently, it endorses the Pattern Extension method of standardization of incomplete enumeration lists when most of the values are known. When only a few values are know, the Convention Method is acceptable as well as using an atomic data type such as a simple string..." Comment from Chuck Allen: "We regard this document on handling enumerations as a schema design technique with some use in certain circumstances. We're also interested in the notion of 'interfaces to taxonomies' -- being able to reference or (carry along) taxonomies that would provide data values. One of our use cases is posting job openings to job boards; each job board has a different classification system (these usually translate to drop-down lists in a web user interface). We definitely will not take on the task of try to develop standard skill and job taxonomies, but we want to be able to plug-in those in use by major job boards and by government agencies (US Dept of Labor and many other national labor boards have developed skill/job taxonomies). While our use case is specific to HR, the basic problem of referencing and using external taxonomies is not unique to our problem domain..." [source .DOC]
[November 01, 2001] "[HR-XML] Payroll Benefits Contributions 1.0." Edited by Penni Kessler and Kim Bartkus. By Members of the HR-XML Payroll work group. Working Draft Version 1.0. 2001-Oct-29. "This document describes HR-XML's Payroll Benefit Contributions schema. The schema allows the capture of information used by third party administrators to manage employees benefit contributions. Many companies have defined/deferred contributions as part of their benefits packages that they offer to employees. In order to process these contributions correctly, the employees' participation information must be used to interface with the payroll system and third party administrators. This document specifies the data elements that will be necessary to process benefit contributions within a payroll and to send information to the third party administrators... The SPARK standard was forwarded to the payroll workgroup to define the benefit contributions information to be transmitted between a payroll vendor and a third party administrator. The first phase of this project was to convert the SPARK standard to XML. The payroll transmission was demonstrated during a conference using a demo XML format. This initial phase was called the Son of SPARK. [SPARK, the Society of Pension Administrator and Record Keepers, has developed an ASCII file format that has been adopted by some of the major third party administrators. Instead of having payroll vendors converting to SPARK formats and then having to convert to XML formats a short time later, we are trying to reduce the amount of programming that will need to be done.]... See also the XML Schema. [Cache PDF and schema.]
[October 24, 2001] "HR-XML: Enabling Pervasive HR e-Business." By Chuck Allen [GCA bio] and Lon Pilot. Paper presented at XML Europe 2001 (21-25 May 2001, Internationales Congress Centrum (ICC), Berlin, Germany). "The HR-XML Consortium is a non-profit group that is developing standard XML vocabularies for the human resources management profession. With more than 120 member organizations around the world, HR-XML is one of the largest and best-supported groups developing XML standards in support of specific business functions. Human resource management is an enormous and complex domain. Simply stated, the HR management function supports organizational effectiveness by recruiting, identifying, assessing, hiring, retaining, motivating, training, and compensating the people organizations need to execute their missions. While much has been done to Web-enable HR software and services, employers and service providers still often encounter barriers to easy data integration. For instance, exchanging data with a new partner or service provider too often requires decisions about the format of the 'data feed' and custom development of software interfaces to move data into and out of computer systems. Moreover, while the Web browser has become a universal, easy-to-use interface for users to enter data and interact with applications, the frequent need for users to enter data into Web forms from paper sources, to "cut and paste" data between different applications, or to re-enter the same data within different forms is symptomatic of the data integration problems common today. This paper provides background on some of the data interchange barriers within the HR management domain and what members of the HR-XML Consortium are doing to eliminate those barriers. The paper briefly reviews the Consortium's methodology and the status of its current projects." Also available in PDF format. [cache]
DTDs 2001-01
- [2000-01] PostalAddress: "Prescribes the form of the Postal Address object used in HR-XML specifications." [DTD with documentation]
- [2000-01] PersonName: "Prescribes the form of the Person Name object used in HR-XML specifications." [DTD with documentation]
- [2000-01] Staffing Exchange Protocol, Job Position Posting, see also Job Position Seeker and Feedback. "(SEP)is simple protocol for the communcation of information about job or position opportunities to job boards and other Internet recruiting venues. The protocol also provides for the return of information about job/position seekers." [DTD with documentation]
- [2000-01] HR-XML Provisional Envelope: [2001-01] "A simple envelope that can be used to implement Staffing Exchange Protocol." [DTD with documentation]
JobPosting Schema/DTD. The JobPosting schema is intended for use in structuring exchanges of information about job openings. [cache]
CandidateProfile Schema/DTD. CandidateProfile is intended for use in structuring exchanges of information about job candidates. [cache]
Resume Schema/DTD. The Resume schema provides a way for job candidates to add valuable metadata to their online resumes. [cache]
[April 25, 2001] "XML Completes First Proof-of-Concept Demo for Draft Enrollment Schema. Breakthrough for Employers, Insurance Carriers and Plan Administrators." - "The HR-XML Consortium successfully completed the first 'proof-of-concept' demonstration using the Consortium's draft employee benefits enrollment schema. The Consortium's enrollment schema is a full-featured specification capable of supporting enrollment in a comprehensive range of benefit programs, including health and retirement plans, flexible spending accounts, and dental and vision plans. The demonstration showed the ease and flexibility of using industry-standard XML to transmit HRIS-sourced enrollment data to insurance carriers. The Consortium's Benefits Enrollment Workgroup presented the demonstration at the 2001 Conference of the Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange (WEDI). HR-XML members participating in the demonstration included representatives of Employease, Hewitt Associates, BenefitsXML, and eBenX. 'Today, insurance carriers and third-party benefits administrators often have their own specifications for accepting employee enrollment from external systems or they use EDI formats,' said Elizabeth O'Neal, Director of Professional Services at Employease, Inc., and leader of the HR-XML Benefits Enrollment Group. 'The proof-of-concept demonstration shows that the Consortium's enrollment specification can provide a robust, but easy-to-implement means of connecting employers and third-party administrators with insurance carriers and other benefit plan providers,' according to O'Neal. The 'proof-of-concept' demonstration illustrated how industry-standard XML can be leveraged to bring HRIS-sourced data in conformance with the EDI transaction sets mandated under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). The data output from the demonstration was certified as HIPAA-compliant using the Electronic Healthcare Network Accreditation Commission's (EHNAC's) Standard Transaction Format Compliance System. The HR-XML Consortium is now among the organizations recognized by EHNAC as capable of producing HIPAA-compliant transactions. 'Although the Consortium's enrollment schema provides a ready path to the HIPAA-mandated EDI transaction sets, that is only one of the advantages of the specification,' explained Lon Pilot, a Systems Consultant with Watson Wyatt Worldwide, and the Chairman of the HR-XML Consortium. 'The HR-XML enrollment specification's 'single view' of enrollment data will provide employers and third-party administrators a new level of power and flexibility in managing benefit programs,' according to Pilot. The Consortium expects to release the approved version of the enrollment specification in October 2001."
[February 20, 2001] "HR-XML Consortium Elects 2001 Board Members. New Board to Increase Consortium's International Presence." - "The HR-XML Consortium, a non-profit organization dedicated to human resources (HR) data exchange, held its annual Board of Directors elections. The Consortium elected six new directors to join three returning directors to the 2001 board. In keeping with the Consortium's bylaws, the board consists of nine member volunteers. The new board will include the additional influence of two European companies. The European board members add geographic diversity and insight to this proactive board..." source]
[January 11, 2001] "Job Agencies Will Hire HR-XML. Protocol promises a lingua franca for résumés." By Maria Seminerio. In eWEEK (January 01, 2001). "Scanning; manual parsing; garbled transfer to a searchable database; bending, folding, spindling and mutilating. It might sound like the Spanish Inquisition, but it's just the routine torture that both paper and online risumis go through, all thanks to a lack of data standards. That absence of a lingua franca for human resources applications and procedures winds up adding some 2 to 3 minutes of processing per résumé -- a substantial slowdown for both job candidates and staffing service companies that process several million résumés each year... Thankfully, help is on the way. Many major U.S. and international staffing companies and online job boards have pledged to adopt within the coming year a new XML (Extensible Markup Language) protocol aimed at standardizing the format of online risumis. The HR-XML Staffing Exchange Protocol, adopted by the 89-member, nonprofit HR-XML Consortium in September, provides a standard method of posting job listings and applying to posted jobs. For example, risumis posted to job boards that comply with the protocol will use the same terms for headings such as "on-the-job experience," and even for subheads within that cate gory, such as types of programming experience in the case of a techie job searcher. The protocol also provides a standard mechanism for creating, updating and deleting online job requisitions that promises to keep postings up-to-date. What's next for the HR-XML Consortium? The HR-XML Consortium, an independent, nonprofit association developing a suite of XML specifications for job search sites, staffing companies and human resources applications, in September finalized its Staffing and Exchange standard protocol for online job postings. But the 90-member group (which includes job placement firms, software makers, online job boards and other companies doing online staff recruitment) is also building several other XML protocols for online tools for hiring and retaining workers, including: Payroll schema. The consortium's Payroll Workgroup is building a schema to support a range of electronic payroll interfaces. This project is focused on standardizing the way companies do online transfer of benefits and payroll information within their corporate intranets. Health benefits enrollment schema. The Benefit Enrollment Workgroup is developing a schema for the online transfer of employee health benefits enrollment data among employers' insurance carriers, managed care companies and third-party health care administrators. The result will be an XML standard for online enrollment in health, dental, vision and 401(k) plans..."
[October 24, 2000] "Industry Adopts HR-XML Standard for Web-Based Recruiting. XML Consortium Launches XML Standard for Job Postings on the Web." - "Members of HR-XML, the non-profit standards group for human resources data exchange, today approved the HR-XML Staffing Exchange Protocol (SEP) for standardizing job postings on the Internet. The new XML-based standard provides a common method for posting employment opportunities to web-based recruiting sites and the return of resumes matching those positions. The HR-XML member companies participating in the meeting unanimously approved HR-XML SEP. 'HR-XML SEP will have an immediate, beneficial impact for job seekers, hiring managers -- in fact, everyone involved in the recruiting process,' said Alan Sproat of jobs.com, leader of the HR-XML Recruiting and Staffing Workgroup. 'We invite companies and individuals who have not been involved in this development to use HR-XML SEP and participate in its future.' HR-XML SEP makes it possible for employers to submit job requisitions to publishers without the need for customized interfaces. Resumes conforming to HR-XML SEP are retrieved, searched and evaluated more easily. Job seekers access a targeted range of positions with better-defined requirements. Application developers offer their clients the benefits of HR-XML SEP-compliant integration and automation tools. 'With the tight job market showing no signs of easing up, it is more important than ever to take advantage of a technology that can improve the efficiency of the task of hiring the best person for the job,' commented Lon Pilot of Watson Wyatt Worldwide, chairman of the HR-XML Consortium. 'HR-XML SEP is that technology.' Representatives from all aspects of the human resources industry participated in the development of HR-XML SEP. Chuck Allen, director of the HR-XML Consortium, noted, 'Many companies put aside competitive issues to reach consensus on HR-XML SEP, working together in the best interest of the HR community at large.' HR-XML is the independent, non-profit consortium dedicated to enabling e-commerce and inter-company exchange of human resources (HR) data worldwide. The work of the Consortium centers on the development and promotion of standardized XML vocabularies for HR. HR-XML's efforts are focused on standards for staffing and recruiting, compensation and benefits, training and workforce management."
[September 27, 2000] "New HR-XML Staffing Exchange Protocol Standardizes Web-Based Recruiting. Major HR Companies Team in Support of XML Standard for Job Postings on the Web." - "The new HR-XML Staffing Exchange Protocol (SEP) for standardizing job postings on the Internet was demonstrated by five major HR companies at the HR Technology Conference this week. The XML-based SEP, which is currently under review by HR-XML, provides a common method for posting employment opportunities to web-based recruiting sites and the return of resumes matching those positions. "Recruiting on the Internet just got a lot easier--for everyone," said Alan Sproat (jobs.com), leader of the HR-XML Recruiting and Staffing Workgroup. "Using HR-XML SEP, employers can submit their requisitions to more publishers, without multiple custom interfaces. Resumes can be retrieved, searched and evaluated much more easily when they conform to SEP's consistent format. Job seekers can access a targeted range of positions with better-defined requirements. Finally, application developers can offer their clients the benefits of SEP-compliant integration and automation tools." Participants in the HR Technology Conference demonstration included HR-XML members, eWork Exchange, Icarian, jobs.com, Novient and Peopleclick. The companies took on roles of job requisitioner, job board and job seeker. Using the HR-XML SEP schema and standard http technology, the participants not only created postings, they also updated and deleted requisitions, responded to openings and searched postings and resumes--all without the customized interchange mechanisms that would be required today. "We've demonstrated the first version of the HR-XML SEP," explained Lon Pilot, president of the HR-XML Consortium. "We encourage employers, HR service providers and all companies who are affected by the standardization of job postings to contribute to further development of this messaging format." Organizations and individuals interested in joining the HR-XML, should visit ww.hr-xml.org/channels/join.cfm. About HR-XML HR-XML is the independent, non-profit consortium dedicated to enabling e-commerce and inter-company exchange of human resources (HR) data worldwide. The work of the Consortium centers on the development and promotion of standardized XML vocabularies for HR. HR-XML's efforts are focused on standards for staffing and recruiting, compensation and benefits, training and workforce management."
[November 06, 2000] "Workscape Joins Industry Leaders Supporting Open Internet Standards. Market Leader in HR Self Service to Participate in HR-XML Consortium, UDDI Initiatives." - "Workscape Inc., a leading provider of Web-based HR self service solutions, is joining the HR-XML Consortium and supporting the Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI) standard. In doing so, the company will actively participate in the definition of open Internet and e-commerce standards under development by these organizations, working alongside other industry leaders including Ariba, CommerceOne, Dell, i2 Technologies, IBM, PeopleSoft, and SAP. The HR-XML Consortium is an independent, non-profit association dedicated to the development and promotion of a standard suite of Extensible Markup Language (XML) specifications to enable e-commerce and the automation of human resources-related data exchanges. The Consortium has targeted key HR applications for XML standardization including recruiting and staffing, benefits enrollment and defined contribution/defined benefit data exchanges. HR-XML Consortium includes over 90 organizational members and hundreds of individual participants. UDDI focuses on standardizing methods for information sharing and integration among B2B trading partners over the Internet. The UDDI initiative creates a global, platform-independent, open framework to enable businesses to discover each other, define how they interact over the Internet and share information in a global registry that will more rapidly accelerate the global adoption of B2B e-commerce. Workscape hopes the HR-XML Consortium will help reduce the cost to businesses of exchanging relevant information and improving communications among employers, employees and the HR solutions providers that support them. UDDI's efforts to standardize on the underlying infrastructure for dynamic, automated integration of all e-commerce transactions and Web services will be backed by Workscape's strength in deploying e-marketplaces."
[July 27, 2000] "HR-XML Consortium Works to Standardize Payroll Transactions. Payroll Providers Invited to Participate in Standardization Effort." - "The HR-XML Consortium, a non-profit organization dedicated to human resources (HR) data exchange, announced the formation of a new workgroup to standardize payroll transactions using XML. The first priority of the workgroup will be to develop a set of XML schemas to standardize communications between HR and payroll systems and also between payroll systems and third-party (e.g., 401K plan) administrators. Payroll providers, employers and HR companies are all encouraged to take part in the development of the new standards. . . Membership in the HR-XML Consortium and participation in the Payroll Workgroup is open to anyone involved in the payroll and/or HR industries, employers and vendors alike. Since the announcement of the workgroup at the HR-XML members meeting in Chicago last week, more than 20 HR and payroll providers came forth to contribute to this effort. Organizations and individuals interested in joining the Consortium, should visit the HR-XML Consortium web site."
[June 28, 2000] "HR-XML Consortium Sponsors Panel Discussion/Demonstrates Draft Protocol at IHRIM Conference and Expo. XML-Enabled Staffing Exchange Demonstrated at the International Association for Human Resource Information Management (IHRIM) Conference and Exposition." - "The HR-XML Consortium, Inc. offered attendees of the International Association for Human Resource Information Management Conference and Exposition an introduction to the Consortium and a demonstration of how XML standards enable the seamless integration of human resources data. More than 200 people attended the early-morning event held June 21. Consortium members IBM, Icarian, Inc., jobs.com, kforce.com, and peopleclick.com demonstrated their ability to exchange job postings and resumes using the current draft of the Consortium's Staffing Exchange Protocol. A discussion panel moderated by Naomi Bloom, Managing Partner of Bloom & Wallace, answered questions about the Consortium and about the benefits of XML technology in exchanging HR data. The panelists included Chuck Allen, HR-XML Consortium Director; Tim Farlow, Director of Technology, Authoria, Inc.; David Lindheimer, Vice President for Small Enterprise Products, Best Imperativ HRMS; and Doug Merritt, President and CEO of Icarian. The XML-enabled data exchange presented to IHRIM attendees demonstrated the posting of job opportunities and the return of resumes. The Consortium's Recruiting and Staffing Workgroup is refining the Staffing Exchange Protocol draft to support such additional transactions as the updating and recalling of job postings, supplying of contact information for a job candidate where only partial information is initially supplied, providing employer feedback to job boards on positions that have been filled, and updating and recalling of resumes by job seekers. Further extensions to the protocol might include support for employment verification and reference checking. In addition to recruiting and staffing, the Consortium has workgroups actively developing specifications to support employee benefits enrollment, exchanges of defined contribution and defined benefit plan participant data, and the myriad of "cross-process" objects -- including the "person object" -- that are important across the entire HR management systems domain. Other HR management processes are being undertaken as quickly as member firms provide volunteers to work in the new areas. The HR-XML Consortium is a non-profit organization dedicated to the development and promotion of standardized human-resources-related XML vocabularies for enabling e-commerce and inter-company exchanges of human resources data worldwide."
[May 03, 2000] "Nitorum Corporation Joins HR-XML Consortium. Nitorum Supports Efforts to Standardize XML Vocabularies for Human Resources Related E-commerce." - "Nitorum Corporation, developer of Intelli-Gage, the first business-to-business e-procurement application for consultant services, announced today that it has joined the HR-XML Consortium. The HR-XML Consortium is a non-profit organization dedicated to the development and promotion of standardized human resources-related extensible markup language (XML). Nitorum's Intelli-Gage automates and streamlines the entire process of procuring contract staff, bringing quality, cost, and time savings to large firms seeking to manage their contract staffing vendor relationships. Intelli-Gage's rules engine lets companies incorporate their business rules, including complex approval matrices, so that it adapts to a company's way of doing business. The Intelli-Gage procurement process includes: the development of a rate schedule for consultant services, the implementation of a preferred vendor program, and the ability to fill out online timecards, which are aggregated by vendor and sent as an electronic invoice to accounts payable and purchase order systems. The HR-XML Consortium is a non-profit organization dedicated to the development and promotion of standardized human-resources-related XML vocabularies for enabling e-commerce and inter-company exchanges of human resources data worldwide."
[April 25, 2000] "HR-XML Continues Growth, Targets Initial Demonstration Projects. Industry Consortium Targets Key Data Interchange Challenges Affecting Recruiting, Staffing, Compensation, and Benefits." - "The HR-XML Consortium, Inc. continued to attract broad participation from industry leaders at its recent Fort Lauderdale meeting, the second meeting since the Consortium's incorporation as a non-profit, technology standards body. Over 100 individuals from the Consortium's more than 70 member organizations participated in the meeting held April 6 and 7. At the meeting, the Consortium's Recruiting and Staffing workgroup unveiled a draft messaging specification (Staffing Exchange Protocol) that can enable dynamic, real-time staffing transactions over the Web using open, non-proprietary XML standards. Among the transactions supported by the Staffing Exchange Protocol would be posting job announcements to job boards, updating and recalling job postings, supplying contact information for job candidates where only partial information was initially supplied, the updating and recalling of resumes by job seekers, and the provision of employer feedback to job boards regarding positions that have been filled. The Compensation and Benefits workgroup similarly is prioritizing and defining the business processes most in need of standardization. Benefits plan enrollment and the maintenance and verification of employee benefits eligibility information are among the processes on which the workgroup is focusing. The workgroup also is planning to deploy this summer a demonstration of how standardized XML can streamline the transfer of Defined Contribution and Defined Benefit (DC/DB) data between a plan sponsor, such as an employer, and a plan provider. The meeting featured technology briefings on Microsoft BizTalk and on XML security technologies being developed by the World Wide Web Consortium and the Internet Engineering Task Force. Kevin McCall, product manager of the BizTalk Initiative at Microsoft, noted that the 'HR-XML Consortium's provisional resume schema is the most widely used schema in the BizTalk.org business document library, which currently contains over 400 schemas'... The Consortium has gained more than 30 new member organizations since its January meeting in San Jose."
[February 04, 2000] "HR-XML Consortium Expands Membership and Initiates Standards and Workgroups. Wide Support to Deliver Business-to-Business E-Commerce Standards Starting with Staffing, Recruiting and Employee Benefits. Consortium Elects Board of Directors." - The HR-XML Consortium today announced the results of its recent board of directors election and that more than 45 organizations have joined the Consortium for the purpose of creating and promoting standardized, HR-specific XML vocabularies. Industry-standard XML vocabularies provide the means for a company to transact business electronically with many other companies without having to establish, engineer and implement many separate interchange mechanisms. The XML-based message formats and transaction protocols being developed by the Consortium will provide a framework for a wide range of open, e-commerce services and software that will offer businesses increased efficiencies and greater ROI. The HR-XML Consortium also announced today that it has elected five members to its board of directors. The board of directors, which includes Jeff Bonar (Ultimate Software), David Donahue (Aetna), Gary O'Neall (Icarian), Lon Pilot (Watson Wyatt) and Cari Willis (IBM), is tasked with leading the non-profit group in creating and promoting a standardized XML framework for a broad range of human resource-related transactions and inter-company data exchanges."
[March 24, 2000] "recruitsoft.com Joins HR-XML Consortium." - recruitsoft.com, creator of the world's most advanced Internet-based Hiring Management System (HMS), announced that it has joined the HR-XML Consortium. This newly-formed non-profit organization is dedicated to the development and promotion of standardized HR-related extensible markup language (XML) vocabularies designed to enable the worldwide exchange of HR data. The HR-XML Consortium is a non-profit organization dedicated to the development and promotion of standardized human-resources-related XML vocabularies for enabling e-commerce and inter-company exchanges of human resources data worldwide. The Consortium is open to all interested parties, but membership is targeted to software vendors, employers, HR service suppliers, non-profit HR-related associations, and human resource professionals."
[February 08, 2000] "Resumix Joins the HR-XML Consortium as a Charter Member. Resumix to Help Standardize XML Vocabularies." - "Resumix, a leading provider of enterprise and Web-based staffing management solutions, today announced its participation in the HR-XML Consortium. The Consortium is a non-profit group dedicated to the development and promotion of standardized human-resources-related XML (Extensible Markup Language) vocabularies for enabling business-to-business e-commerce and the automation of inter-company exchanges of human resources data. The HR-XML framework makes data exchange between internal and external HR applications seamless, enabling companies to transact with each other without having to install a multitude of separate interchange mechanisms. Selected as a charter member of the HR-XML Consortium, Resumix is developing technology to enable its enterprise and Web-based core recruiting software to use XML, the new data exchange technology that is dramatically improving communication worldwide."
[December 13, 1999] "Industry Leaders Endorse HR-XML Framework. Consortium to Deliver Business-to-Business E-Commerce Standards Starting With Staffing and Recruiting." - "The HR-XML Consortium announced today that more than 25 organizations have endorsed an XML framework designed to enable web-based workforce management and recruiting services. Based on open, business-to-business e-commerce models, these next- generation workforce management and recruiting services promise to deliver employers greater ROI for their staffing expenditures, while giving HR and staffing vendors new opportunities for growth and profit. The HR-XML Consortium is a newly formed non-profit group dedicated to the development and promotion of standardized human-resources-related XML vocabularies for enabling business-to-business e-commerce and the automation of inter-company exchanges of human resources data. As companies turn to the Internet to conduct business, efficient integration of applications will become essential. Supporting and deploying XML schemas will allow applications with similar types of business data to easily pass information between computers. 'The adoption of HR-XML standards is a key element in creating talent marketplaces that provide true collaboration and a secure transactional environment,' said Chuck Allen, HR-XML Consortium Chair. 'The endorsement of so many industry leaders puts us well on the path to creating a robust, meaningful standard.' Staffing and Recruiting is the first of many HR areas that the HR-XML Consortium will standardize. The HR-XML Consortium is a newly formed non-profit group dedicated to the development and promotion of standardized human-resources-related XML vocabularies for enabling e-commerce and the automation of inter-company exchanges of human resources data. Founding members of the Consortium are Icarian, Inc., a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based provider of workforce management solutions (www.icarian.com), and Structured Methods, a Raleigh, NC-based, XML solutions provider (www.structuredmethods.com)." See also HR-XML Schemas.
[September 14, 1999] "HR-XML Consortium Publishes BizTalk Framework Compatible Schema for Recruiting Data. Consortium Standards Combined with BizTalk Framework Poised to Bring E-Commerce Solutions to Staffing and Recruiting Transactions." - "The HR-XML Consortium announced the availability of three BizTalk-compatible schemas designed to enable a new generation of web-based workforce management and recruiting services. Based on open, e-commerce models, this next generation workforce management and recruiting services promises to deliver employers greater ROI for the staffing expenditures, while giving HR and staffing vendors new opportunities for growth and profit. The HR-XML Consortium is a newly formed non-profit group dedicated to the development and promotion of standardized human-resources-related XML vocabularies for enabling e-commerce and the automation of inter-company exchanges of human resources data. Founding members of the Consortium are Icarian, Inc., a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based provider of eWorkforce Management solutions, and Structured Methods, a Raleigh, N.C.-based, XML solutions provider. . . 'As staffing and recruiting take their place at the forefront of business-to-business e-commerce strategies, it is critical to establish robust HR-XML standards to support the pent-up demand for talent acquisition over the Internet,' said Marcus Schmidt, industry manager for e-commerce at Microsoft Corp. 'The BizTalk Framework and Microsoft E-Commerce Strategy are uniquely positioned to facilitate and accelerate the adoption of open XML standards that will dramatically extend the reach of organizations into the vast pool of talent available via the Internet'."
[September 13, 1999] "XML.org Expands As XML Information Clearinghouse. Industry Portal Adds New XML Schemas and Introduces XML Specifications Catalog and Submissions Form." - "OASIS, the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards, today announced major enhancements to XML.org, the open, vendor-neutral industry portal for XML. New XML schemas from DataChannel and the HR-XML Consortium have been submitted to XML.org. Other content upgrades include the addition of the XML.org Specifications Catalog (www.xml.org/xmlorg_catalog.htm), a comprehensive list of XML specifications currently under development including links for more information. The site also incorporates the XML.org Specification Submission Form to encourage and enable organizations to share their XML specifications with the community at large. DataChannel's submission to XML.org is the Portal Markup Language (PML), which is designed to support inter-portal communication by providing an XML-based description of portal-related data and metadata. PML incorporates the basics of vocabularies such as Dublin Core, Directory Services Markup and WebDAV and will continue to closely track applicable standards of relevance to this arena."
See also: XML-HR Initiative - Human Resources
