A posting from Lisa Seaburg (Commerce One Labs) announces the availability of a UBL Library review package containing draft XML schemas and documentation. The UBL Library Content Subcommittee is developing "a standard XML business library content by taking an existing library (xCBL 3.0) as a starting point and modifying it to incorporate the best features of other existing business and core component libraries. Its goals are to create a BIE Catalog by identifying the Basic Information Entities out of the xCBL Library, to create XML (XSD) Schemas for business document types, and to document a customization methodology." The review package contains a methodology document describing the approach taken in this design work, draft XML Schemas derived from spreadsheets, and sample XML instances of UBL Order documents. The three XML schemas represent the UBL Library, the UBL Order document, and the Core Component Library. Review comment are being accepted through April 08, 2002.

The review package contains:

1. A document describing the approach we took in undertaking this work (UBL_Metholodogy-0p5.rtf)
2. The XML Schema (XSD) for the UBL Library (UBL_Library-0.64.xsd)
3. The XML Schema (XSD) for the UBL Order document (UBL_Order-0.64.xsd)
4. The XML Schema (XSD) for the Core Component Library (CoreComponentTypes.xsd)
5. Several sample instances of UBL Order documents (we will be continually adding to these samples)
6. A pro-forma comment and disposition log form (UBL_Comment-0p1.rtf)
7. Excel spreadsheet files used to generate the XML schemas

UBL Order document: "The Order element comprises the creation of a purchase order that is sent for acceptance or rejection by a seller. A requisitioner, buyer, or buying organization can initiate an Order in response to a variety of factors in the electronic business arena, contracts, auctions, order requests, etc. A requisitioner, or buyer, can initiate a change to an already existing order. A seller uses the OrderResponse document to accept or reject an Order or a changed order."

From the subcommittee's "UBL Library Content Methodology" document: The purpose of this document is "to explain how we got to where we are with the UBL vocabulary, we felt it necessary to provide a background to the rationale and framework in which we conducted our work; the document will eventually become a guide for those wishing to maintain or extend the UBL Library. An initial analysis has been completed for the Order structure used in xCBL3.0. From this base we will seek to extend and refine our model to accommodate other business documents and constructs from other e-business vocabularies. We have deliberately chosen to adapt an existing XML vocabulary (xCBL 3.0), not because we wish to promote the xCBL view, we simply decided that it was better than starting with a blank page. We have attempted to identify all the Basic Information Entities involved in this document following the guidelines of the ebXML Core Component Technical Specification (CCTS) . Much of our terminology is taken from this specification. We intend our library and its document definitions to be compliant with the ebXML Core Component Technical Specification. These BIEs were captured as a logical model in both XML Schema (XSD) and spreadsheet (Excel) form. The XML Schema logical model was then encoded as an XML Schema following the UBL Naming and Design Rules. This schema was then used to assemble the components into a UBL Order in XML Schema (XSD) form. However, in theory, the model could also be used to generate other XML schema languages (e.g., DTD, RELAX, etc.). Our current library now contains the structure for an Order document. It also contains a core library of structural components (known as re-usable types) and their content components (Basic BIEs). Both of these reference the ebXML Core Component Types for the data types of their Basic BIEs..."