Re: Getting Back to Basics - How to describe Dates and Times andEvents?

["William J. Kammerer" <wkammerer@foresightcorp.com>]

Todd Boyle gave examples of his new General Ledger models; see
http://lists.ebxml.org/archives/ebxml-core/200104/msg00067.html.

His <transactionDate> snippet still has remnants of specificity in the
name - the "transaction" should be dropped from the label, or maybe it
should be called <DateTime>.

Todd is "...still not convinced to support multiple 8601 datetime
formats, or the xsd:datetime strings."  But he doesn't have to
explicitly support multiple formats - the ISO 8601 Date Time format can
unambiguously represent all sorts of dates, times, Date-Times or
periods - there's no need for qualifiers.  I suspect we can get by just
defining a sub-element <value> as xsd:dateTime.  If we just wanted a
Date or a time by itself, xsd:date or xsd:time could be used - though I
think that would require us to have to have separate, but very similar,
<DateTime>, <Time> and <Date> types, each with the EDIFACT D.E. 2005
Qualifier.  When I refer to composites or data elements (D.E.), you can
follow along by looking in the Composite data element directory Batch
(EDCD) or the Data element directory (EDED) at
http://www.unece.org/trade/untdid/d01a/content.htm.

The <docRef> example avoids having separate derivations for
"invoiceNumber", "poNumber", etc. and instead uses something like
Edifact 1153 strings:

<docRef>
  <docType>Invoice</docType>       (required)
  <docNum>ABC-12345</docNum>       (required)
</docRef>

The <docType> element presumably is somehow derived from EDIFACT D.E.
1153.  For simplicity, the ultimate type should use an EDIFACT code
value (rather than the English name of the code).  And documents are
better described by D.E. 1001  (Document name code) as used in composite
C002 DOCUMENT/MESSAGE NAME, rather than D.E. 1153 (Reference code
qualifier) as used in the composite C506 REFERENCE.

Todd's last example:

<code>
  <codeList>DUNS</codeList>              (required)
  <codeValue>999999999</codeValue>       (required)
</code>

looks more like a Party ID based on a DUNS.   So instead of the generic
name <code>, it should be something like <PartyID>.  The EDIFACT
composite C082 PARTY IDENTIFICATION DETAILS depends exclusively on the
ubiquitous 1131/3055 D.E. pair to specify the type of Party ID.  For
example, if you have D.E. 3055 Code list responsible agency code set to
'9' - EAN (International Article Numbering association), it's clear that
you're using a UCC/EAN GLN (Global Location Number - kind of like a
D-U-N-S). Alternatively, if D.E. 3055 is '16', we're relying on Dun &
Bradstreet to supply the DUNS.

William J. Kammerer
FORESIGHT Corp.
4950 Blazer Pkwy.
Dublin, OH USA 43017-3305
+1 614 791-1600

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