Re: [ubl-comment] Question about the BusinessCard object

From
JAVEST by Roberto Cisternino <>
Date
2017-10-10T17:57:09+00:00
ID
Thread
Re: [ubl-comment] Question about the BusinessCard object
Il 10/10/2017 11:09, David Goodenough
      ha scritto:

    

    
      
      
      
Roberto,

      
 

      
Thank you for your reply.  But I still do not understand.  

      
 

      
You say that the Business Card is intended as the electronic version of the

      
paper equivalent, but then later you say that the recipient is required.

      
You have a basic bootstrap problem here.  How do you get the receipient

      
Party data?  Surely if the Business Card followed its paper equivalent

      
then it would be destination agnostic.  And removing the recipient in no

      
way stops it being forwarded.  You already have the separation between the

      
sender and the business parties.

    
    I understand your point, but the UBL-BusinessCard is not only a
    card, it is primarly a message.

    I think any UBL business document has a sender and a recipient, as
    we are supporting business processes and collaborations so the
    minimum number of parties involved is 2, do you agree ?

    

    Most UBL documents are requiring both the sender and the recipient
    parties, not all... but this is when we must give more freedom to
    implementers.

    If you think that we must give such freedom I could agree, but this
    means you think implementers may use the UBL-BusinessCard for
    storage and not *only* for exchanging its information.

    I like this idea, after all XML databases are a reality, so it could
    be that modern portals, yellow pages or business directories will
    adopt the UBL-BusinessCard as a direct storage unit on the file
    system or in a database blob.

    

    The recipient will be added on the last stage before sending it to
    other parties.

    
      
You say "The recipient is mandatory ... because it is intended to be

      
exchanged".  Yes quite often when you hand out business cards you get

      
one back, but not always and the cards that are handed over are not marked

      
for the recipient in any way.  The same goes for directories, they do not

      
contain (or at least they do not have to contain) the recipient's 

      
Party data.

      
 

      
When it comes to the digital collaboration object, these are absolutely 

      
fundamental to UBL and saying that the DigitalCapabilities object is the way  

      
to exchange this misses the point.  How can you send the DigitalCapabilities

      
object to someone when you do not know where to send it?  It is a recursive

      
unresolvable problem.

    
    First of all I fix the name that is singular
    "UBL-DigitalCapability", my mistake on the previous mail.

    

    
      
 

      
There has to be a way to start the communications, and traditionally that is

      
what the business card or directory entry do and they are broadcast objects

      
not directed to a particular recipient.

      
 

      
To my eyes the text in section 2.3.8.2 is exactly correct, and it is the

      
implementation of the BusinessCard object that is wrong.  And it as you

      
suggest the second paragraph of section 2.3.8.2 should not be in the

      
description of the BusinessCard but rather in the DigitalCapabilities

      
section, why is it there?

    
    BusinessCard should not be mixed with the DigitalCollaboration, the
    second one is strictly for configuring EDI systems.

    

    I agree the folowing is wrong and needs to be revised asap:

    

    

      

        

          >2.3.8.2 Business Card
        

      

    

    
>The Business Card allows a standardized way of
      presenting digital trading capability information in a form that
      can be published or >exchanged with trading partners.

    
>The data structures have been derived from the work
      of ebXML CPPP, OpenPEPPOL and other directory services
      initiatives.

    It should be:

    

    "The Business Card allows a standardized way of presenting general
    trading capability information as well as main company's
    communication channels and presentations such as flyers and
    brochures."

    ____

    The DigitalAgreement part is ok but there is a missing paragraph for
    the DigitalCapability document.

    Please review this:

    

      

        2.3.8.3 Digital Capability
      

    

    
The Digital Capability allows a standardized way of
      presenting digital trading capability information in a form that
      can be published or exchanged with trading partners.  The digital
      capabilities of business partners are the source for building a
      Digital Agreement.

    

    

      2.3.8.4 Digital Agreement  (...I JUST RENUMBERED THIS...)

      
    

    
Bi-lateral and multi-lateral trading partner agreements
      can make use of the standardized Digital Agreement document used
      to support business parties agreeing on a set of digital
      processes, terms and conditions.

    
      
 

      
If the BusinessCard object is not designed to start the communications,

      
then what is and why is it not part of UBL?  If the BusinessCard object

      
is not there as a broadcast object to start the process, what is its

      
purpose?  From your description the process starts at the DigitalCapabilities

      
object, the BusinessCard is useless and thus should be removed from the

      
standard.

    
    It is true that in the specification there is a missing graph
    overview for the BusinessCard document, while the graph for the
    Digital Agreement and Digital Capability is correct.

    

    The BusinessCard is more generic and related to the common practice
    of exchanging business information in different domains:

    - Marketing and communication (Web sites, social channels, ...)

    - Financial Information (e.g. When I want communicate my new Banking
    account to my partners)

    - General information (Address, Tax IDs, so on...)

    - Trading capabilities (What the company do in textual form)

    

    Of course it is intended also to introduce a company to another, but
    it is not specific for digital processes.

    

    The DigitalCapability is specific for service providers, EDI
    partners, and of course for building digital agreements.

    The communication can be started with a plain BusinessCard or
    directly using a DigitalCapability if the purpose is to start a
    digital collaboration.

    
      
  

      
David

      
 

      
On Tuesday, 10 October 2017 00:11:21 BST JAVEST by Roberto Cisternino wrote:

      
    

      
Hello David,
      sorry for waiting so long before providing an answer, I was unable      to work fro a while...
      please find below my answers:
      
      Il 29/09/2017 16:26, David Goodenough ha scritto:
        

      
                  

      
The business card (as in a piece of card printed with contact details)      

      
is generally a mass produced object, handed out to whoever wants one      

      
with no tailoring to the receiver.  It is entirely one-sided, i.e. it      

      
only contains the details of one business/person/organization.  Other      

      
sources of similar information would be the headed note paper and      

      
trade or postal directories.    

      
    Correct, this reason the UBL BusinessCard is not intended for    instructing EDI / B2B systems.
    Inside it you can provide Business capabilities in general but not    Digital capabilities.
    The Business Card is intended as a standard electronic version of    the paper one, that can be also used for exchanging data between    business directories or simple yellow pages systems, accounting or    banking systems. 
    

      
      

      
In order to start a UBL conversation it is necessary for the initiating      

      
party to obtain the Party details of the receiving party, but there seems      

      
to be no high level object that can be send just describing one Party.      

      
These might be printed as QR codes on real business cards or headed      

      
notepaper, or made available for download on a web site.      

      
      

      
Once you have the partner Party details then the DigitalCapabilities      

      
and DigitalAgreement conversation can happen, and these can also be      

      
used to update Party information should the need arise.    

      
    The UBL DigitalCapabilities are the document you need, this is    exactly designed to exchange digital capabilities such as plain old    EDI or new XML capabilities.
    

      
      

      
      

      
So my question is why the BusinessCard has a mandatory ReceiverParty      

      
in it, and why it does not have a DigitalCollaboration object?  I      

      
am here looking for a rational or definition objectives.  It was      

      
presumably added for a good reason/purpose, is that documented anywhere?      

      
    

      
    The Recipient is mandatory because of course the UBL BusinessCard is    intended to be exchanged (e.g. to a provider, bank, partner, ...)
    In case the Recipient acts on behalf of another party you can use    the BusinessParty information accordingly.    

      
      

      
The UBL 2.2 Draft says:-      

      
      

      
>>>      

      
2.3.8.2 Business Card      

      
The Business Card allows a standardized way of presenting digital trading       

      
capability information in a form that can be published or exchanged with       

      
trading partners.     

      
    Yes, this seems to be uncorrect, I would remove the term "digital"    in the beginning.
    The only way to describe digital trading capabilities within the UBL    BusinessCard is by using textual description.
    

      
      

      
      

      
The data structures have been derived from the work of ebXML CPPP, OpenPEPPOL       

      
and other directory services initiatives.      

      
>>>    

      
    Correct, but this should be correlated to the UBL    DigitalCapabilities document.
    

      
      

      
      

      
It seems to me that is fails on two counts given this definition, firstly      

      
the lack of DigitalCollaboration object which would enable the presentation      

      
of digital trading capabilities, and secondly that it can not be published      

      
to the world, it can only be exchanged with a trading partner, which should      

      
not be necessary as if they are already UBL trading partners both sides must      

      
already have the Party details for the other and the BusinessCard object      

      
makes no provision for update, DigitalCapabilities/DigitalAgreement does.    

      
    Digital trading capabilities are described in terms of processes,    collaborations and transactions.
    You must traverse the DigitalProcess information aggregate.
    

      
      

      
      

      
Or to put it another way, what is the high level object that is      

      
used by a Party to broadcast connection information so that others       

      
may request communications with it?  I am rather hoping that this      

      
is not a piece of paper!       

      
      

      
David    

      
    Let me know if you need further support.
    
    Best regards
    
    Roberto Cisternino
    UBL ITLSC chair