10.00 am - noon, Friday 7th July 2000

Phone link between the Tradegate ECA, Sydney and Melbourne offices together with Robert Dakin, George Szuty & Garry Grant (Canberra), Mark Mynott & David Shore (Canberra), Chris Tsilomanis (Adelaide) and Tim McGrath (Fremantle).

ebXML Initiative chair Klaus-Dieter Naujok joined the phone link at 10.30 am.

In the Sydney Office: Keith Finkelde (BT Financial Group, chair), John Pemberton (Diskray, Secretariat), Jordi Robert-Riles (C&W Optus), Margaret Pemberton (Diskray).

In the Melbourne Office: Barry Keogh (Tradegate ECA), David Botherway (Coles Myer), Brian Garner (Deakin University), Cathy Thawley (Tradegate ECA).

Apologies: Georgia Blomberg (Tradegate ECA), Wavell Cole (GEIS), Steven Periera (EAN), Donald de Foe (ORICA), Prak Rao (C&W Optus), Andrew Blair (BT Financial Services), David Dobbing (Data Logistics), Peter Kerr (VISY), Phillip Walsh (Strang Stevedoring Australia), Margaret Turner (DSTC), Ian Russell (Super Reality).

Keith Finkelde welcomed all present.

The minutes of the previous meeting were accepted.

1. TMcG reported (formal report on the egroups site - www.egroups.com/group/oz-ebxml) that although he & KF were the sole Australian representatives at the Brussels meeting, there was an increase in the number of Australian based people involved with the Initiative. Tim stressed that further input regarding practical experience from Australian Industry was essential feedback for the Initiative process.

Major items of interest from the meeting included:

• Acceptance of the ebXML Requirements document 1.0, which will act as the platform for the formal technical specifications for all other Project Team reports.
• The Transport/Routing & Packaging and Business Process Methodology Teams have developed demonstration systems using ebXML and there is a need to establish a Proof of Concept group to co-ordinate the pilot systems.
• The Grocery Industry GC1 Consortium had approached the Steering Committee to join the Initiative. It was noted that Steve Periera was a member of the Consortium.
• An excellent presentation from the Core Components Team on the role of the Team and current developments in producing a draft document on defining the Core Components methodology.
• Each Team had developed a specifications document which needed formal review ASAP for acceptance at the San Jose meeting (7 - 11^th August). Tim noted that interested persons should actively participate on the Team document feedback ASAP.

2. KF was concerned that although a large number of organisations were actively committed to the ebXML Initiative, a relatively small number of people were dominating the Initiative process in each Team and Keith considered that perhaps their views did not represent those of all interested parties. It was again stressed that interested parties should become actively involved in each Team and input their business experience into the process.

1. Klaus noted that there had been a number of problems with the Initiative Web site. These had been resolved. Klaus apologised for the frustration felt by those attempting to access the Web site and noted that all Team draft documents, requirement specifications, demonstration projects and registration pages should be on line before the coming weekend. Deadlines for comment on all documents would be included with the reports. There is only a short time available for comment and interested persons should do so ASAP.

The meeting had a series of questions, which Klaus answered.

Q. Is the Initiative only an ECO phase 2? KN disagreed noting that the product was very different from the original ECO product.

KF was concerned that an older version of N90 was listed on the Web site cf what was actually used by the Project Teams. KN noted that a meeting in 2 weeks between TMWG, Swift, EDIFACT & REA will discuss the harmonisation & interaction of the methodologies. Klaus noted that these parties were using the original N90 concept but are constantly updating the methodologies and were probably currently dealing with a newer version.

Q. Has an MoU been established between ISO & the ebXML Initiative? The Initiative will ask the MoU Committee to accept and endorse ebXML as a UN standard in the future.

Q. What about the use of Rose with ebXML Initiative? There are cheaper versions of Rose licenses available! UNCEFACT are negotiating with Rose to use their programs and data but as ebXML is not a formal organisation, Rose were reluctant to provide the programs to ebXML at this stage. They are concerned about who could use their data in the future.

Q. How can Australian Interest Groups contribute to the Initiative? Feedback on all documents is very welcome and in some of the documents a comments section is included.

Q. What is the role of the Project Team leaders? To co-ordinate the Team's members activity and moderate & stimulate discussion within the Team.

Q. Do the Teams have hidden documents that the interested public cannot access? Klaus noted that much of the Team activity was "work in progress" and there was great concern that if this progress activity were made public it would be considered as current policy. He did agree that it was necessary that active participants should be able to access the most current Web site documents.

The meeting stressed their belief that the ebXML Initiative process must be accessible and open to all participants and that all active documents should be accessible on the Web site.

Q. What is the expected outcome from the Initiative? The goal for the Initiative is to establish the infrastructure and framework for the specifications for each Project Team; to create Business Process Models based on the outcomes from the Core Components Team and establish the consistent movement of documents between trading parties.

Q. What is the agenda for the San Jose meeting? To approve all draft specifications documents; approve the common business objects; agree on the issue of what are the Core Components; increase the interaction between all Project Teams.

The meeting thanked Klaus for his information. Klaus asked all interested Australian parties to become involved in the Initiative.

Concern was raised that the Initiative would not be able to produce the necessary data elements and it was also asked if UN/CEFACT would continue with the work after conclusion of the Initiative process. BK noted that the Initiative was attempting to establish the infrastructure and framework for ebXMl and Barry considered that UN/CEFACT would probably continue with any necessary work.

RD noted the importance of developing the methodology to model XML based purchase orders which complied with the ebXML framework and then Industry would later develop their own content.

What is ebXML going to give to the SME's that EDIFACT can't? RD stressed the importance that ebXML modeling is syntax neutral and that it should be able to produce DTD's. TMcG stressed that the syntax neutrality was important and that the models were more important than the syntax. MP doubted that people using the existing EDI would benefit by changing to ebXML. She noted that for small business concerns ebXML would be simpler but for medium and larger business it would create unwanted problems.

1. The next meeting of the ebXML - AWP group is scheduled for Friday 25^th August at 10.00 am with meetings in the Tradegate ECA offices in Sydney and Melbourne with requested phone links.

2. GS reported that an XML Summit will be conducted by IBC Conferences in Sydney from 5 - 7 September, 2000. George will post information on the meeting on the egroups site.

3. Discussion noted that a number of current projects were using XML including Superannuation (see www.superec.org Web site - contact KF); GCC had decided to migrate from ANSI X12 to XML, rather than their original plan of migrating to UN/EDIFACT (contact DB) and GG noted that there was work on migrating WCO Cargo messages, EEU postal messages and WCO Customs 67 harmonised customs data messages.

Keith Finkelde

Chair