Standards group tackles XML documents

An e-business standards body has proposed a series of definitions for how corporations should create common business documents. The Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards, or OASIS, on Tuesday announced the Universal Business Language (UBL) initiative, intended to promote standardized document formats to ease information exchange between companies.

OASIS is an industry standards group whose members include technology providers and companies using Extensible Markup Language (XML) for business applications. The draft UBL proposals specify document formats for generic business operations, such as placing an order or sending an invoice. Formatting data using XML is fast becoming a standard practice among businesses. But many businesses define documents using different formats. The ambitious UBL standards effort would allow computers to "read" and exchange documents automatically without complicated reformatting. OASIS expects that the documents would also be readable by workers in a variety of business functions.

The documents "can be used to implement a generic buy-sell relationship or supply chain (application) whose components fit existing trade agreements and are immediately understandable by workers in business, supply-chain management, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), accounting, customs, taxation and shipping," according to a statement from OASIS.

View: Draft UBL proposals