Business object identification proposed requirements.

["Brian Lynn" <brian.lynn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I had an action from last week’s MTF to update the proposed requirements for business object identification to clarify some points raised during the meeting.

 

Below is an extract of those updated proposed requirements.  Given the other items on the agenda for today’s meeting, we will probably discuss this next week.

 

Requirements

To simplify the processing requirements for FpML recipients, I propose the following requirements for business object identification:

• Each document creator shall be required to designate an identifier that it uses for identifying business objects.  This identifier must be immutable (must not change during the life of the object) and unique (must not be assigned to more than one object).
• In addition, document creators shall be able to record other identifying tokens that they believe other sources use to identify that business object.
• The other identifying tokens may be updated as new information becomes available.  The original identifier may not be updated, except through an explicit interaction with the recipient (e.g. cancel and rebook).
• Document recipients shall be able easily to determine which identifier was designated by the sender as unique and immutable, and shall be able to use the identifier designated by the document sender to retrieve their own view of the current state of that object.
• Each document creator shall be able to assign and update a single version number for a given business object; this version number reports the version of the object from the sender’s perspective. 
• Document recipients shall be able to use this version number to determine whether  a message contains a newer version of the business object than they have previously received from the sender.
• In addition, document creators shall have the ability (but not the obligation) to report on the latest known versions of the business object from other sources.
• Similarly, document creators shall be able to report the timestamp of their last update to the business object.  (This will normally be similar to the message timestamp, but may be different, for example in the case of a position reporting message generated without an update to the object).