for discussion at today’s MTF
From: mtf@xxxxxxxx
[mailto:mtf@xxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Brian Lynn
Sent: Friday, March 07, 2008 7:37 AM
To: mtf@xxxxxxxx
Subject: Business object identification proposed requirements.
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contains a newer version of the business object than they have previously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).