OASIS-ubl@ConnectedCommunity.org
Facilitating interoperability in business data exchange by defining a semantic library and syntax bindings of business documents
Contacts
Chair: Kenneth Bengtsson, kbengtsson@efact.pe
OASIS Staff Contact: Kelly Cullinane, kelly.cullinane@oasis-open.org
Charter
The charter of this TC may be found at http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/ubl/charter.php. Statements regarding IPR related to the work of this TC may be found at http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/ubl/ipr.php.
Group Notes
Table of Contents
Overview
Overview – What is UBL?
The Universal Business Language (ISO/IEC 19845) is an open library of standard electronic business documents and information models designed for a wide range of supply chain, procurement, and transportation processes. It provides a syntax-neutral semantic library that supports various syntaxes such as XML and JSON, enabling interoperability across different industries and systems. UBL helps streamline information exchange, eliminating the need for data re-entry, and enhancing global harmonization and interoperability in e-commerce.
Objectives – Why do we need UBL?
The need for UBL arises from the necessity for standardized, syntax-neutral business documents that facilitate seamless interoperability across global supply chains. Unlike traditional EDI systems, UBL supports XML, JSON, and other syntaxes, promoting wide adoption and reducing costs for small and medium-sized enterprises. UBL's standardization enables diverse business applications to communicate efficiently, fostering a global computing ecosystem akin to the impact of HTML for web documents.
Functionality – What can it be used for?
UBL is extensively used for streamlining supply chain operations, reducing data re-entry, and ensuring compatibility with existing business, legal, and auditing practices. Its design supports a broad array of document types and business processes, allowing customization without losing interoperability. UBL facilitates document exchanges in 4-corner model networks, enhancing global trade efficiency. By standardizing data structures across documents, UBL simplifies processes like converting orders to invoices, ensuring consistency and reducing software development costs. Its global impact is seen in various national and international procurement systems.
UBL's library-based design ensures that all business document constructs are drawn from a single library of reusable components. This modular approach guarantees a high degree of alignment among various parts of the UBL specification. Common data structures, such as Address and Line Item, are consistently implemented across all document types, facilitating code reuse and reducing software development costs. Additionally, complex documents received early in a transactional sequence can be easily transformed into subsequent documents, promoting efficiency and accuracy in data processing. This design flexibility allows UBL to be adapted for various contexts beyond supply chains.
UBL Traction – Who uses UBL?
UBL has achieved significant adoption and endorsement across industries and commerce globally. Within e-invoicing, UBL serves as the data format for the multiregional Peppol network, which spans the European Union, Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand, as well as the North American DBNA network, covering the USA, Canada, and Mexico. Additionally, UBL is mandated as the de jure e-invoicing format in several Latin American countries.
In Europe, UBL is officially eligible for referencing in public tenders, is the underlying standard powering the European Commission's eForms for publishing public procurement data, and is the dominant of only two data formats that are mandatory in e-invoicing. Globally, UBL supports various transport and logistics initiatives, such as the European Common Framework by the European Commission, DTTN at the Port of Hong Kong, TradeNet at the Port of Singapore, Electronic Freight Management in the U.S., and Freightgate worldwide.
The establishment of a global de facto standard has encouraged the software industry to provide off-the-shelf solutions that “natively speak” UBL, drastically lowering the cost of entry for small businesses into electronic networks used by larger trading partners. Major providers like SAP, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, and Google have long supported UBL within their financial and supply chain systems. Additionally, a new generation of “UBL-native” service providers and software solutions has emerged, built on UBL and the global interoperability it offers, further enhancing its adoption and utility across various sectors.
Collectively, these adoptions establish UBL as the de facto global standard for e-invoicing and supply chain information exchange.
Subcommittees
Technical Work Produced by the Committee
UBL 2.4 OASIS Standard (July 2024) – Latest final version
OASIS Standard:
https://docs.oasis-open.org/ubl/os-UBL-2.4/UBL-2.4.html
Main resources directory:
https://docs.oasis-open.org/ubl/os-UBL-2.4/
Complete OASIS Standard in a ZIP file package:
https://docs.oasis-open.org/ubl/os-UBL-2.4/UBL-2.4.zip
UBL 2.3 JSON Alternative Representation Version 1.0 Committee Note (December 2021)
Supplements UBL 2.3 with an alternative expression of the UBL sample XML documents in JSON syntax, and two JSON schema expressions of all of its 91 XSD schemas.
https://docs.oasis-open.org/ubl/UBL-2.3-JSON/v1.0/cn01/UBL-2.3-JSON-v1.0-cn01.html
UBL 2.2 JSON Alternative Representation Version 1.0 Committee Note (December 2021)
Supplements the UBL 2.2 release with an alternative expression of the UBL sample XML documents in JSON syntax, and two JSON schema expressions of all of its 81 XSD schemas.
https://docs.oasis-open.org/ubl/UBL-2.2-JSON/v1.0/cn01/UBL-2.2-JSON-v1.0-cn01.html
UBL 2.1 JSON Alternative Representation Version 2.0 Committee Note (December 2021)
Supplements the OASIS Universal Business Language version 2.1 release with an alternative expression of the UBL sample XML documents in JSON syntax, and two JSON schema expressions of all 65 XSD schemas in conformance to the OASIS Business Document Naming and Design Rules Version 1.1.
https://docs.oasis-open.org/ubl/UBL-2.1-JSON/v2.0/cn01/UBL-2.1-JSON-v2.0-cn01.html
Business Document Naming and Design Rules (BDNDR) Version 1.1 Committee Specification 01 (November 2021)
BDNDR prescribes a set of naming and design rules used to create complete CCTS models of interoperable business documents. Version 1.1 changes no rules for XML syntax from BDNDR Version 1.0 and only adds the new rules prescribed for JSON syntax.
https://docs.oasis-open.org/ubl/Business-Document-NDR/v1.1/cs01/Business-Document-NDR-v1.1-cs01.html
UBL 2.3 OASIS Standard (January 2021)
OASIS Standard:
https://docs.oasis-open.org/ubl/os-UBL-2.3/UBL-2.3.html
Main resources directory:
https://docs.oasis-open.org/ubl/os-UBL-2.3/
Complete OASIS Standard in a ZIP file package:
https://docs.oasis-open.org/ubl/os-UBL-2.3/UBL-2.3.zip
UBL 2.2 OASIS Standard (July 2018)
OASIS Standard:
https://docs.oasis-open.org/ubl/os-UBL-2.2/UBL-2.2.html
Main resources directory:
https://docs.oasis-open.org/ubl/os-UBL-2.2/
Complete OASIS Standard in a ZIP file package:
https://docs.oasis-open.org/ubl/os-UBL-2.2/UBL-2.2.zip
UBL 2.1 OASIS Standard (November 2013) – ISO/IEC 19845:2015 (December 2015)
OASIS Standard:
https://docs.oasis-open.org/ubl/os-UBL-2.1/UBL-2.1.html
Main resources directory:
https://docs.oasis-open.org/ubl/os-UBL-2.1/
Complete OASIS Standard in a ZIP file package:
https://docs.oasis-open.org/ubl/os-UBL-2.1/UBL-2.1.zip
Also published as ISO/IEC 19845:2015:
https://www.iso.org/iso/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=66370
UBL Maintenance Governance Procedures Version 1.0 (March 2015)
This document describes the governance of the process to propose, accept and incorporate changes to the OASIS Universal Business Language (UBL) 2 specifications. The Committee Note is available at:
https://docs.oasis-open.org/ubl/UBL-Governance/v1.0/cn01/UBL-Governance-v1.0-cn01.html
UBL Abstract Syntax Notation 1 (ASN.1) Alternative Representation Version 1.0 (March 2019)
These committee notes supplement the Universal Business Language version 2.1 and 2.2 XSD schema expressions with a suite of equivalent ASN.1 constraint expressions.
The Committee Note for UBL 2.1 is available at:
https://docs.oasis-open.org/ubl/UBL-2.1-ASN.1/v1.0/UBL-2.1-ASN.1-v1.0.html
And the Committee Note for UBL 2.2 is found at:
https://docs.oasis-open.org/ubl/UBL-2.2-ASN.1/v1.0/UBL-2.2-ASN.1-v1.0.html
Business Document Naming and Design Rules Version 1.0 (January 2017)
NDRs are a constraint on the design of document models using the UN/CEFACT Core Component Technical Specification (CCTS) Version 2.01, and the rules for deriving validation artefacts for documents of a given syntax. Version 1.0 supports the XML syntax with XSD schemas and is found at:
https://docs.oasis-open.org/ubl/Business-Document-NDR/v1.0/Business-Document-NDR-v1.0.html
UBL Naming and Design Rules Version 3.0 (July 2016)
The application of the OASIS Business Document Naming and Design Rules Version 1.0 to the Universal Business Language is found at:
https://docs.oasis-open.org/ubl/UBL-NDR/v3.0/UBL-NDR-v3.0.html
UBL Guidelines for Mapping IFTM UN/EDIFACT Messages Version 1.0 (March 2015)
This document defines the possible mappings of International Forwarding and Transport Message (IFTM) components to the OASIS Universal Business Language (UBL) version 2.1. They apply to data structures used in UBL document types BillOfLading, ForwardingInstructions and Waybill (as well as other document types used in intermodal and multimodal freight). The Committee Note is available at:
https://docs.oasis-open.org/ubl/UBL-IFTM-Mapping/v1.0/cn01/UBL-IFTM-Mapping-v1.0-cn01.html
UBL 2 Guidelines for Customization (December 2009)
Anyone who needs to modify or add to UBL schemas in order to fit them to a particular purpose should first consult the UBL 2 Guidelines for practical advice in creating UBL-conformant and UBL-compatible document schemas. The Committee Specification is available at:
https://docs.oasis-open.org/ubl/guidelines/UBL2-Customization1.0cs01.pdf
UBL 2.0 Update Package (May 2008)
Updates the code lists and makes a number of corrections (mostly documentary) to the UBL 2.0 Standard. New UBL 2.0 installations should first download and install the December 2006 release (see previous item) and then apply the Update Package as described in the instructions.
https://docs.oasis-open.org/ubl/os-UBL-2.0-update-delta.zip
UBL 2.0 Standard (December 2006)
All new UBL 2.0 users should apply the UBL 2.0 Update Package immediately after installing 2.0.
OASIS Standard:
https://docs.oasis-open.org/ubl/os-UBL-2.0/UBL-2.0.html
Main resources directory:
https://docs.oasis-open.org/ubl/os-UBL-2.0/
Complete OASIS Standard in a ZIP file package:
https://docs.oasis-open.org/ubl/os-UBL-2.0/UBL-2.0.zip
UBL 1.0 Legacy materials
Links to the UBL 1.0 Standard, Naming and Design Rules, International Data Dictionary, Small Business Subset, and UBL Formatters can be found on the Legacy Support page:
https://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/22571/legacy.htm
External Resources
Meetings and Minutes
The weekly UBL Technical Committee meeting comprises two teleconferences attended only by OASIS members:
- The Pacific Call - held at 22:00UTC (November to March) and at 23:00UTC (March to November) on Tuesday (this is on Wednesday morning west of the Pacific Ocean)
- The Atlantic Call - held at 15:00UTC (October to March) or 14:00UTC (March to October) on Wednesday (this is always 16:00 Central European Time)
The agendas and minutes of all meetings are published in the committee email archives.
Additional Information
Event Calendar
The UBL Event Calendar lists conferences of interest to UBL members and indicates those at which UBL representatives may be contacted: https://ubl.xml.org/events.