Task Force Work in Progress:
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The Payroll Facility RFP Recommended: This RFP passed
recommendation by the Finance TF, the AB, and the DTC at the Burlingame meeting.
This RFP was created by the HRDSIG and issued through finance. Payroll is more closely related to the
Finance TF than any of the others.
This RFP calls for submissions to define a full set of interfaces to
support most of the primary interfaces for a payroll system. This includes; time and attendance
input, earnings and deduction definition, payroll frequencies and schedules, one
time pay events, and payroll reporting and disbursement. This is a cleanly scoped RFP because the
domain is very well defined.
The LOI date for payroll was set aggressively and has now
expired. A vote has been requested
by existing LOIers to extend the
LOI dates.
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The Financial Product and Agreement RFP: This RFP was recommended by all OMG
groups at the Oslo, Norway meeting.
LOIs closed during the Burlingame meeting although there was discussion
about bringing a vote to extend it at the upcoming Orlando meeting. There are currently 3 submitters that
have issued LOIs; DSTC, TARMS, Inc., BT Financial Group Pty Ltd.
The initial submission date for
this RFP was set for Nov. 20 (3 weeks prior to Orlando). The LOIers of this RFP submitted no
initial submissions. Discussion and
a vote did not take place at Orlando because those members did not attend the
Finance TF meetings. Discussion and
possible vote will be on the agenda for Irvine to address this RFP.
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The Financial Services Gateway RFP: The Finance DTF
reviewed a third draft of this RFP in Orlando. This RFP requests submissions for
creating a front office interface for financial services. This front office interface must support
interfaces not for the services themselves, but for interfaces that allow the
definition of services that the financial institution provides. It then uses these service definitions
to act as a gateway into the banking service handlers. This allows financial
institutions the ability to support one input channel for the myriad of
services/vendors that they currently have or will soon have.
This RFP should be ready for the
server 3-weeks prior to the Orlando meeting and it will be on the agenda for
recommendation discussions and possible votes.
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The Accounts Payable/Accounts Receivable RFP: The first
draft of the AP/AR RFP was reviewed. This RFP requests submissions for
interfaces to manage Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable information in a
consistent way as done by the General Ledger Facility.
This draft RFP will be ready for
review and possible recommendation at the Irvine, CA meeting.
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Revamp The CORBAFinance OMG Web Page: The existing
Finance TF web page is out of date and needs updating. A working group was put
together to help review and update the web site.
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Liaison Activities:
The group had several meetings to discuss liaison strategies with other
industry standards organizations.
Most of these, of course, are focused on XML. We believe there is a complementary
strategy between XML based standards organizations an the CORBA domain
standards. One defines interfaces
and semantics and the other defines the intricacies of an industries data set
abstractions. Below are the primary organizations that we have targeted at the
moment.
o
ACORD:
The Insurance WG within the Finance DTF is now working closely with ACORD
to bring together their XML work and OMGs UML modeling standards as a
complimentary way to keep the standards in sync. The goal is to create a UML model of the
ACORD object model to be used as common working model between the two
organizations. With these efforts and the successes OMG has made in XML support
and mapping in CORBA, it is a good time to re-address what is a complementary
standards body relationship for the insurance industry.
o
XBRL (eXtensible BusinessReporting Language): This organizations (www.xbrl.org) goals
are to provide an XML-based framework
that the global business information supply chain will use to create, exchange,
and analyze financial reporting information including, but not limited to,
regulatory filings such as annual and quarterly financial statements, general
ledger information, and audit schedules.
They are working hard to define the XML in that space and the
CORBAFinance group would like to leverage the work and domain expertise with
complementary interfaces to support the XBRL defined DTDs.
o
HR-XML:
This organization is really a liaison for the HRDSIG and that
group has already begun this effort through liaison membership as well as the
joint HRDSIG/HRXML meetings in Burlingame.
It is mentioned here specifically because of the Payroll group they have
working on formal DTD abstractions for payroll input and output. This corresponds well with the Payroll
Facility RFP and we’d like to see the groups work together to avoid redefining
what each other may have already done.
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The Banking & Financial Services Reference Model: This is an effort to evaluate current
industry and membership architectural models of the banking and financial
services industry. This reference
model work will continue for a couple of meetings before anything is accepted by
the TF. Work here is ongoing.
Highlights from the Orlando Meeting:
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Monday, Dec. 11, 2000
o
Finance DTF New Member Orientation: There were several new members that
attended the orientation. Some were first timers for companies that were already
OMG members, some were revisiting guests, and a couple were new. A good group and all were active and
engaged throughout the week. This
is impressing since at the first OMG meeting it takes a while to find your way
around.
o
Liaison Working Session
between ACORD and Finance DTFs Insurance WG:
This working group met for most of the day. The ACORD OMG session took place as planned on
12/11. Beth Grossman from ACORD
reviewed the work that ACORD is doing with other standard's group and Jerry
Foster from MetLife discussed Application Integration and the ACORD Life Data
Model. The group also spent time discussing next steps. Everyone agreed that step one was to
model the ACORD model in UML. Once
that was done ACORD could continue to refine and improve the data attributes and
OMG could develop the interfaces to
a componentized object model. The presentation material from Beth and Jerry are
available on the server at finance/00-12-02 and finance/00-12-03.
o
Presentation – The Open
Process Methodology by Dov Dori from MIT:
This presentation demonstrated a unique diagram notation that can be used
to capture all aspects of the model in one diagram. In UML, there are different diagrams
formats and model elements all of which must be considered for an entire
picture. The OPM presents a
notation that brings that all together in one. The presentation material is available
on the server; finance/00-12-04 and finance/00-12-05.
o
Finance DTF Web page
working group: This working group was very small at the
Orlando meeting. The time was used
reviewing the existing page and formulating a list of changes needed.
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Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2000
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Accounts Payable /
Accounts Receivable RFP working group:
The working group reviewed the initial draft of the AP/AR RFP and
discussed plans to recommend it’s issuance at the Irvine, CA meeting. This first draft is available on the
server at finance/00-12-07.
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Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2000
o
Finance DTF
Plenary: The TF plenary began the day with
presentations of status on all Finance related activities. Following that the TF reviewed latest
combined version of the Payroll RFP up for recommendation vote. All the changes and AB recommendations
were reviewed, quorum was verified, and the vote was taken and passed. The Finance DTF recommended the
RFP.
o
Presentation – Postal
Authorities Working Group RFI: The Postal Authorities working group is
interested in several areas of standardization within the OMG. The presentation of the RFI discusses
the areas that are typically associated with need in the postal authority
arena. The RFI was not issued yet,
as some additional changes are needed, but it is available on the server at
finance/00-12-01.
o
Financial Services
Gateway RFP Working Group:
The group reviewed the third draft of this RFP (more information above. The RFP is addressing a real problem in
the industry and the RFP is well written.
This RFP will require some minor adjustments, but it will be ready for
recommendation at the Irvine, CA meeting.
The RFP draft is available on the server at finance/00-12-06.
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Friday, Dec. 15, 2000
o
No Finance issues on the
agenda for the DTC Plenary
Action Items from the Orlando Meeting:
- Finalization of the Financial Services Gateway Facility RFP before the 3-week rule for the Irvine, CA meeting. Mike Gurevich of 24x7 Solutions has taken the lead on this RFP.
- Finalization of the Accounts Payable / Accounts Receivable RFP before the 3-week rule for Irvine, CA meeting. Arne Berre has drafted the RFP and will be the champion in getting the RFP through the process.
- Barry Glasgow from MetLife will schedule a conference call to coordinate the modeling work of the ACORD models. This modeling effort should begin in earnest prior to the Irvine, CA meeting.
- Jason Feinman will make the last few changes needed for the Postal Authority RFI so that it will be on the server 3 weeks prior to the Irvine meeting so that it can be recommended for adoption.
Deliverables from the Orlando Meeting:
- Task Force Votes – There were no votes at the Orlando meeting.
- Technology Adoptions – No technology adoptions at the Orlando meeting.
- RFP / RFI Recommendations – No RFP or RFI recommendations.
Plans for Future Meetings:
Initial discussion on Irvine, CA agenda
items:
1. Re-convene the Insurance Working Group and evaluate the ACORD modeling work.
2. Possible vote to reset the LOI for Financial Product & Agreement Facility RFP and the Payroll Facility RFP.
3. Presentation and recommendation vote on the Financial Services Gateway RFP.
4. Presentation and recommendation vote on the Postal Authorities RFI.
5. Presentation and recommendation vote on the Accounts Payable / Accounts Receivable RFP.
6. Ongoing work and presentations relating to the Finance Reference Model.
7. Review Finance web page contents created by work group