Schema Procedures

The work processes and procedures for schema development, review and publication are documented in the cfiXML Procedures.  Some key points of this document are summarize below:

Schema developers currently contribute their work through cfiXML working groups.  Each working group has a focus on a particular subject area or domain/discipline

While each working group focuses their efforts in a particular domain area, public releases are made as a cohesive whole, reflecting the latest validated and quality tested work of all the working groups.

As schemas are developed, they progress through different stages, or release versions as follows:

Trial Version(s): A working group can have any number of trial versions of schema for prototyping, experimentation, etc. No controls or validation is required to be applied to these versions and is intended for schema developers to try out ideas and share them with others during the development process.   Any developer may create and post trial versions to share with others.

Working Version One working version of schema will exist for each working group.  This is the most up to date version of the schema maintained by the working group, but may not be completely validated or tested.  Each working group designates a small group of schema 'authors' who implement changes tothe working version copy that have been approved by the working group.

Beta public Release: A complete cohesive set of validated schemas from the various working groups are assembled and validated in MSXML4, MSXML6, XMLSpy, IBM Schema Quality Checker and XSV.  The Beta Public Release is available for download for software developers.  A Beta Public Release results when one of the working groups puts their current working version, combined with a previous Beta Public Release through a full set of schema validation, including validating appropriate example instance files, and posts this revised version as part of a Beta Public Release. These versions are intended to serve software implementers in creating test versions of software in anticipation of an Approved Public Release.  The Beta Public Release will contain approved changes by working groups in between the more stable Approved Public Release versions.  Approved Beta Releases will be made available relatively frequently, occurring as frequently needed to serve implementer needs in building test versions.

Approved Public Release: The schemas have met the Beta public release quality level, and further, they will have been reviewed  and approved by the working group relative to meeting end user requirements, regression testing with a quality assurance test suite, using agreed reference instance files. This is THE public exchange specification for recommended use by industry software implementers in commercial software releases. The Approved public release will be made available on a regular basis to standards development organizations to adopt as standards or include in relevant standards, e.g., API 610 and PIP RESP73. Approved public releases will only occur quarterly or less frequently to ensure that there is a reasonably stable schema available to the public.

Changes to the schema are managed by the respective working groups using a change process.  In each working group, any developer may raise issues with the current schema and request changes and improvements to the schema.  Each working group has a small group of selected 'authors' who may update the working version of the schema, implementing changes that have been approved by the working group.