Notices XML structure
The information in the XML instance covers information related to:
-
The notice,
-
The procurement procedure, and
-
The Parts, Lots or Group of Lots.
As shown on Figure 1 below, the latter two share key structures that shall be interpreted in their respective contexts.
For simplification, not all information has been represented in the diagram below and the focus was placed on high level key repeating components. Also for uniformity and simplification, Procedures without lots (and PIN without parts) are to be treated technically as a procedure with exactly one lot (or part).
Notice information is represented with an orange background; Procurement Procedure information with a green one; and information for Group of Lots, Lot, or Part with a purple background.
The contextual use of each of these components is reported in Table 1, which lists the component name, its context and the associated component purpose (i.e. information it covers).
| Component | Context | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
Tendering Terms |
Document root |
Legal, economic, financial and technical information for the procurement as a whole. |
Procurement Project Lot |
Legal, economic, financial and technical information for the Lot (Part, or Group of Lots) only. |
|
Tendering Process |
Document root |
Procurement Procedure information |
Procurement Project Lot |
Specific procedure information for the Lot (Part, or Group of Lots) |
|
Procurement Project |
Document root |
Scope of the procurement |
Procurement Project Lot |
Purpose of the Lot (Part, or Group of Lots) |
Further details on these different components will be provided in Procedure, Group of Lots, Lot & Part related information and following sections.
The notice metadata
The notice metadata cover the following information:
-
Identification of the notice (notice identifier & version),
-
Procurement Procedure identifier of the Procedure it belongs to,
-
Notice context (form type, notice type, legal basis),
-
Key dates (dispatch, publication, etc.),
-
Publication related information (e.g. OJ S no., status, publication date),
-
Notice official linguistic version(s).
Procedure, Groups of Lots, Lots and Parts
Information about the Procedure, the Groups of Lots, the Lots or the Parts share the same set of components at the highest level (i.e. Tendering Terms, Tendering Process and Procurement Project). Figure 1 highlights that these major components are reused over the instance and that their meaning is highly linked to the context:
-
as direct children of the notice root component, they refer to the procurement Procedure;
-
as children of a Procurement Project Lot component, they refer to the corresponding Group of Lots, Lot or Part.
Business Terms
The Business Terms listed in Annex II of the eForms Regulation are described in this document, and use the same identifiers beginning with "BT-".
Basing the development of the eForms schema on the UBL schema, as well as conferring many advantages, has also imposed some constraints. These constraints have required the creation of a number of terms which were not anticipated in the eForms Regulation; they do not have a true Business justification. They have been assigned different abbreviations to distinguish them from the BT terms defined in the eForms Regulation.
Two abbreviations for these fields have been introduced: "OPP" and "OPT". "OP" is the abbreviation for the Publications Office of the European Union as defined above. "P" stands for Production; these fields are required for the production processes, particularly for the non-standard forms (not defined in the eForms Regulation) that also use the eForms schema. "T" stands for Technical, these are required for some technical constraints and chosen design options.
Dates and Times
All dates and times in eForms XML shall be expressed in ISO-8601 format, with local time marked as an offset from Coordinated Universal Time. When a date is associated with a time, both must share the same shift to Coordinated Universal Time.
Time values shall vary from 00:00:00.0000 to 24:00:00 excluded[1], with as many decimals for the seconds as required.
A notice sent on November 26th, 2019 at 1:38:54 PM CET (i.e. UTC +1) to OP shall be marked:
<cbc:IssueDate>2019-11-26+01:00</cbc:IssueDate>
<cbc:IssueTime>13:38:54+01:00</cbc:IssueTime>When referring to midnight (end of the day for a given date), use 00:00:00 (start of the following day) instead and adjust the referenced day (month and year) accordingly.
For December 5th, 2020 at midnight CET, the markup shall be:
<cbc:IssueDate>2020-12-06+01:00</cbc:IssueDate>
<cbc:IssueTime>00:00:00+01:00</cbc:IssueTime>When dates and times in UTC are used, the offset of zero can be stated numerically as "+00:00", or the zero UTC offset zone designator "Z" may be used:
<cbc:IssueDate>2020-03-21Z</cbc:IssueDate>
<cbc:IssueTime>18:00:00Z</cbc:IssueTime>