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eProcurement Ontology

Q2 meeting

Online meeting: 27/06/2023

Agenda

  • Welcome

  • Review of Q2 2023

  • Plan for Q3 2023

  • Planned releases

  • Open discussion

  • Closing

Welcome:

Natalie Muric of the Publications Office gave the welcoming speech, thanking everyone for joining and accepting the invitation. Then, Andrea Pasare from Meaningfy explained the aim of the meeting is to present the work carried out since the last meeting in March and to present the short-term plan for the second half of 2023. Stakeholders’ attention was drawn to the next modules to be evolved, namely eAccess and eSubmission.
The following sections provide a summary of what was presented and discussed.

Work carried out in 1st quarter 2023

Techniques

The techniques Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS) and Framework Agreement (FA) were refactored to ensure full mapping with eForms.

Dynamic Purchasing System

For mapping to eForms the results of the competitions within a DPS are required, to this end the following classes were added Mini-Competition Award Outcome and Candidate List. The Mini-Competition itself was not created as there is no use case at this stage.

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Framework Agreement

For mapping to eForms the results of the competitions within a FA are required, to this end the following classes were added Mini-Competition Award Outcome and Candidate List. The Mini-Competition itself was not created as there is no use case at this stage.
It should be noted that in the first stage of the procedure that leads to theFramework Agreement the Lot Award Outcome is used to map the result whilst in the second stage of the procedure the Mini-Competition Award Outcome is used to map the result of the competitions within a FA. In FA a Mini-Competition Award Outcome results in a Purchase Contract.

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Award Decision

The Award Outcome was adopted as a gathering class for both the Lot Award Outcome and Mini-Competition Award Outcome. Award Decision comprises Award Outcome which in turn comprises Tender Award Outcome. Submission Statistical Information was moved from the Lot Award Outcome to the Award Outcome to allow its reuse in the case of a Mini-Competition Award Outcome.

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eContract – new module

The different relations and concepts associated to the Contract were presented.

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Contract hierarchy The Contract hierarchy was presented. Direct Contract results from Lot Award Outcome. The Amended Contract was added to allow mapping to the Modification Notice.

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Contract roles

The Contract roles of the Offering Party were presented. The Contractor who signs the Contract needs to be a Winner. A winner is the tenderer who submitted the awarded Tender.

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Contract documents

The Contracts and other Documents related to the Contract were presented including the Completion Notice which announces the completion of a Contract. It was noted that the Contract Modification Notice which refers to the Contract needs to be further modified.

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Contract deliverable
The Deliverable of the Contract was presented, a Deliverable inherits from the Item used in eOrdering. The Item has a Monetary Value and Quantity.

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Contract Monetary values

The relations between Contract and the Monetary Value and its related concepts were presented including information on Tax Information, total penalty value, total payment value and Contract value.

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During the meeting, a participant raised the question regarding the relationship between an Order and its Monetary Value The participant pointed out that while an Order has a link to a Contract, the Order amount can be modified through the Order Response, either by adjusting the amount or the number of Items. The question asked whether the Monetary Value of an Order remains fixed or if it can be updated based on changes in the response.
In response to the question, it was clarified that for the Order itself, the Monetary Value is the last value. However, in the Order Response, there may be a different value specified.

Conversion of Procurement Objects to Documents

The concepts treated as Documents were presented including Tender, Award Decision, Review Object, Notice and Contract. These concepts were moved from Procurement Objects to Documents due to conflation between Order and Order metadata.

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Post-Award module alignment

Harmonisation of eCatalogue, eOrdering and eFulfilment

The following changes were made to the ePO model for post-Award module alignment:

  • Creation of information hubs to allow data to be provided either at document or line level if not a combination of the two.

  • Modelling of different Charges allowing for the different requirements across the different phases.

  • epo-ful:hasBaseAmount was replaced by epo:isCalculatedOn.

  • Deliverable becomes a subclass of the Item.

  • epo-cat:ItemDescription is renamed epo:ItemProperty.

  • PostAward Objects become Documents. It was noted that Contractor is identical to a Seller in Public Procurement.

Post-Award Objects as Documents

Award Decision, Review Decision, Review Request and Contract have now been modelled solely as Documents conflating the Post-Award Object and the Document that represents the Object.

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During the meeting, a question was raised regarding the separation of the Catalogue and Product Specification. The answer provided was: A Product Specification is a Document providing information about an Item, but Catalogue is a Document describing a set of Items offered for purchase that can be processed in an electronic way.

Post-award Object harmonisation

The commonalities between the different modules have been harmonised. For example the Line is common to the post-award modules:

  • Despatch Line

  • Order Line and

  • Catalogue Line Therefore, by introducing the generalisation concept Line it is no longer necessary to repeat the associations to the Identifier, Item and Information Hub

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Allowance Charge Information and Tax Information

Initially, the Charge Information was implemented for the Catalogue. However, it became evident whilst modelling the Order module the need for a general approach for Allowance Information, Charge Information and Tax Information which resulted in the creation of the Allowance Charge information:

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Review of Terms and definitions for Item and Batch IDs

There were many IDs for Batch and Item, so it was decided to harmonise them and avoid redundancy:

2Q==

During the meeting, a participant raised a question regarding manufacturer and seller levels in the catalogue. For example, the manufacturer of a car could be Volkswagen with a given manufacturer ID for a car, however the manufacturer of the tyres could be Michelin and there would be a manufacturer ID for the tyres. It was noted that these different levels should be looked into within the context of catalogues as they are not currently covered.

Certificates

The Certificate was up until now only used with regard to Items but it is now associated to Organizations and Persons e.g., Transport Means Operator which previously had an Operator Licence ID:

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Delivery Agreement

Delivery Term has been renamed Delivery Agreement, as it did not fit the meaning of a Term as used in the eProcurement Ontology.

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Standard Form Mapping Requirements

Communication means
AdHoc Channel has become a subclass of Channel. This was done to ensure mappings to both the standard forms and eForms.

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Procurement criteria summary

The different Criteria Summaries were introduced to allow a mapping to the Standard Forms which give a general information on the Criteria used in the Procedure. eForms provide Criteria for individual Lots.

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Modification Notice for standard form mappings.

By having an Amended Contract that inherits from the Contract all the amendments can be represented in the Modification Notice.

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Notice Relation harmonisation

In the Notice module, we revised all Notice types to ensure that each Notice has all the concepts required to enable efficient mapping. For example, Planning Notice might “foresee” a concept whilst a Result notice might “use” a concept.

Planning Notice

The Planning Notice announces the planned procurement part and the role.

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Competition Notice

The Competition Notices announce the launch of a Procedure by a Buyer. It announces Procedure, Lot, Agent in Role and if applicable the Lot Group.

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Direct Award Prenotification Notice

The Direct Award Prenotification Notice announces Procedure, Lot, Lot Group, the Role, Award Decision, Contract, Notice Award Information Publication Provision and Lot Group Award Information.

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Result Notice
The Result Noticet is about the announcement of the award or non-award of a Contract by a Buyer.
During the meeting, a question was raised whether the Result Notice is only intended for announcing the Winner or if it is necessary to announce other roles as well. The response provided was that any role that requires announcement during the result phase can be included in the Result Notice.

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Modification Notice

The Modification Notice is about any modifications to the Contract which occur during the implementation of the contract.

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Completion Notice

The Completion Notice shows any reviews made and announces the completion of the Contract.

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eForm Mapping Requirements

During the the 2nd quarter, existing Business Terms (BTs) were revised and new eForm BTs were incorporated into the model. All Monetary Values within the ePO model were revised.
The Monetary Values were revised with respect to the new eForms Annex and partly due to the revision of the DPS and FA mentioned earlier. However, this work will need to be reviewed to ensure there are no redundancies.

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Model2owl updates

Model2Owl is the pipeline that transforms the UML diagrams to machine readable format such as RDF and TTL. It involves several checks to ensure accurate transformations. These checks are essential to guarantee the correctness of the transformation process.
The draft online documentation, which shows checkers and transformation rules, was presented. The documentation will soon be made available in TED docs.

Plan for 2nd quarter 2023

  • Prepare release candidate for ePO v4.0.0 (to be released early July)

  • Receive feedback until mid of August.

  • Feedback fixes for ePO v4.0.0 release

  • Prepare release of ePO v4.0.0 by end of September

  • GitHub issue follow-up

  • Complete the definition for all concepts and relations

  • Develop eAccess and eSubmission modules.

Planned releases:

The new semantic versioning was presented. The pre-releases will be published and stakeholders will be notified when the pre-release is published giving them time to review and send remarks by email or Github. Before each release there will be a two-month reflection period for stakeholders to provide comments.

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Open Discussion

During the open discussion, a question was raised whether the models for Despatch Advice and Receipt Advice will be published in the current release. The answer was, the model for Despatch Advice will be published. But the development of the Receipt Advice will take place in the next release.
Another question was asked regarding the timing of the release candidate and how people will be informed. It was stated that when the release candidate is published, people will be notified by email. Participants are requested to send any comments on the release candidate by mid-August. Thus, allowing the time for making any corrections for the release of v4.0.0 in September.
In response to a question about the implementation of the Pre-Award Catalogue and Pre-Award Catalogue Request, it was explained that these models will be addressed at a later stage. Additionally, it was noted there are no big differences between Catalogue and Pre-Award Catalogue, but just a few tricks in post-award and pre-award phases.

Closing:

Natalie Muric of the Publications Office presented the schedule for ePO meetings:

  • Regular ePO Working Group meetings:

    • every Tuesday from 14:30 to 16:30 (CET)

    • except for 11 July, 8 and 15 August

    • meeting link

  • Specific Post-Award Working Group meetings:

    • every other Thursday from 14:30 to 16:30 (CET)

    • only on request during the months of July and August

    • meeting link

  • Quarterly seminars:

    • Thursday 7 September (afternoon)

    • Tuesday 5 December (afternoon)