Open User Community Meeting Report

The link to the main documents related to the previous Open User Community (OUC) meeting was provided: in the index the user can navigate to the corresponding event at get the Presentation and the Report, in this case 2024-06-27.

The main topics discussed in June were summarised:

"Information for Business Users" (with separated topics for general information and introduction to the ESPD legislation, roadmap, etc., and also the possible structure of an ESPD Service example, and the online form) from a buyer’s or supplier’s perspective.,

"Technical Implementation" (with topics ordered by sequence of usage), and

OUC Meeting and Seminars” (with separate topics for meeting schedule, regular meetings and annual seminars).

New release v4.0.0 was presented as the central part of the meeting. The list of new features was reviewed with special attention to the model changes: alignment with ePO, IDs based on XML Path, improved lot management. New model structure was presented by separate slides for new Criterion examples, but also for useful tools for implementers and developers (batch .bat file for validation, XML files ESPD-Request.xml and ESPD-Response, new folder structure and content, etc.), tools in espd-tools branch (for transformation of Criterion and Code List Excel files to UBL and .gc and web format) and Schematron validation branch.

A new ESPD demo site was presented, including the link to the demo site. The tool provides a clear visualisation of the ESPD request and response in an interactive manner and allows the creation of examples for v4.0.0 and v3.3.0 validation with corresponding error, etc., messages. On the attendee’s request a live example was demonstrated. Special attention was paid to questions relating to the implementation of national requirements within the mark of ESPD model.

The list of 23 GitHub issues closed during 2024 was presented:

Annual Seminar – this year the Tenders Electronic Daily Unit is planning to organise one single combined event for the different projects in the Unit: eForms, eSenders, eProcurement Ontology, ESPD and others. The proposed date is from 3 to 4 December. It is foreseen to be a hybrid meeting (on site or online). Attendees are asked to express their interest for attending in person in Luxembourg. Attendees were also requested to send to OPESPD@publications.europa.eu the topics they would like to be presented in the Annual Seminar and to express their interest in participating as speakers during the event.