This page contains the samples to my XML Europe 2002 presentation: 'Business Maps: Topic Maps Go B2B!'. You can also view the paper and the slides (Powerpoint only, HTML will follow) to the presentation. Or you can download all files in a zip file. (Simply extract in a directory and open index.htm.)
In August 2002 the paper was reworked and published as an article in XML.COM.
The file itm.xtm contains the core ontology of Business Maps: topic types for documents, items, mappings et cetera. It is not a full-fledged ontology yet; for use in a production environment a lot of work still needs to be done. For instance, the different transformation-mappings are only examples, and certainly not complete. The source XTM has been commented, so it should be reasonably readable.
View itm.xtm in a HTML page.
View itm.xtm as XTM file.
The file context.htm shows an example of the use of context in B2B mappings. Again, this is only by way of example. For a full-fledged ontology the context drivers of the ebXML project would provide a good starting point. Anyway, the file context.xtm would probably need to be adjusted for every project that uses Business Maps, since contextual information is different in every context (sic!).
View context.xtm in a HTML page.
View context.xtm as XTM file.
The examples also contain two sample (fictional) B2B vocabularies: Bizwords! and the Galactic Business Language (GBL). Both contain a single business document (an invoice) containing a name, adress and amount. These items have different names in both ontologies. The files bizwords.xtm and gbl.xtm do not contain the actual B2B vocabulary: these are maintained on the (fictional) Bizwords! and GBL websites. The files only contain topics that refer to the documents and data items in those external vocabularies. The files contain subject indicators as well. The subject indicators are constructed using a simple rule:
vocabulary-URL & "#" & data-item-nameThis simple rule only presupposes that names are unique within the B2B-vocabulary, and will yield unique subject indicators for items in vocabularies. The subject indicator for CustomerName in Bizwords! is for instance:
http://www.bizwords.com#CustomerName
View bizwords.xtm in a HTML page.
View bizwords.xtm as XTM file.
View gbl.xtm in a HTML page.
View gbl.xtm as XTM file.
Last, but not least, two Business Maps are included. These Business Maps both map the document 'Invoice' from Bizwords to the 'Domestic Invoice' of GBL. They do so in a different context, however. In businessmap1.xtm the mapping has been done in the context of 'Sales' and 'Europe', in businessmap2.xtm in the context of 'America' and 'Marketing'. So the Business Maps represent the fact that in these contexts a certain B2B-mapping has been made. When the two Business Maps are merged, knowledge from both Business Maps is easily available. All topics referring to the external vocabularies Bizwords! and GBL has been merged. In the merged topic map there are two mappings from 'Invoice' to 'Domestic Invoice'. A human business analyst can easily reuse this knowledge to make a new Business Map for a new business process in a new context.
View businessmap1.xtm in a HTML page.
View businessmap1.xtm as XTM file.
View businessmap2.xtm in a HTML page.
View businessmap2.xtm as XTM file.
If you have any questions, comments or feedback, please share it with me: Marc de Graauw. If will probably develop this concept further. Send me a note and I will notify you of major upgrades.