Thursday, January 26, 2012

Open Applications Group (OAGi) Announces Mobile Business Initiative

We just announced an exciting Mobile Business Initiative.  The full text of the press release is just below:

Atlanta, Georgia - January 26, 2012
OAGi (www.oagi.org) today announced it has launched a Mobile Business Initiative to improve the ability of enterprises to extend their business data interoperability all the way to the edges of their organizations.

OAGi plans to do this by adding technology to the OAGIS standard to better support Mobile Business and Cloud Computing, and to provide support for Java Script Object Notation (JSON), the most common data expression technology in this new and growing area of business solutions.

When OAGi was formed 16 years ago, the vision was to provide a business process based data exchange language for B2B, Enterprise Integration, and Enterprise to Execution Systems. With the large and accelerating adoption of mobile devices, coupled with the power of the Cloud Service Brokerage, it is now possible to provide industrial strength applications with full connectivity to all edges of the enterprise, as well as to customers and suppliers.

“Imagine if a worker communicates the receipt of goods on their mobile device and the receipt goes directly into the enterprise using the same data definitions that the enterprise currently uses for their Canonical Data Model and for doing business with their partners, with no loss of fidelity,” said David Connelly, CEO of the Open Applications, Group.

“And then the Cloud Brokerage Service notifies the supplier of the receipt who triggers an invoice to be sent, thus enabling the enterprise to have a fully connected supply chain from end to end.”

Preventing Silos in the Cloud

Recently, David Linthicum warned in his Cloud Computing Blog that without standards, organizations are in danger of recreating the old silos that were built up inside the enterprise.

The concept of the “Canonical Model” in the enterprise has become a best practice for enterprise interoperability and now these best practices need to be brought into the cloud. If the Canonical Model is left behind when implementing in the cloud, it may diminish the value of IT by recreating the old “spaghetti diagrams” that so many organizations had.

In October 2011, OAGi announced that their Architecture Council is leading a Cloud Computing Initiative and support for JSON and now that initiative is being combed into the concept of Mobile Business, the power of Cloud Computing, and JSON technology as a single initiative.

The Architecture Council is looking at additions or revisions to the OAGIS Specification to ensure that the vision of Mobile Business harnessing Cloud Computing Brokerage Services will enable enterprises to out-innovate their competition, make employees more efficient, improve customer service and control costs.

"Devices coupled with pervasive networks are driving the need for exposing cloud-based data services to enable 'anywhere', 'any time' computing in the ecosystem," added Abhijeet Ranadive, Enterprise B2B Architect, Cisco Systems (CSCO). "APIs that enable this integration paradigm will need to have a standardized light payload format and JSON fits the requirement. Defining OAGi standard in a JSON format is a way to bring together two best in class solutions to meet the information needs."

You can read the press release online here.

About OAGi:

OAGi is a member-based non-for-profit open standards organization focused on building business process based data exchange standards for Mobile Business, Cloud Computing, Business to Business, and Enterprise interoperability.

For more information and to download the OAGIS Specification for free go to http://www.oagi.org, or contact them directly through email at inquiry@oagi.org.

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Call for participation for our upcoming E-Invoicing Working Group


We issued a call for participation for our upcoming OAGIS X E-Invoicing Sub-Working Group today.

This Sub-Working Group is open to all OAGi Members in good standing. The goals, scope and time-frame are just below.  If you are not yet a member, we welcome you to learn more here or contact us here.

We will be meeting on every Wednesday from 1 - 3 PM Eastern US time starting on Wednesday, February 1, 2011.

Please let us know your intention to participate by responding to us here. The first meeting will be used to review the scope and get agreement from the team.

You do not need to sign the Project Definition if your organization has a signature on file for the OAGIS X Working Group.

Thank you and look for the WebEx announcement early next week.

___________________________________________________

OAGIS X Sub Working Group - Invoicing

Group Definition and Scope
  • Review and update all processes, messages and details (components) needed to address increasingly diverse methods of invoicing worldwide.  The team will determine the processes they need supported, but a list of possible processes include but are not limited to:
    - E-Invoicing
    - Batch Invoicing
    - Interoperating with EDI
    - Sub-Contracting
    - Inter-company
    - Customer and Supplier view of Invoicing
     
  • Group will not address payments except in the effect on the invoicing process
     
  • Group will build on previous work with the possibility of requesting the reopening of such work if needed - but leaving actual deliverables to those groups
     
  • Deliverables:
    - A Master Scenario that will be used to guide sub-processes creation
    - List of all messages needed and their description
    - Updates to individual message content and component content as needed
    - Identification of any new messages required but not the construction of them.
      These will be deferred to another future Working Group

Monday, January 9, 2012

Big Year Coming Up in 2012

OAGi News - Big Year Coming Up in 2012

OAGi ended the year with a great Plenary Session in Redwood City on November 16 and 17 with a lot of excitement around our Mobile Business and Cloud Computing initiatives.   Our topics included:

- The Mobile, Cloud, and JSON Initiative for OAGi
- Special Presentation from Oracle
- OAGIS Case Studies
- OAGi Updates and briefings on Council activities
- Mobile Business and Cloud Computing Panel "B2B with Mobile and the Cloud."
Remember OAGi members can download the presentations and the videos on the members only portion of the OAGi web site here and non-members can download the presentations here.

You can also see some pictures taken during the meetings here.

Webinars coming in 2012

We will be conducting several educational webinars in 2012, including our first planned webinar entitled, “Best Practices for Extending OAGIS BODs.”   There will be an announcement on this webinar soon.

All webinars will be recorded and will be made available to our members for free and to non-members for a nominal fee.

OAGi is co-sponsoring the annual ARC World Industry Forum Feb. 6 – 9 in Orlando

OAGi is co-sponsoring the upcoming 16th Annual ARC World Industry Forum to be held February 6-9 (time is running out, make your arrangements now) in Orlando, Florida.  This year’s forum has many executive speakers and OAGi members are entitled to a 50% discount from the meeting fee.  Some of the topics at this year’s forum include:

- Mobility Solutions for Industry
- Cloud Computing for Industry
- Supply Chain Integrity and Brand Protection
- Collaboration and Social Media
- Operational Excellence for Power Generation
- Sustainable Operational Excellence Solutions
- Latest Innovations in Virtual Production

We invite you to go to the website to learn more and register.  The website is here.

OAGi Website is now fully supports Mobile Devices

We recently upgraded the OAGi website technology to fully support your mobile devices.  We invite you to try us out on your mobile device here.

OAGIS Release 9.6 is coming in the first half of 2012.

The scope of this upcoming release includes results from following Working Groups:

- Export Compliance Work Group
- Cisco Configuration updates to Quote and Purchase Order.
- iBaseT Manufacturing Nouns
- Oracle Supply Chain Management contribution

We are planning a 45 day Public Review Period with a 45 day internal review after that.  This release is schedule to be shipped in second quarter of 2012.  Stay tuned for more information on this upcoming OAGIS release.

OAGIS Release 10 work continues with five ongoing initiatives

The OAGIS Release Ten (OAGIS X) Working Groups continue to meet on a regular basis and we encourage your participation.  We can use all the smart people we can get!  The meetings include:

Architecture – Every Friday, 9 AM to 11 AM Eastern Time
Catalog to Return Content – Wednesday, 1:00 PM to 3 PM EDT
HR Content – Every other Thursday, 3:00 PM to 4:00 PM EDT
Chemical Industry Gap Analysis – Three Thursdays a month, 1:00 PM to 2:30 PM
Context – Tuesday, 3:30 PM to 5:00 PM EDT

All of these meeting are visible on our OAGi Calendar on the members part of the web site
here.  You need to be logged in to view the members calendar.

All OAGi members are invited to join any of these groups.  If you are interested in joining any of these Working Groups, please contact me
here.

Meeting Calendar for 2012

Stay tuned for final dates for these upcoming meetings in 2012.  We are also planning several new webinars, details coming soon.


Policy Board Meeting – Planned
April 24, 2012
NIST
Gaithersburg, Maryland
Plenary and Working Groups - Planned
April 25 - 26, 2012
NIST
Gaithersburg, Maryland.

Policy Board Meeting Planned
November 13, 2012
Oracle
Redwood Shores, CA, USA
Plenary and Working Groups Completed
November 14 - 15, 2012
Oracle
Redwood Shores, CA, USA.

European Meeting
We are working determining these dates and will announce them as soon as possible.
TBD
TBD