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UKRRO namespace

Background
From the outset, it was recognised that the ONIX IFRRO messages were likely to require the development of local “namespaces” – essentially, local data dictionaries that cover terms that are needed to manage transactions that are specific to a particular relationship involving two or three members of the IFRRO community but which – for one reason or another – are not appropriate for more generalised use.

The development of a local namespace maintains the overall integrity of the standards, while permitting a controlled mechanism for localised variations.

The UKRRO namespace is an example of this. It was developed by the members of the UKRRO community (ALCS, CLA and PLS) for communication between themselves.

The relationship between a local namespace and the ONIX-IFRRO Dictionary
A local namespace should complement and extend the ONIX-IFRRO Dictionary. However, terms that are likely to be required beyond purely local implementations of the message should always be “promoted” into the IFRRO Dictionary unless there is very good reason to believe that they are not appropriate for such wider use.

The UKRRO namespace was initially created during the implementation phase of ONIX-RP and ONIX-DS in the UK, to provide the developers with the flexibility and speed of response which characterises such development cycles. Once this development was complete and stable, many of the terms in the UKRRO namespace were “promoted” to the IFRRO namespace, leaving only a small number of groups of terms which are essential in local usage but probably unsuitable for wider implementation.

Why publish the UKRRO namespace?
The UKRRO namespace is being made publicly available as a downloadable file (see bottom of page) for three reasons:

1. To provide a canonical published version of the namespace, with formal version control – essential even in a local implementation

2. To provide a model for other organisations for the development and maintenance of a local namespace for ONIX for RROs

3. To provide a source of terms that other RROs might want to use in their messaging which they would otherwise have to devise for themselves

In the latter case, of course, although the use of a UKRRO term or terms in messages allows fully compliant messages to be created, good practice would suggest that these terms should also be “promoted” to the IFRRO Dictionary. Please inform the IFRRO ONIX Governance Body Technical Sub-committee (OGB-TSC), through the IFRRO Secretariat, if you have such a requirement.

Other local namespaces for ONIX IFRRO messages
At the time of publishing Issue 1 of the combined ONIX IFRRO-UKRRO Dictionary, we are not aware that anyone other than the members of the UKRRO community has developed a local namespace.

In order to create valid ONIX-RP and ONIX-DS, such local namespaces MUST be registered with the IFRRO OGB-TSC (details of how to do so will be found on page 17 of the ONIX for RROs Handbook), and added to the message schemas. EDItEUR will be happy to publish any local namespaces here (for the same reasons as we have published the UKRRO namespace).

It should be noted that while we are very happy to provide advice to members on local namespaces, EDItEUR is not responsible for their governance.

The ONIX IFRRO-UKRRO Dictionary
You can view or download the ONIX IFRRO-UKRRO Dictionary as a read-only Excel spreadsheet by following the link below.

ONIX IFRRO-UKRRO Dictionary spreadsheet (latest version)

ONIX IFRRO-UKRRO Dictionary spreadsheet (previous version)