TRADE/CEFACT/1997/CRP. 9 30 July 1997 Executive Summary of the DAT meeting for the D.97B Directory Source: The Directory Audit Team Status: Report Action: To be reviewed at GE.1 session, agenda item 6. Executive Summary of the DAT meeting for the D.97B Directory Submitted by the Directory Audit Team Introduction The meeting was held in Geneva from 21st-25th July 1997 inclusive, and was attended by D. Trafford (Chair); D. Dobbing; J. Fromyr; H. Schlieper; F. Vuilleumier (Vice-chair); with support from the UN Secretariat. Apologies were received from K-D. Naujok. An audit statement for inclusion in the D.97B directory has been passed to the Secretariat, and DAT confirmed in its report to ESG that in the opinion of DAT, the D.97B directory content was prepared in accordance with the approved procedures and is considered by DAT to be satisfactory for implementation. DAT is pleased to report that thanks to the efforts of the UN Secretariat and the Directory Production Team (DPT), the incidence of errors identified during the audit has significantly reduced as compared to earlier directory productions. Recommendations referred to ESG for resolution In its report to ESG, DAT has drawn attention to various recommendations which have been made by DAT (some arising from earlier audits), some of which are still outstanding. In summary, these refer to: *The current practice of allocating a second UN log number to DMRs which are referred to JTAG for resolution. In DAT's view, the original unique UN log number should be the only UN number allocated to such DMRs, as it is the prime number by which users can track the progress of DMRs. Recently, the same point has been made by the team working on the automation of the DMR process, since significant cross-referencing problems will arise as a result of the practice. *The inclusion of full cross-referencing of the use of segments in messages, composites in segments and messages, and data elements in composites, segments and messages (in accordance with an approved resolution at the Helsinki JRT) has yet to be implemented in the UN directory. * The issue of producing a directory at the end of JRT meetings for auditing as soon as possible after the end of the meetings, which could shorten the directory availability process by some three months compared to the current timing. To achieve this, all regionally approved DMRs and DMRs to be processed by JTAG would need to be applied to the previous approved directory, prior to the JRT meeting. This would permit a "work book" and/or an electronic version of the directory version under development to be available to JTAG, plus if necessary, to the JMs themselves. DAT understands that a review of the impact of this recommendation is underway. * The non-availability of a stable and reliable version of the DIRDEF message to enable the transfer and automatic processing of UN/EDIFACT directory sets, is an issue which causes concern, and on which DAT has made certain observations to ESG. * Initial consideration is being given to the possibility of the audit process of directories becoming what has been termed a "virtual" meeting (i.e. conducted at long range, electronically). Clearly, a significant amount of planning related to both certain technical and procedural issues will need to be carried out to put the concept into practice. DAT has identified to ESG some of these issues which will need to be researched and addressed. * Since the concept of Status 1 and 2 for messages has now been lapsed, for the D.98A directory, DAT has proposed to ESG that in the message index files of the directory, the column headed "Version" should be removed from the indices (bearing in mind that every message boilerplate specifically identifies the content of the message version field). * During the D.97B directory production and audit, both the DPT and the DAT have identified amendments which need to be considered for the next revision of document TRADE/WP.4/R.1023/Rev.3 "Rules for presentation of standardized message and directories documentation" ____________________