Inter-organizational Document Exchange

Information exchange processes are often characterized by the need of translating from one data format into another in order to achieve compatibility between information systems. A conversion problem often arises when exchanging files between applications of different software vendors or when incorporating legacy business data into new standard software. In this paper we want to survey the conversion problem in the field of multi-organizational networks, since participants often use different data formats. We examine, to what extent XML is able to support the interorganizational exchange of business documents. Thereby, we concentrate on the problem of converting different data and examine different approaches for solving the transformation problem. We show how XML can actually be implemented for a Web-based integration in multi-organizational networks. Moreover, we present a java-based prototype that enables document exchange over the Internet using XML business vocabularies for document representation, XSLT for document conversion and presentation, and both DOM and SAX for processing and integrating documents into in-house-systems.