Welcome!

Welcome to the initial post of the NIEM-Schematron (aka NIEMatron) community. At the 2009 NIEM National Training Event (see #NIEMNTE on Twitter) it became apparent that the next big task for NIEM was ensuring that data was self-describing. As it currently stands today, the XML Schema Documents (XSD) used can only enforce and describe a small portion of the data in each Information Exchange Package Document (IEPD) developed. Expressing complex business rules has and continues to be a large struggle for many implementers of the NIEM standard. Most implementers have chosen to use validation logic built using whatever programming language fits their need (e.g. Java, VB.net, C++, C#, etc.) however once this is done, there is very little that one of their information exchange partners can use if the partner leverages a different technology or programming language. This problem is one of the key reasons the XML community developed the ISO standard Schematron. Schematron is a simple XML/XSLT-based script that allows implementers to describe highly complex business rules that would otherwise be impossible to describe using XSD alone. This website and blog will be updated on a regular basis to provide NIEM practitioners a place to learn about, ask questions, and discuss Schematron. We will attempt to provide as much information to NIEM developers as possible about tricks and traps we've encountered while using this powerful scripting language and will also be providing further executive-level explanations surrounding the technology and the value proposition it brings. Please be patient as like many of you, we travel quite often and may have difficulty responding immediately to questions you pose. Please follow us on Twitter (user: NIEMatron) if you would like to be appraised of new messages as they are posted. Thanks, and welcome to the future!