Use case - Universal Business Language (UBL) documents

Owned by Marcel Spapens
Last updated: Feb 21, 2023 by Remco Visser
3 min read

Universal Business Language (UBL) is an open library of standard electronic XML business documents for procurement and transportation such as purchase orders, invoices, transport logistics and waybills.

Source: https://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=ubl

DataBridge is capable of handling nested XML files as a source. Since UBL documents are nothing more than well documented XML files with all sorts of data, it’s probably not a surprise that DataBridge is capable of using such files as a source for importing data into SuperOffice CRM or any other system that is supported.

The UBL standard supports commercial and logistical processes for domestic and international supply chains such as procurement, purchasing, transport, logistics, intermodal freight management, and other supply chain management functions.

An partial example of such a UBL file can be viewed in the image below.

Examples of use cases with SuperOffice CRM

In practice we see the following entities and details from UBL documents to be imported into SuperOffice CRM:

  • Companies

  • Persons

  • Sales

    • Quote

      • Quote Lines

  • Products & prices

  • Documents (like quotes, orders, invoices and shipping)

Unique elements and attributes

Since DataBridge flattens the data inside an XML element and it currently does not support attributes, it will only use the first occurrence of each unique element. In the example below, where the cac: PartyIdentification element occurs twice in the cac:Party element, this results in only the first occurrence of cac:PartyIdentification being shown inside DataBridge to use for field mapping or transformations. Any next occurrence of cac:PartyIdentification will not be available.

Binary data and documents

DataBridge does not support binary data, like documents or images, that may be included in XML files. If you have the need to import documents into SuperOffice CRM or any other system that supports it, you need both the UBL/XML file and the actual document file (like a quote document or invoice document).

A real life example

An example that uses UBL documents that is real easy to implement, is archiving invoices in SuperOffice CRM. Many popular financial platforms that create and send out invoices, can add the invoice in both PDF and UBL (XML) format to the mail.

DataBridge can pick up mails from a dedicated mailbox and process the attachments of each email that matches certain criteria.

When the mail containing the invoice in both PDF and UBL format is sent to the dedicated DataBridge mailbox by adding that mail address to the BCC of the mail, then archiving such invoices is a big step closer.

Setting things up

  1. Set up the dedicated DataBridge mailbox

  2. Send at least one mail with PDF and UBL attachment to that mailbox

  3. Create a new DataBridge profile (Mail → SuperOffice CRM)

  4. Connect to the mail service and set the subject and attachment details. The UBL file is the source here.

  5. Select the main entity (root element or any child element) from the UBL file. The preview will show a lot of fields.

  6. In the remaining steps, create the transformations, map the fields from the source to SuperOffice CRM, set the de-duplication options and set the default values (like a document type ‘Invoice’ in this example).

  7. Select the schedule to look out for new mails. In most cases once a day on working days is sufficient.