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EPPML (Extensible Postal Product Model and Language) is a
conceptual model The term conceptual model refers to any model that is formed after a wikt:concept#Noun, conceptualization or generalization process. Conceptual models are often abstractions of things in the real world, whether physical or social. Semantics, Semant ...
for the interactions between parties of a postal communication system. Examples of such parties are mailers, posts, mail aggregators, providers of
postal services The mail or post is a system for physically transporting postcards, letters, and parcels. A postal service can be private or public, though many governments place restrictions on private systems. Since the mid-19th century, national postal sy ...
and equipment and recipients. They create, publish, consume and deliver postal products. The central concept of EPPML is the postal product. EPPML defines the structure and meaning for the information that represents a postal product. The postal product definition may be viewed as an interface between posts, their customers and other parties. The formal representation of postal products allows automated systems to efficiently consume new postal products as they are introduced by postal operators. The current implementation of EPPML is based on XML technology, but the EPPML concepts may be implemented with other technologies (e.g.
relational database A relational database (RDB) is a database based on the relational model of data, as proposed by E. F. Codd in 1970. A Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) is a type of database management system that stores data in a structured for ...
s,
semantic web The Semantic Web, sometimes known as Web 3.0, is an extension of the World Wide Web through standards set by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The goal of the Semantic Web is to make Internet data machine-readable. To enable the encoding o ...
). Each postal product is fully represented by one (and only one) postal product definition file (PPDF) which is an XML document. A PPDF must be valid under the EPPML schema.


EPPML as a model of interaction

The 'M' in EPPML stands for Model. EPPML was defined by its authors as a model for the interaction between parties that create, publish, consume or deliver postal products.

The interactions defined by the model include actions on physical items, information exchanges and financial transactions. The typical action on a physical item is a change of location (e.g. delivery). The information exchanges may use either electronic channels (e.g.
web service A web service (WS) is either: * a service offered by an electronic device to another electronic device, communicating with each other via the Internet, or * a server running on a computer device, listening for requests at a particular port over a n ...
s, email) or physical channels (e.g.
bar codes A barcode or bar code is a method of representing data in a visual, machine-readable form. Initially, barcodes represented data by varying the widths, spacings and sizes of parallel lines. These barcodes, now commonly referred to as linear or o ...
printed on mail items by mailers and read posts). An example of a
financial transaction A financial transaction is an Contract, agreement, or communication, between a buyer and seller to exchange goods, Service (economics), services, or assets for payment. Any transaction involves a change in the status of the finances of two or mo ...
is a refund for late delivery of a mail item.


EPPML as a markup language

The first practical implementation of EPPML relies on an
XML schema An XML schema is a description of a type of XML document, typically expressed in terms of constraints on the structure and content of documents of that type, above and beyond the basic syntactical constraints imposed by XML itself. These constrai ...
to define the structure of the information that describes each postal product. The use of the XML schema makes EPPML a
markup language A markup language is a Encoding, text-encoding system which specifies the structure and formatting of a document and potentially the relationships among its parts. Markup can control the display of a document or enrich its content to facilitate au ...
for defining postal products. This is the reason why EPPML is sometimes referred to as Extensible Postal Product Markup Language.


Postal Product Definition File (PPDF)

A postal product definition file (PPDF) is an XML document which fully describes a postal product. The PPDF contains all necessary and sufficient information for customers to purchase and use the product. The structure and meaning of the XML elements in a PPDF is defined by an XML schema, known as EPPML schema.


EPPML Schema

The EPPML schema is a
XML Schema
which provides sufficient information for postal operators to generate postal product definition files to describe all aspects of their postal products, both existing and new. The EPPML schema also provides information necessary and sufficient for mailing equipment providers to create automated mailing systems capable of using postal product definition files for all mailer's activities, including postal product selection, the production of mail units compatible with new postal products and requesting new features of postal products. The EPPML schema is
Universal Postal Union
standard, UPU S54. The standard contains a complete description of the EPPML schema, its hierarchical structure, information types and semantics of its elements.


References

DESIGNING AND USING PRODUCTS IN THE EPPML- ENABLED OPEN INNOVATION ENVIRONMENT
(pg 188) in Handbook of Worldwide Postal Reform (Edited by Michael Crew, Crew, M.A. Kleindorfer, P.R. Campbell Jr.) Published by
Edward Elgar Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet, (; 2 June 1857 – 23 February 1934) was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestr ...
Publishing, 2009, , {{ISBN, 978-1-84720-957-3
Overview of EPPML
at POSTCOM
EPPML concepts
presented at UPU Forum, December 5, 2007, Bern, Switzerland
UPU Standards Boar
status 0 proposal

Postal systems