Working Groups
XBRL International has many working groups that are chartered to focus on specific deliverables related to continued development of the technology, taxonomies, and awareness. Working groups are comprised of volunteers from member organisations. Working groups meet regularly via conference calls and continue their work in emails, discussion forums, and occasional "face to face" meetings.
XBRL participants (i.e. employees of a firm that is an XBRL member organisation or individual, academic or other category of member of a Jurisdiction, where the appropriate Jurisdiction has such category) can ask to join any working group and participate in its activities. The working group chair can provide information about the working group’s status, current issues and focus, and meeting frequency.
The technical Working Groups operate according to the processes defined in Technical Working Groups - Processes and Procedures. This applies to those Working Groups in the following list up to and including the Versioning WG.
In addition the Best Practices Board has set up Practice Working Groups which will operate according to a set of processes similar to those for the Technical Working Groups.
The following is the list of working groups. Click on each group to see its charter and main activities.
In order to join one (or more) of the Technical or Best Practices Working Groups please complete the Working Group Enrolment form. For other Working Groups please contact the group chair direcly using the e-mail link(s) below.
Base Specification and Maintenance
Mark Goodhand, Chair
Herm Fischer, Vice Chair
spec@xbrl.org
Pending the possible creation of a Working Group to care for and maintain the Dimensions 1.0 specification, this work is currently being taken care of by this Working Group.
Charter Statement:
Purpose
The Base Specification and Maintenance Working Group serves the XBRL community by providing and documenting authoritative interpretations of the XBRL 2.1 specification and by resolving minor issues by way of errata corrections and extensions to the XBRL 2.1 conformance suite.
Deliverables
- Maintenance of the XBRL 2.1 Specification by way of Errata Corrections including editorial changes to the Specification Document but excluding changes in regard to the implementation of new business requirements, changes in the underlying XML syntax or changes in the meaning of the concepts defined in the document.
- Maintenance of the XBRL 2.1 Conformance Suite including the creation of new test cases
- Address external interoperability issues
- The issue of XBRL Interpretative Notes
- Monitor the adoption of the XBRL 2.1 Specification.
- Provide help on technical issues regarding the XBRL 2.1 specification.
- Develop the Generic Linkbase
- Architecture of the XBRL technical framework regarding extension modules
- Other relevant activities as determined from time to time by the XBRL International Standards Board
Audience
Vendors, developers and advisors working on XBRL applications.
GL
Gianluca Garbellotto, Chair
xbrlgl@xbrl.org
Charter Statement:
Purpose
The purpose of the GL Working Group is to facilitate the development, acceptance, and adoption of the Global Ledger semantic framework and on the use of XBRL taxonomies as its primary representational technology. The XBRL Global Ledger Framework represents the financial and non-financial facts that flow to reporting and come from transactions. XBRL GL will increase corporate transparency by tagging detailed business transactions and the master files supporting them, and allowing summarization at any level.
Deliverables
- Demonstrate GL/FR linkage via proofs of concept using realistic data sets - feedback into the taxonomy design
- Produce additional guidance such as the "Conceptual Guide"
- Encourage adoption by continued outreach and information sessions
- Further develop supporting documents (GLTFTA and GLIS) based on actual implementation experience
- Maintenance and enhancements of the XBRL GL Framework modular taxonomies based on market feedback.
Audience
- XBRL and non-XBRL projects where representation of detail and transaction level data is relevant.
- ERP, accounting, data integration and auditing software vendors and in-house developers.
- People and entities involved in auditing processes and data integration.
-
XBRL jurisdictions and other XBRL WGs
Formula
Herman Fischer, Chair Victor Morilla, Vice Chair
formula@xbrl.org
Charter Statement
Purpose of the formula working group
The XBRL Formula Working Group has been created to deliver an XBRL extension specification that supports the declaration of XBRL formulae.
The formulae will be sufficient for:
- Documenting complex functional relationships between concepts at a definitional level
- Deriving new XBRL facts from available XBRL information
- Reporting messages describing the outcomes of formula execution
- Reporting consistency of the available XBRL information according to formulae
Scope
The formula working group will limit itself to specification(s) that support the documentation and declaration of formulae that operate on XBRL information.
Working group specifications will be modular extensions of XBRL 2.1 in that:
- any document that is conformant with specifications produced by the working group will also be a valid XBRL 2.1 document; and
- any valid XBRL 2.1 document will also be conformant with specifications produced by the working group
Deliverables
- One or more requirements documents, recommended by XBRL International
- One or more specification documents, recommended by XBRL International
- One or more comprehensive conformance suites, recommended by XBRL International
- One or more non-normative patterns documents
Out of scope
Reference implementation of the specification
Audience
- Software developers that produce XBRL 2.1 formula editors
- Software developers that produce XBRL 2.1 formula processors
-
XBRL taxonomy authors needing to express formulaic validation and derivation rules relating to the concepts in their taxonomies
Rendering
Diane Mueller, Chair David vun Kannon, Vice Chair
rendering@xbrl.org
Charter Statement
Purpose:
- To deliver a standard to define an end user representation of the content of an XBRL instance, initially in accordance with the limited requirements of the Rendering Market Analysis document.
Deliverables:
- Business Requirements Document
- XBRL Rendering Method
- Non normative reference implementation
- Non-normative Patterns
Audience of deliverables the group produces:
- Software developers working on:
- Instance creation
-
XBRL Rendering & Analysis
Versioning
Paul Warren, Chair Katrin Schmehl, Vice Chair
versioning@xbrl.org
Charter Statement
Statement of Purpose
To create specification(s) to capture versioning differences and create reports.
Scope of work:
Initial:
- DTS (that start at a schema or linkbase) Versioning
- Temporal Constraints on Concepts
Later:
- Method of converting instances from one Version of a DTS to a later one
List of Deliverables (with estimated dates)
Requirements and Specifications for:
- Syntax for expressing versioning reports (1st PWD by end July 2007, no REC until thoroughly tested in live projects)
- Conformance Suite (with PWD)
- Versioning Infoset (may be subset of complete XBRL Infoset) (1st PWD by end July 2007
- Others TBD for remaining scope of work
Expected Audience:
- Projects that last for more than one cycle of DTS/Instance creation
-
Software Vendors supporting XBRL implementations
Taxonomy Architecture
Shweta Gupta, Chair
tapwg@xbrl.org
The Best Practices Board Taxonomy Architecture Practice Working Group (TAPWG) seeks to improve the business value of XBRL projects by providing detailed analysis of domain, logical and physical models of taxonomies and objectively evaluating their impact on the reusability of their content.
Current Deliverables are:
- Overview of Design Layers
- Taxonomy Comparison Framework
- Logical Modelling Alternatives
- Impact of New Specifications
The TAPWG is currently working on revisions to the FRTA document.
