Schema Validation

Your e-business architecture will have one of the following formats

1. Validate at the origin of the transaction (Strongly Recommended) – No one wants the success of their e-business transaction to be in the hands of others.  It is strongly recommended that the originator of the transactions do several things:
1. Keep a library of schemas available on one of your own servers for internal validation.
2. Periodically download the schemas from the industry library to insure that you have the most current and complete set of schemas.
3. Signup on the List Server for notification of new schema versions and notices.
2. Let the Exchange Service you use validate the Schema (Recommended)
1. If you are going to use this option you need to be sure that the Exchange Service you choose can validate the schemas and has procedures in place to always have the most current schemas.
3. Validate the schema at the FIDX website (Do NOT Use)
1. While this option is technically possible you should NOT do it.
2. This site is being set up to archive the schemas and keep the cost to a minimum.  By definition this site will NOT be robust enough to handle a high volume of transactions and it will NOT be supported 24x7.  The site WILL go down from time to time and your transactions will NOT process and neither FIDX nor AHFA will be responsible.
4. The current validation process (November 2004) includes multiple schemas being hosted and validated by multiple separate company sites throughout the industry.  Several organizations have experienced loss of transactions due to someone else’s server being down.  This is already an unacceptable situation that will only get worse as the number of schemas grow.  While this is currently in use and functioning very well most of the time, as a technical group we can not recommend this approach for the long run.  (NOT Recommended)