Language arts: the HR-XML Consortium continues to create data transfer specifications that trim paper and costs - Technology

HR Magazine, July, 2003 by Bill Roberts

Trucking companies hire J.J. Keller & Associates Inc. of Neenah, Wis., to handle compliance with government regulations for drivers, including screening candidates and managing ongoing oversight of each driver. Keller outsources the background checks, including the retrieval of reports from the department of motor vehicles, to HireCheck Inc. of St. Petersburg, Fla. The trucking companies, Keller and HireCheck would like to transmit electronic data back and forth as needed to accomplish these tasks.

Two-thirds of that goal has been accomplished, thanks to a year-old data format specification from the HR-XML Consortium Inc. of Raleigh, N.C. Using the consortium's background checking schemas, Keller and HireCheck set up a standards-based data flow, eliminating some paper processes and avoiding the need to use complicated and expensive proprietary interfaces.

No one has calculated the cost savings, but Susan Morgan, director of operations for HireCheck, estimates that her company saves at least $5 per background check. At tens of thousands of checks per year, that adds up.

Tom Harter, a software analyst for Keller, says his company has removed much of the paperwork required for background checks, too.

Background checking schemas are among 70 XML-based schemas that the 4-year-old consortium has created. Among other schemas are those for benefits enrollment, recruiting, staffing and managing employee stock option plans. The consortium also recently launched an effort to propose HR-XML as an accepted alternative to the electronic data interchange (EDI) for data transfer required by the federal government's new Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) regulations.

HR-XML is ahead of most of the many other groups that are working on XML specifications for their respective industries, says James Holincheck, an analyst at Gartner Inc. of Stamford, Conn. "HR-XML doesn't cover everything in HR yet," he says. "But, for the areas that it does cover, it provides a good common way for companies to be able to exchange information between systems both internally and externally."

Many HR software vendors, including HR management system (HRMS) developers and HR-related service firms such as HireCheck, have begun to adopt the HR-XML specifications. Most people involved in the consortium have modest expectations about how fast the HR community will widely adopt the standards, but they are hopeful that it will do so.

"It will be two to four years before we see broad penetration," says Brad Whitney, executive vice president and chief information officer at American Background Information Services Inc. of Winchester, Va. "A lot of our clients are still just bringing up their HR systems and still using paper in recruiting processes."

Rivals Work Together

American Background and HireCheck are two among many competitors that have been working together for two years through the consortium on the background checking specification. They are among 100 corporate users, HRMS developers, HR applications vendors, service providers, background-checking firms, recruiting services and others that have joined the consortium. The non-profit group, financed by membership fees, seeks to develop an entire vocabulary of HR-specific data objects and schemas for the Extensible Markup Language (XML), which will enable the exchange of HR data using standard formats. Companies do not need to join the consortium to find out about the schemas or to use them.

XML is a slimmer web-compatible version of the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) that is used to define document formats. Unlike its cousin, HyperText Markup Language (HTML), XML can convey display instructions and describe the content of just about any type of file, including text files, web pages, spreadsheets, database files and graphics. By describing content with great specificity, XML enables automated data exchange without the need for costly custom programming.

But to use XML, two parties must define and agree on the specific object tags and data schemas. So the effort to create standard tags and schemas for an entire functional area such as HR will prevent any two members of that community from having to do the work themselves. XML schemas define the data elements for particular transactions and spell out the options and constraints governing the use of those elements. Schemas also enable automated processing and error-checking of XML documents using a parser, a piece of software that compares an XML document to the definitions in an XML schema.

Each specification is more than a statement of the code needed. Each spells out the business reasons for the specification, the components needed and any specific domain issues and defines terms. There is a diagram of the business process involved, and a statement of things to consider during implementation. In the case of background checking, for example, there are reminders regarding privacy issues and laws pertaining to background checking.