UnifiedPOS Request for Modification Procedure
November 16, 1999

UnifiedPOS is the architectural specification for OPOS and JavaPOS. By agreement of all parties, all new devices and their associated behavior must be defined within UnifiedPOS before they are implemented in OPOS or JavaPOS. This procedure will define the method to request, define and obtain approval for new devices and modifications to existing devices within the UnifiedPOS specification.

Requests are to be documented on the attached form and submitted to the UnifiedPOS Administrative Committee. Additional documents may be submitted with the Form, including a complete OPOS, JavaPOS or UnifiedPOS specifications. Providing detail specifications will expedite the request process. Forms and examples of UnifiedPOS specification will be available on www.NRF-ARTS.org . Requests may be submitted directly to UnifiedPOS or forwarded through the respective OPOS or JavaPOS organizations for internal agreement before providing them to UnifiedPOS.

It is intended that the version levels of OPOS, JavaPOS and UnifiedPOS remain consistent. Accordingly, each year at the January NRF Annual Convention, a joint meeting of the Administrative and Technical Committees of UnifiedPOS will be convened to plan and schedule new versions for the year. The planned number of new versions, estimated release dates and new devices or functions to be included in each will be published to the industry. All requests approved by the Administrative Committee will be assigned to a future version release. UnifiedPOS will determine contents, finalize documentation, prepare detailed specification, and announce availability of new releases.

ARTS will forward received requests to the Chairman of the Administrative Committee within 3 working days for review and distribution to the Committee. The Chairman may ask that the UnifiedPOS Technical Committee review the request. The originator of the request will be contacted within 10 working days for more information or be notified of the disposition of their request. Potential dispositions are:

All accepted requests will be posted to the "Open Requests" section of the UnifiedPOS area of the NRF-ARTS.org web site to permit progress tracking by any concerned party. Requests will remain in the "Open Requests" area until concluded, along with the then appropriate status indication. Status conditions, which describe the flow of this procedure, are:

Timeframes, expressed in working days, will be assigned to the above steps to ensure timely action. Most work will be accomplished via the web. NRF-ARTS.org will assign special access to UnifiedPOS to allow collaborative processing.

Accepted, not distributed pending additional information from requestor. 
This status indicates that the Administrative and Technical Committee chairmen have accepted the request as a potential update to the Specification but require additional information from the requestor to confirm acceptance and assign a priority. The requestor will be given 10 days to provide the additional information.
 
Accepted and distributed to the Administrative Committee for review. 
This status indicates that the request is properly documented and has been circulated to the Administrative Committee for comments, suggested modification, approval and assigning a priority for inclusion into the Specification. Priorities will be assigned by allocating the request to planned release. The Committee will be given 15 days to reply; no reply from a Committee member to the Chair concerning the request will be considered a vote for approval from that committee member.
 
Rejected by the Administrative Committee and request closed. 
This status indicates that the Administrative Committee has rejected the request because of duplication, being outside the scope of UnifiedPOS, or other comparable reasons. The requestor will be given the opportunity to provide new information and re-initiate the request.
 
Approved and priority assigned by the Administrative Committee and forwarded to the Technical Committee for documentation.
This status indicates that the Administrative Committee has approved the request and sent it to the Technical Committee to document in the standard format. New devices will always require complete documentation. Modification requests will require new documentation if inclusion into the UnifiedPOS specification requires changes to the existing UML. The Technical Committee is composed of representatives from both OPOS and JavaPOS. The request will be assigned as appropriate to ensure equal understanding by both implementations. The Technical Committee will be given 15 days to prepare a work plan for completing the documentation. The time required will vary by the complexity of the request and the documentation provided.
 
Documentation completed and distributed to the Technical Committee for review.
This status indicates that the assignee of the Technical Committee has completed the standard documentation and has distributed it to the Committee for review. These reviews will normally be accomplished in meetings but can be accomplished via the web if time requirements do not permit a meeting. If a Committee meeting is not scheduled within the next 45 days, 15 days will be allotted to complete the review.
 
Review completed and Specification being updated.
This status indicates that the Technical Committee has approved the documentation and it has been assigned for incorporation into the Specification. The ARTS/NRF staff will be given 15 days receive the final specification from the Technical Committee representative, post the update to the website and distribute as required.
 
Updated Specification distributed to OPOS and JavaPOS for implementation.
This status indicates that the UnifiedPOS Administrative Committee has approved the new release of the Standard and distributed the specification to OPOS and Java POS for implementation. There is no time specified for completion of this task.
 
Specified in OPOS.
When notified by the OPOS Core Team, ARTS will post availability of the new release to their web site
 
Specified in JavaPOS.
When notified by the JavaPOS Technical Committee, ARTS will post availability of the new release to their web site.

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