The Open Information Model 1.0 provides a syntax-independent definition of the information provided by an XBRL Report, supporting the use of XBRL data in a range of different formats, including XML, JSON and CSV.
The Open Information Model (hereafter the "OIM Report Model") does not provide a model of the metadata provided by an XBRL Taxonomy. With the finalisation of the OIM Report Model, the OIM Working Group is now focused on providing such a taxonomy model. This document describes the Working Group's planned approach for defining such a model.
The structure of the information present in an XBRL Taxonomy is inherently more complex than that of an XBRL Report. In addition to the key building blocks of "concepts", taxonomies can contain relationships between concepts, and relationships between concepts and other resources defined by XML elements.
The definition of a concept includes datatype information, which can leverage much of the power of the XML Schema datatype definition system.
Further, additional specifications including Table Linkbase and XBRL Formula use the basic components of an XBRL taxonomy to define higher-level semantics.
Many of the operations that might benefit from an XBRL taxonomy model will require only a subset of the full information present that may be present in an XBRL taxonomy. As such, the Working Group intends to follow an incremental, phased approach in order to provide useful specifications sooner.
The following initial phases have been planned:
Goal: provide all taxonomy information required to faithfully store OIM reports, load from xBRL-XML, xBRL-JSON and xBRL-CSV, and apply all the validation required of a "conformant processor" (but not a "validating conformant processor").
The OIM Report Model specifies certain behaviour that is dependent on
information in an XBRL Taxonomy. For example, the decimals property is
required to be present on numeric facts, and must not be present on non-numeric
facts, and whether a fact is numeric is defined by its concept definition in
the taxonomy.
Similarly, xBRL-JSON, xBRL-XML and xBRL-CSV all make use of QNames to represent some fact and dimension values. QNames are a short-hand syntax that replaces a globally unique namespace URI with a short, limited scope prefix. In order to process such values, they must be resolved according to the prefixes in scope at the point that the value appears. As such, in order to correctly process a report, it is necessary to know which values are QNames. This can only be determined by reference to the taxonomy.
This initial phase is intended to provide the minimum information required to correctly process an OIM-based report.
Note that the additional information required to perform the full validation required of a validating conformant processors is out of scope for this phase.
Goal: provide the information required to support a simple XBRL report viewer.
This phase is intended to add simple, but high-value information from XBRL taxonomy linkbases, including:
This additional information should enable XBRL data to be meaningfully displayed to an end user.
Goal: this phase will provide the information needed by an XBRL Processor to fully validate a report according to any of the OIM's supported specifications.
This phase provides the necessary information required to implement a validating, OIM conformant processor, which in turn requires the validation prescribed by the following supported specifications:
The additional taxonomy information required to do this includes:
Additional phases are anticipated, but have not been planned in detail.
The phases defined above do not cover the semantics of either the XBRL Formula or Table Linkbase specifications. It is expected that these will be covered in additional phases.
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