GUIDANCE
EXTERNAL
14 AUGUST, 2013
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FORMAT
AUDIENCE
DATE
CLASSIFICATION
FILE REF:
G009
Guidance note
Field specification
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For further information or questions,
email:
SuperStreamStandards@ato.gov.au
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GUIDANCE NOTE: FIELD SPECIFICATION
ISSUE
Feedback has been received from the superannuation industry that a small number of fields
used in the rollover data standard, ContextID, MemberID, Locality and the alternative identifier
used in place of a TFN, are not sufficiently specified to support smooth interoperation. In
particular, these fields either do not have a defined maximum length or a clear specification of
allowable characters (or both).
This guidance document proposes additional specification to those fields, with the intent of
providing clarity to users of the data standard and to minimise the risk of interoperability issues.
RECOMMENDED APPROACH
The following additional specifications are recommended to minimise the risk of interoperability
issues related to the identified fields. Additional information about the current specification of
these fields is contained in the Appendix.
Note: this guidance is presented as a recommendation only.
The SuperStream Technical Architecture Sub-group will monitor the implementation and use of
these fields in the rollover data standard. As usage patterns become clearer additional
specification for the identified fields will be considered for inclusion in a future version of the
Superannuation Data and Payment Standard Legislative Instrument Schedule documents.
Field
ContextID
Recommended additional specification
Maximum length = 40 characters
However, it is recommended that ContextID values are kept
to 20 or fewer characters to reduce complexity in
processing.
Allowed characters = as per the XBRL 2.1 recommendation
Alternative entity identifier
(Member Rollover Transaction
context)
Maximum length = 20 characters
However, as one data item that will potentially be used to
populate this field is the MemberID, it is recommended that
this value is kept to 16 or fewer characters to align with the
account number reported on a Member Contribution
Statement.
It is recommended that only alpha-numeric characters are
used to align with the account number reported on a
Member Contribution Statement.
Transferring Fund Member ID
(typed dimension container)
Maximum length = 20 characters
However it is recommended that this value is kept to 16 or
fewer characters to align with the member account number
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Field
GUIDANCE NOTE: FIELD SPECIFICATION
Recommended additional specification
reported on a Member Contribution Statement.
It is recommended that only alpha-numeric characters are
used to align with the account number reported on a
Member Contribution Statement.
Receiving Fund Member ID
(message content)
Maximum length = 20 characters
However it is recommended that this value is kept to 16 or
fewer characters to align with the member account number
reported on a Member Contribution Statement.
It is recommended that only alpha-numeric characters are
used to align with the account number reported on a
Member Contribution Statement.
Locality
Maximum length = 50 characters
It is recommended that implementations support any
printable ASCII character for this field.
WORKAROUND FOR FUNDS THAT CANNOT ADOPT
THE RECOMMENDED APPROACH
The message receiver must still process the rollover.
In the first instance the message receiver should consider truncating fields that do not impact
end-to-end tracking of messages, and subsequently respond to the message electronically (as
per the normal rollover data standard process). In practical terms this approach should only be
applied where a ContextID or a location value exceeds a manageable limit. MemberID values
should not be truncated.
Where truncation is not an acceptable solution the message receiver should contact the
message sender out of band and advise the outcome of the rollover so that it can be closed off
in the sender’s workflow system (since an automatic response would ordinarily be expected).
However, to allow a reasonable amount of time to bed down this change the receiver is not
expected to implement any system changes to implement the field lengths in this guidance
document until further advice is provided.
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GUIDANCE NOTE: FIELD SPECIFICATION
APPENDIX: ANALYSIS OF CURRENT FIELD
SPECIFICATIONS
Field
ContextID
Data type
Defined in the
XBRL 2.1
recommendation
Comments
ContextID refers to the ID attribute of a context, used in all rollover
contexts.
Per the XBRL 2.1 recommendation the content of the context ID
attribute MUST conform to the XML rules for attributes with the ID
type.
This specification imposes a constraint on allowable characters, but
does not impose a maximum field length.
Alternative
entity identifier
(Member
Rollover
Transaction
context)
Defined in the
XBRL 2.1
recommendation
The alternative identifier refers to the value of the identifier
element, within the entity parent element, specific to the member
rollover transaction context.
The XBRL 2.1 recommendation requires that the value of the entity
identifier MUST be a token that is a valid identifier within the
namespace referenced by the scheme attribute.
This effectively makes the identifier element a string with no
constraint on the characters used or field length, when the identifier
scheme ‘http://www.sbr.gov.au/id’ is used.
Member ID
(typed
dimension
container)
String
(unbounded)
This refers to the container used in the
TransferringSuperFundMemberIDDimension typed dimension used
in both the Member Rollover Transaction and Rollover Payment
contexts.
This container is specified in the Dimensions file in the SBR
taxonomy as a string with no fixed length or character restriction.
Member ID
(message
content)
String
(unbounded)
This refers to the element
SuperannuationFundDetails.MemberClient.Identifier which is the
member’s ID in the receiving fund and is reported against the
Member Rollover Transaction context. This element is defined in
the SBR definitional taxonomy as a string with no fixed length or
character restriction.
Locality
String
(unbounded)
Locality is defined in the SBR definitional taxonomy, and adopted
for use in the messages that comprise a rollover interaction (per
the rollover reporting taxonomy).
In accordance with the standards reference associated with the
term as defined in the SBR definitional taxonomy, the Locality is
intended to conform to AS4590 Section 5 SubSection 5.11.
However, the schema allows an unbounded string with no
character restriction.
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