FORM API

> Project NemDigitaliser

In my other project, NemFORM, I have looked into the technical aspects of FORM, the Danish Government’s Business Reference Model.

Digitaliser.dk’s FORM API

The core FORM model has been integrated into the Digitaliser.dk API, which thereby also works as a FORM API. The Digitaliser.dk team added FORM 1.3 last year, but recently also added FORM 2.0. The team has developed a few (demonstrator) tool, such as a widget, and also a pretty cool FORM taxonomy browser. I have installed the browser here for both FORM 1.3 and FORM 2.0. The team has also created a more complex and resource-intensive application, IOI-FORMplot, that fetches more data from the API, ending up making more than 1000 API lookups in one browser session (+6MB). (“No, Mr Police Officer, I was not trying to attack the Danish government, I just used their own script”).

Introducing the FORM API

The FORM API uses Digitaliser.dk API’s /taxonomies functions, which offers both FORM 1.3 and FORM 2.0.

A given FORM area is a TaxonomyNode, e.g., /taxonomies/FORM-2.0/taxonomynodes/60.55.00.00.UD.

The TaxonomyNode’s children can be found by adding /children, e.g., /taxonomies/FORM-2.0/taxonomynodes/60.55.00.00.UD/children.

These is also a taxonomies/{taxonomyTitle}/taxonomynodes?root={root}, but it is unclear to me what the root is.

FORM covers from overall service areas to specific services (Opgaveområder, Hovedområder, Serviceområder, Tjenester). In the FORM API, these levels are called /taxonomynodecategories. By adding /nodes to these, you get a listing of, say, all Opgaverområder. Note that there is some confusion about how the ID-numbers look (number of ‘hidden’ digits, e.g. 60.00.00.00 or just 60).

The FORM API offers a FORM search function, /taxonomies/FORM-2.0/search (search for tax related areas).

Gøtze’s Take

The API will IMHO not be really useful until the full FORM content, i.e., also the non-core info (budget info, agency info, legal info, and domain mapping) is in the API.

A useful API service would be a 1.3-to-2.0 converter of kinds. FORM 1.3 has been used a number of places, and it would be strategically smart to help those migrating to 2.0, possibly by using such a service. It is important that all new FORM-related effort are based on 2.0.