At this level, the messaging, discovery, and trading partner agreements are standardized and can be automated.

Lowest level: email ad-hoc XML, conducting all other aspects manually using email or phone calls

• This would usually be a one-sided relationship
• But it allows the smallest businesses to participate
• And very large players can engage at this level when it suits them
• Repository supplies messaging specification and commonly used industry tag sets
• This first specification of this layer will be available from ebXML at the end of this week in Vienna