Decimate® taxonomy tool

Continuous integration and testing for taxonomy development

Developing a large XBRL taxonomy can be a daunting task. Decimate® can help by providing quality assurance and automated testing throughout the taxonomy development process.

A typical scenario:

• The project consists of many files
• There are dependencies between the files: the effects of editing one file cannot be fully determined without examining other files
• Many users may be working on the same files simultaneously
• The product requires extensive testing and validation. The full set of tests for the project are often time consuming to run, and thus not suitable for interactive use
• The product needs to be assembled and "packaged" prior to distribution

To overcome the common difficulties encountered during taxonomy development, CoreFiling offers Decimate, which uses a process known as continuous integration.

Continuous integration framework

Rather than producing and testing the taxonomy only at the point when a new release is needed, Decimate guarantees that the taxonomy is packaged and automatically tested on a continuous basis - a process that happens every time a user alters the taxonomy and commits the changes back into the repository. This ensures that any problems are highlighted immediately, and that there is always an available version of the taxonomy containing the most up to date changes. This means that users can review exactly how the taxonomy would appear if released at that particular moment.

Taxonomy testing

Decimate is fully integrated with our SpiderMonkey® taxonomy development platform. It provides a framework that incorporates a series of tests, with full reporting back to the user. As the project evolves, the framework can be extended to incorporate additional tests as required. It also includes our market-leading True North® validator, which ensures the taxonomy and accompanying instance documents conform to the relevant XBRL standards.

Rapid feedback

Taxonomy developers are given the option of receiving feedback on their changes either via email, or by accessing the browser-based status monitors. They will appreciate the colour-coded feedback, either confirming that their changes have been fully validated and accepted by the Decimate system, or highlighting errors together with explanatory notes.