Standards

Import a standard as an ontology

Beyond using a standard as background, you can turn it into an ontology of its own. The New Ontology wizard’s From an industry standard path does this, and it lets you bring in only the classes or modules you need.

In the app: Data Context › Ontologies › Add Ontology › From an industry standard

Before you start

  • Your organization needs the Industry Standards feature and at least one enabled standard. The From an industry standard card appears only when it has one. See Industry Standards overview.
  • Your organization must not be in read-only mode.

Start the wizard

Start from either place:

  • On the Ontologies list, click Add Ontology, fill in the Ontology Identity step (Name is required), click Next, and pick the From an industry standard card.
  • On the Standards page, click Generate ontology on an enabled standard. The wizard opens on this path with the standard already picked.

Pick the standard and base IRI

  1. Pick a Standard. Each option shows its version and a badge: Exact import or Agent-generated.
  2. Enter a Base IRI, the default namespace for the ontology’s terms, for example http://acme.example/catalog#. It must be an absolute IRI.

Exact import or agent-generated

How a standard becomes an ontology depends on the format it’s published in. The wizard chooses for you.

Badge What happens
Exact import The standard is published as RDF. Its classes and properties are imported exactly from its own files, with nothing invented.
Agent-generated The standard isn’t RDF. The generation agent drafts an ontology using the standard as its source. The wizard hands you over to the ontology generator with Open generator instead of importing.

A banner at the bottom of the step always spells out what finishing will do, so check it before you continue.

[screenshot]
The From an industry standard step: the standard picker with its Exact import badge, the Base IRI, the class-family scope, and the method banner.

Bring in only part of a standard

You rarely need a whole standard. The scope control you see depends on the standard.

Most RDF standards: limit to a class family.

  1. Open Limit to a class family.
  2. Type part of a class name in Search classes by name… and click Search.
  3. Tick the classes you want. You can pick up to 20.

Only those classes, and what they depend on, are imported. Leave the panel closed to import the whole standard.

Agent-generated standards: describe the focus. Open Limit to a class family and describe the part to focus on, for example “products and their classification only”. The text seeds the agent’s instructions.

Grouped standards: pick modules. Some standards, such as FIBO, are split across many RDF modules that import one another. For these, the wizard shows a required Modules to import checklist instead of the class-family search:

  • Each module group shows how many files it contains. Tick Select all to take everything.
  • You must pick at least one module. This stops a standard like FIBO being imported by accident as a handful of disconnected entities.
  • Modules that your selection depends on are included automatically.
[screenshot]
The required Modules to import checklist for a grouped standard, with file counts and Select all.

Finish the import

  1. Click Import ontology.
  2. The Done step confirms the ontology was created and is importing from the standard in the background. For a grouped standard, it lists the modules you selected.

Large standards take time to merge. The ontology fills in as the import finishes. Follow its progress with Where to watch background jobs. Files that can’t be merged are recorded as warnings instead of stopping the whole import.