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Version 1.1 by Helena on 2025/06/16 11:52
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1 All [[structural metadata>>doc:sdmx:Glossary.Structural metadata.WebHome]] in [[SDMX>>doc:sdmx:Glossary.Statistical data and metadata exchange.WebHome]] is owned and maintained by a [[maintenance agency>>doc:sdmx:Glossary.Maintenance agency.WebHome]] (Agency identified by agencyID in the schemas). Similarly, all [[reference metadata>>doc:sdmx:Glossary.Reference metadata.WebHome]] (i.e., MetadataSets) is owned and maintained by a metadata provider organisation (MetadataProvider identified by metadataProviderID in the schemas). It is vital to the integrity of the [[structural metadata>>doc:sdmx:Glossary.Structural metadata.WebHome]] that there are no conflicts in agencyID and metadataProviderID. In order to achieve this, [[SDMX>>doc:sdmx:Glossary.Statistical data and metadata exchange.WebHome]] adopts the following rules:
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3 1. Agencies are maintained in an AgencyScheme (which is a sub class of //OrganisationScheme//); Metadata Providers are maintained in a MetadataProviderScheme.
4 1. The [[maintenance agency>>doc:sdmx:Glossary.Maintenance agency.WebHome]] of the Agency/Metadata Provider Scheme must also be declared in a (different) AgencyScheme.
5 1. The "top-(% style="color:#e74c3c" %)level(%%)" agency is [[SDMX>>doc:sdmx:Glossary.Statistical data and metadata exchange.WebHome]] and this [[agency scheme>>doc:sdmx:Glossary.Agency scheme.WebHome]] is maintained by [[SDMX>>doc:sdmx:Glossary.Statistical data and metadata exchange.WebHome]].
6 1. Agencies registered in the top-(% style="color:#e74c3c" %)level(%%) scheme can themselves maintain a single AgencyScheme and a single MetadataProviderScheme. [[SDMX>>doc:sdmx:Glossary.Statistical data and metadata exchange.WebHome]] is an agency in the [[SDMX>>doc:sdmx:Glossary.Statistical data and metadata exchange.WebHome]] AgencyScheme. Agencies in any AgencyScheme can themselves maintain a single AgencyScheme and so on.
7 1. The AgencyScheme and MetadataProvideScheme cannot be versioned and thus have a fixed (% style="color:#e74c3c" %)version(%%) set to ‘1.0’.
8 1. There can be only one AgencyScheme maintained by any one Agency. It has a fixed Id of 'AGENCIES'. Similarly, only one MetadataProvideScheme is maintained by one Agency and has a fixed id of 'METADATA_PROVIDERS'.
9 1. The format of the agency identifier is agencyId.agencyID etc. The top-(% style="color:#e74c3c" %)level(%%) agency in this identification mechanism is the agency registered in the [[SDMX>>doc:sdmx:Glossary.Statistical data and metadata exchange.WebHome]] [[agency scheme>>doc:sdmx:Glossary.Agency scheme.WebHome]]. In other words, [[SDMX>>doc:sdmx:Glossary.Statistical data and metadata exchange.WebHome]] is not a part of the hierarchical ID structure for agencies. [[SDMX>>doc:sdmx:Glossary.Statistical data and metadata exchange.WebHome]] is, itself, a [[maintenance agency>>doc:sdmx:Glossary.Maintenance agency.WebHome]].
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11 This supports a hierarchical structure of agencyID.
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13 An example is shown below.
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15 [[image:1750063904339-160.png]]
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17 **Figure 16: Example of Hierarchic Structure of Agencies**
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19 Each agency is identified by its full [[hierarchy>>doc:sdmx:Glossary.Hierarchy.WebHome]] excluding SDMX.
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21 The XML representing this structure is shown below.
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23 **Figure 17: Example Agency Schemes Showing a Hierarchy**
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25 Examples of Structure definitions that show how Agencies are used, are presented below:
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27 **Figure 18: Example Showing Use of Agency Identifiers**
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29 Each of these [[maintenance agencies>>doc:sdmx:Glossary.Maintenance agency.WebHome]] has a Codelist with an identical id 'CL_FREQ'.
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31 However, each is uniquely identified by means of the hierarchic agency structure.