CADDY-xml

Logo CADDY

CADDY is an electronic format for the exchange, archiving and evaluation of complex dossiers, developed jointly by industry and regulatory authorities. It was developed for the interchange of plant protection products dossiers, and is currently adopted by the European Commission and Member States as the only electronic dossier interchange format. CADDY is a flexible format; it is continuously improved to follow developments in the evaluation process.

The current CADDY format is called CADDY-xml, as it uses a  backbone in XML format.

Components

CropLife Europe makes available the following components of CADDY-xml that can be downloaded and used free of charge (check your download page that you receive after your registration.)

Maintenance and lifecycle

The CADDY Format specification is the core document. New minor versions will be published if the changes are small and local, major versions are published when the changes are significant. When a new minor version of the format specification is published then there will be a default transition period of one year until the predecessor version will become obsolete. For major version the transition period will be determined individually when the new major version is released.

An update of the specification may require an update of the other components as well, especially the XSD and the Conformity Check software:

  • The XSD has to be consistent to the statements of the specification document
  • The Conformity Check has to reflect the validation rules of the specification document

Minor versions of CADDY-xml assets are usually valid until ONE year after the release date of the sucessor minor or major version. The lifetime of major versions of CADDY-xml assets is determined individually.

Official platform for the software

The CADDY software assets are maintained on an offical software platform. For the software assets

  • CADDY-xml viewer
  • CADDY-xml Conformity Checker (CxCC)

the official software platform is currently defined to be Windows 7 and Internet Explorer 8. The individual release notes may provide additional information (e.g. Java runtime, patch levels, know limitations on other platforms). New software releases will be tested for this official software platform. The platform definition will be regularly revised and updated if needed.

Note: The CADDY Converter software is currently not maintained. Problems may occur for current operating systems.

Further information

In the main menu you find the following menu items with further information related to CADDY:

  • ToC – for reference information about Table of Contents that can be used in CADDY submissions
  • Links – for CADDY-related links to authorities and consulting companies

CADDY V2

Information about CADDY V2, the legacy CADDY format prior to the current CADDY version called CADDY-xml can be found in the section CADDY V2. Please note that CADDY V2 is no longer maintained. It is highly recommended to convert all existing CADDY V2 dossier to CADDY-xml format using the CADDY Converter.

History

CADDY-xml is based on the legacy CADDY 2.0 format, but introduces some important differences by providing the general information, a table of contents, confidential and non-confidential documents, report information and hyperlink information in an XML framework. The CADDY-xml Converter can be used to convert legacy CADDY 2.0 dossiers to the new standard CADDY-xml.

The initial CADDY-xml Specification has been finalized in June 2005 and agreed in the Joint Caddy Steering Group. The CADDY-xml Converter is a conversion software that transforms CADDY 2.0 dossiers into CADDY-xml dossiers. Both software and specification are available for download (check your download page that you receive after your registration)

CADDY 2.0’s TIFF-files are replaced by PDF/A  versions of the documents, which can be either image-based or text-based. Additionally, a CADDY-xml based dossier can be instantly viewed with a common web-browser supported by Acrobat Reader. This standard is flexible to accommodate different dossier structures or standard Table of Contents such as OECD, EU or others.

Within this setup the XML-representation can be thought of as the backbone of the dossier. It references every document PDF that is included within the table of contents and provides additional attributes for the dossier and each document.