NSI Guide Supplement for Management of Instant Tickets Certification/Verification

Issue 1.0.1 - January 25, 2010

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

1.1 Referenced Specifications

1.2  Conformance Requirements Documents

1.3  Preparing for NSI Management of Instant Tickets Certification or Verification

2.  Certification or Verification Against the NSI Management of Instant Tickets Best Practice

2.1 Registering your Business Practice within the Web-Based Certification/Verification System

2.1.1 Payment

2.2 Producing a Conformance Statement

2.3 Validation Report

2.3.1 Bar Code on Instant Tickets and Instant Ticket Packs for Lotteries

2.3.2 Bar Code on Instant Tickets and Instant Ticket Packs for Instant Ticket Manufacturers

2.3.3 MIT XML Based Messaging for Lotteries

2.3.4 MIT XML Based Messaging for Lottery Vendors

2.3.5 MIT XML Based Messaging for Retailers

2.4 Completion of Certification/Verification

3. Renewals Process

4. Certified/Verified Entity Modifications and Updates

1. Introduction

This document is a supplement to the Guide to the NSI Certification and Verification Program and is intended to be used in conjunction with that document. This supplement is for organizations who want to certify or verify a business practice in the North American Association of State and Provincial Lotteries (NASPL) Standards Initiative Management of Instant Tickets Certification/Verification Program.

This Guide Supplement will guide you through all the Management of Instant Tickets specific steps required for certification or verification. Steps that are common to all NASPL Standards Initiative (NSI) certification/verification programs are described in the Guide to the NSI Certification and Verification Program.

Note: In the event of any conflicts, this guide defers to the NSI Certification/Verification Policy and Policy Supplements, the applicable NASPL Trademark License Agreement, and the NSI Certification/Verification Agreement.

1.1 Referenced Specifications

The specifications currently referenced for NSI Management of Instant Tickets certification/verification are:

These are referenced by the NSI Management of Instant Tickets Conformance Requirements documents and are located at http://www.opengroup.org/naspl/published.

1.2 Conformance Requirements Documents

The current NSI Conformance Requirements documents against which lotteries may verify business practices are:

Note that MIT XML Based Messaging for Lotteries requires the Lottery to have obtained two prerequisite verifications to ensure the lottery systems are in place to support the management of instant ticket inventory via XML based messages. These pre-requisite verifications are i) Bar Code on Instant Tickets and Instant Ticket Packs for Lotteries (to ensure that the Lottery has the proper GS1 related product identification with compliant barcodes to facilitate automated handling of Instant Tickets and Packs by the retailer) and ii) Lottery Retailer-Focused Website (to ensure the web-based infrastructure used to communicate information to retailers is in place).

The current NSI Conformance Requirements documents against which lottery vendors, manufacturers, or retailers may certify business practices are:

1.3 Preparing for Management of Instant Tickets Certification or Verification

Certification/verification will involve validating that your organization has correctly and completely implemented the Best Practice and/or Technical Standard within your organization. The first step towards certification or verification against the Management of Instant Tickets Best Practice is to deploy the Best Practice and/or Technical Standard within your organization. This involves making the changes necessary to your organization's business processes and systems to ensure that they are in conformance with the requirements defined in the Best Practice and/or Technical Standard.

To achieve certification or verification, your organization must complete both the Organization-level steps described in the Guide to the NSI Certification and Verification Program as well as the Management of Instant Tickets specific steps described below.

The Organization-level steps are registering your organization within the web-based certification/verification system and completing the applicable Trademark License Agreement. These steps need to be performed only once per organization.

2. Certification or Verification Against the NSI Management of Instant Tickets Best Practice

Prior to registering your business practice, please ensure that:

The first step for Management of Instant Tickets certification or verification is to register your business practice. This is done by completing the registration form for your business practice, specifying the contacts for this registration, accepting the terms of the Certification/Verification Agreement, and making payment. The subsequent steps for NSI Management of Instant Tickets certification or verification are:

2.1 Registering your Business Practice within the Web-Based Certification/Verification System

To register a business practice to be certified or verified, go to http://www.opengroup.org/naspl/conformance, enter the secure web server, and "Login" to the NSI certification or verification web site using your username and password. Note: If you see a login link immediately upon accessing the system, then you are already on the secure server and may proceed directly with the login. The next step is to click on Organization Home to go to your organization's home page and select "New business practice or technology registration" (in the middle of the page).

When you register your business practice, you are required to select the NSI Conformance Requirements document against which you wish to certify or verify, provide information on your business practice, and have the ability to send notes to the Certification and Verification Authority. Within the system, you must specify the following:

In addition, you will need to specify the certification/verification contacts specific to certification/verification of the business practice you are registering:

Once you have completed all fields, select the "Submit for registration" button. You will then be presented with the NSI Certification/Verification Agreement, which you must accept in order to proceed with this registration. The final step in the registration phase is providing payment information, as detailed in Section 2.1.1. Payment, below.

You are then returned to your organization's certification or verification home page, from which you can select the "Next" link for the business practice being submitted. Through use of the "Next" link, the system will guide you through the steps that you need to follow to certify or verify a business practice .

2.1.1 Payment

Details concerning payment procedures common to all NSI certifications/verifications can be found in Section 4.1.1, "Payment" , in the Guide to the NSI Certification and Verification Program.

2.2 Producing a Conformance Statement

A Conformance Statement describes your business practice and how it meets the conformance requirements. Your Conformance Statement will be linked into the Register entry for the business practice once it is certified or verified. A Conformance Statement Questionnaire is available for each Conformance Requirements document at http://www.opengroup.org/naspl/conformance/docs/csqs.html.

The currently available Conformance Statement Questionnaires are listed below. There is one corresponding to each Conformance Requirements document:

You must complete the relevant questionnaire to create a Conformance Statement for your business practice. See Sections 2.3 and 3.3 of the general NSI Certification/Verification Policy document for further information on the purpose of the Conformance Statement.

Within the web-based certification/verification system, you have the ability to create a new Conformance Statement, edit a Conformance Statement Questionnaire that is in the process of being completed, and finally, when ready, submit the completed Conformance Statement to the Certification and Verification Authority. This is done by going to your organization home page, selecting the "Next" step button for your business practice, clicking the "Conformance Statement" link and then selecting the "Create/edit/submit Conformance Statement" button. Please see Appendix A, "Using the Editing Tool", in the Guide to the NSI Certification and Verification Program for information on using the editing tool to create, edit, and submit your Conformance Statement.

The Conformance Statement Questionnaires have common front matter that asks for information about your organization and the business practice to be certified or verified.

The Conformance Statement Questionnaires also require rationale for any requirements of the Best Practice that your organization did not implement and contain questions specific to the set of conformance requirements against which your business practice is to be certified or verified. These questions are intended to characterize how your business practice meets the conformance requirements.

 2.3 Validation Report

Organizations are responsible for performing any necessary validation steps and then submitting a completed checklist and associated files to the Certification and Verification Authority
At any point in time, you will be able to see the status and progress of the validation process in the web-based certification/verification system by selecting the "Next" step button for your registration from your organization's home page. This view will allow you to see what you have already uploaded and what elements of the validation report are outstanding. The Certification and Verification Authority will review your submission once you have uploaded files that compose the Validation Report.

Each Conformance Checklist is an on-line form. It is completed using the same tool as was used for the Conformance Statement. Please see Appendix A, "Using the Editing Tool", in the Guide to the NSI Certification and Verification Program for information on using the editing tool to create, edit, and submit your Conformance Checklist.

The sections below identify the requirements applicable for each set of Conformance Requirements.

2.3.1 Bar Code on Instant Tickets and Instant Ticket Packs for Lotteries

For each of the file uploads, select the "Choose File" button to search for the relevant file and select it. Once selected, the name of the file will appear to the right of the "Choose File" button, at which point, you will select the associated "Submit ..." button to upload that file to the certification/verification system. Note that you must repeat this set of steps for each of the file uploads. After submitting a file, you will see a page confirming that the file was successfully uploaded and you will need to select either the "Back" button or "Next" button to return to the Next Steps page to select and upload another file.

Once you have completed the Conformance Checklist and uploaded all files that compose the Validation Report, the Certification and Verification Authority will need to review and approve your submission.

2.3.2 Bar Code on Instant Tickets and Instant Ticket Packs for Instant Ticket Manufacturers

Once you have completed the Conformance Checklist and uploaded the Printing Capability Specifications, the Certification and Verification Authority will need to review and approve your submission.

2.3.3 MIT XML Based Messaging for Lotteries

Once you have completed the Conformance Checklist and uploaded the XML Message Samples, the Certification and Verification Authority will need to review and approve your submission.

2.3.4 MIT XML Based Messaging for Lottery Vendors

For each of the file uploads, select the "Choose File" button to search for the relevant file and select it. Once selected, the name of the file will appear to the right of the "Choose File" button, at which point, you will select the associated "Submit ..." button to upload that file to the certification/verification system. Note that you must repeat this set of steps for each of the file uploads. After submitting a file, you will see a page confirming that the file was successfully uploaded and you will need to select either the "Back" button or "Next" button to return to the Next Steps page to select and upload another file.

Once you have completed the Conformance Checklist and uploaded all files that compose the Validation Report, the Certification and Verification Authority will need to review and approve your submission.

2.3.5 MIT XML Based Messaging for Retailers

For each of the file uploads, select the "Choose File" button to search for the relevant file and select it. Once selected, the name of the file will appear to the right of the "Choose File" button, at which point, you will select the associated "Submit ..." button to upload that file to the certification/verification system. Note that you must repeat this set of steps for each of the file uploads. After submitting a file, you will see a page confirming that the file was successfully uploaded and you will need to select either the "Back" button or "Next" button to return to the Next Steps page to select and upload another file.

Once you have completed the Conformance Checklist and uploaded all files that compose the Validation Report, the Certification and Verification Authority will need to review and approve your submission.

2.4 Completion of Certification/Verification

Once your submission is complete and the applicable NASPL Trademark License Agreement is in place, you will be notified of successful certification or verification within 10 business days. If for any reason the submission was not complete, you will be notified so that any corrections can be made and resubmitted. This step, which is common to all NSI Certification and Verification Programs, is described in detail in Section 4.2 of the Guide to the NSI Certification and Verification Program.

You should note that certification/verification is valid for a defined period as stated in Section 9.1, "Duration of Certification/Verification", of the general NSI Certification/Verification Policy document. At the end of that period, if you wish your business practice to remain certified or verified you will need to renew your certification or verification as defined in Section 3, Renewals Process, below.

3. Renewals Process

When your business practice is certified or verified, it remains so for a defined period, after which it must be renewed or the business practice will no longer continue to be certified/verified. At any time, you may use the web-based certification/verification system to obtain the renewal date for each of your certified or verified business practices or technologies.

Renewal implies that your business practice continues to conform for the duration of the renewal period.

Around three months prior to the expiration of your business practice's certification/verification, your Primary and Alternate Technical Contacts will be notified that renewal is due. They must respond to the Certification and Verification Authority within 30 calendar days indicating whether or not your organization would like to renew certification/verification; otherwise, your certification or verification will expire on the renewal date. Renewal may be subject to a re-validation of your business practice and must be completed prior to your renewal date.

Renewal is performed using the web-based certification/verification system. You may access the renewals page from your organization's home page in the system. When you select the certified or verified business practice to be renewed, you will be presented with a web renewal form to complete.

Please see Section 5, "Renewal" of the NSI Policy Supplement for Management of Instant Tickets Certification/Verification and Section 9, "Renewal", of the general NSI Certification/Verification Policy document for further information on the requirements and process for renewal.

4. Certified/Verified Entity Modifications and Updates

Any modifications to your Certified/Verified Entity must be made in accordance with the requirements defined in the Certification/Verification Policy. You should read the requirements in the policy documents thoroughly since they describe multiple scenarios related to business practice changes. In some cases, the modification or update necessitates a new certification or verification, whereas in other cases, you can update your existing certification or verification.

Updates to your business practice's certification or verification are performed using the web-based certification/verification system. You may access the updates page from your organization's home page in the system. When you select the certified or verified business practice to be updated, you will be presented with a web form to be used to indicate to the Certification and Verification Authority the type of change.

The types of changes that may be made to a business practice certified or verified against the Management of Instant Tickets Best Practice are defined in Section 4, "Certification/Verification Requirements for Modifications of a Certified/Verified Entity", of the NSI Policy Supplement for Management of Instant Tickets Certification/Verification.

If the "Certification/Verification Requirement" identified in the policy document is either "Certification/Verification Information update" or "Conformance Statement update", you must complete the web form to provide information on the requested change and provide the Certification and Verification Authority with any required information or documentation. Upon review and acceptance of such information or documentation and receipt of payment for amending your registration, the Certification and Verification Authority will update your certification/verification information.

If the "Certification/Verification Requirement" is "New Certification/Verification", then this change is considered a new business practice and is subject to a new certification or verification. In this case, your organization should register this business practice for certification or verification using the "new business practice or technology registration" link accessible from your organization's home page.

Any other change must be communicated to the Certification and Verification Authority within 30 calendar days of such change. The Certification and Verification Authority will then determine what the associated validation and certification/verification requirements are for such change.

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Updated on January 25, 2010