The Conformance Validation Testing Assistant (or ConTesA, for short) is a tool for validating complex business rules against an XML schema.  The tool currently supports LEXS, N-DEx and UCore business rules.  

 

ConTesA's main feature is it's ability to run complex business rules beyond the scope of XML schema.  ConTesa enables abstraction of rule expression langauages and provide a simple Java Bean based abstraction for rule interaction.  Currently, ConTesA understands a unique internal rule expression language, and support for standards such as schematron are in the works.

 

A second and lesser emphasized aspect of ConTesA that really helps it stand out amonst competitiors is the understanding that rules alone are not always enough to validate an instance.  Often, non-technical people have to view instances and determine if the concepts and data in them are accurate.  This is when the view engine steps in.  The view engine allows ConTesA to view HTML (and other) renderings of an XML document to show these non-technical folks.  The result is the ability for proper human intervention, to help determine an XML document's complete accurracy.  

 

ConTesA is available in multiple formats, such as an online tool (https://contesa.ittl.gtri.org) a downloadable command line client, and in a bootable Ubuntu linux environment (suitable for hosting your own internal ConTesA server on a private network).  If desired, the tool can even be made available as a Java library (jar) for embedding in your application (coming soon).  

 

There is currently (as of July 2009) a ConTesA version 2.1 production line available, and a 3.0 in the works.  An alpha of ConTesA 3.0 is ready, but not yet production quality.