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RETS

An excellent example of the power of Live Meta Data and Business Rules is the integration between KnowledgeFrame and RETS. RETS stands for the Real Estate Transaction Standard, which is a standard protocol of exchanging Real Estate data and meta-data between MLS (Multiple Listing Services), realtors and partner organization in North America (see http://www.rets.org).

One of the important features of the current version of the RETS protocol (version 1.7, as of the time of writing this) is the ability of the MLS server to transmit meta-data and business rules to all partners and clients. This includes definitions of Real Estate Listings, and business rules which each new listing must satisfy to be accepted by the MLS. As the requirements of the public, the realtors, and regulatory requirements specified by various levels of governments change, the Real Estate Boards can react quickly by changing meta-data and business rule definitions, and ensure that all RETS 1.7-compatible partner data systems will use the new definitions for data entry and queries.

In addition to that, RETS 1.7 supports the concept of Localization. As data requirements, and government regulatory requirements, change between countries, states or provinces, and even counties and municipalities, the systems must be able to represent and enforce meta-data and business rules selectively. (Presence of alligators in the area is much more important in Florida than in Alaska).

RETS 1.7 is a technology-independent protocol running on top of an HTTP(S) transport layer (and soon on top of Web Services SOAP protocol) – both the servers and clients can be implemented in any technology, Java, .NET or legacy.

An adapter library call JRETSC to present all RETS artifacts – data, meta-data and transactions – via a standard, well-documented and consistent Java API. A KnowledgeFrame application called Keystone, developed by T4Bi for Metropolitan Regional Information Systems in Rockville, Maryland (http://www.mris.com), uses JRETSC to:

• Communicate with a RETS server;
• Obtain up-to-date meta-data and business rules;
• Build runtime "images" of real estate listings, public records and other data applicable for the given locale (e.g. state and county);
• Enforce role-based security on all objects, allowing users to see or modify data based on roles of various stakeholders in the process;
• Allow users to search, enter and modify listings and other data, controlled by their security profiles;
• Perform comprehensive validations of listing data via business rules;
• Submit validated listings to the MLS server via the RETS protocol.

Keystone has been in production at MRIS since August 2003, and is currently serving 46,000 online users in Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Delaware, and the District of Columbia, accessing data in a 650GB database 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

Most RETS related information is available via http://www.rets.org, and several RETS-related software packages have been published as open source on SourceForge (search for the keyword "RETS"). T4Bi code is a part of the solution for the SourceForge CART project - Center for Realtor Technology's RETS Client.

A RETS-integration solution for KnowledgeFrame and RETS exists as a combination of software and integration know-how. The software is available as open source, either on SourceForge, or on the RETS site. Additional utilities are available on demand – until somebody will find the time to document and package them as a SourceForge project "-). For integration know-how, please contact knowledgeframe@t4bi.com.

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