This section of the guidelines provides a high-level reference point for social security institutions applying interoperability techniques. The eight guidelines which follow form a starting point from which institutions can develop their own policies and plans, and will assist in addressing the challenges of interoperability through a consistent and standards-based approach. The guidelines canvass the five dimensions of interoperability: political, legal, organizational, semantic and technical.

Guidance is based upon well-recognized principles and best practice related to interoperability, based on frameworks, models and interoperability recommendations. It has been drawn from several guidelines and reports, and input from public administrations, private industry, professionals in social security institutions, and standards and specifications bodies such as W3C, OASIS and the Open Group.

These eight guidelines are oriented towards ICT staff, executives and managers accountable for interoperability between institutional systems. They must understand the different dimensions of interoperability to implement the proposed framework and application model. They are responsible for defining a service-oriented architecture (SOA) to implement interoperable systems by identifying the services to be connected, related business processes, the information structure and the data exchanged.

These guidelines may be applied at any stage of an activity, function, project, product or asset involving information. While, in general, interoperability techniques can be applied to complete information systems and facilities, they can also be directed to individual system components or services where this is practicable and useful.