FINRA intended its 11/8/10 edition of the OATS Reporting Technical Specifications to accomplish which of the following objectives::

1. to provide information to broker-dealers about how to develop an electronic system that reports order information.
2. to describe what such a system must deliver to FINRA.

The answer, of course is (2), to describe system needs.  Which is why the latest OATS Tech Specs covers these requirements and details:

• requirements and procedures for clock synchronization;
• system access requirements for supplying OATS files to FINRA;
• order reporting scenarios that describe, from a business perspective, responsibilities for reporting to OATS;
• details regarding the required layout of OATS files;
• procedures for providing corrections to OATS data and for receiving feedback from FINRA; and,
• procedures for registration, self-administration, and testing and certification.
• data dictionary that describes all of the data elements in OATS files;  a list of report formats, including field names, data types, and lists of permissible values; examples of order reports;  and a glossary.

    Going Forward.   All changes described in the 11/8/10 edition of the OATS Reporting Tech Specs will be available in the OATS Production environment on 2/29/11, and in the OATS Certificate Test environment on 2/7/11.  For further details, go to:   [FINRA's OATS Reporting Tech Specs Changes].