Previously, it was difficult to create traceability documents because some applications, for example Rational Quality Manager and Rational Team Concert™, use OSLC URLs, and Rational Publishing Engine requires reportable REST URLs. This complicated template design because the URLs had to be converted from OSLC to reportable REST. Sometimes the OSLC representation of an artifact does not contain enough information required for document generation, for example rich text.
The POX profile allows you to use OSLC URLs as if they were reportable REST APIs. You can use the POX profile in Rational Publishing Engine to request and receive reportable REST data directly by providing an extra header. You no longer have to convert the URLs or perform duplicate requests. The document generation service will return the additional XML in the presence of the header.