OIPA Release Notes

Oracle Insurance Policy Administration

Oracle Insurance Policy Administration (OIPA) is a next-generation, flexible, rules-based insurance solution for life and annuities that supports policy processing across multiple lines of business. OIPA greatly enhances the ease of use and speed for business analysts, actuaries and others involved in the product configuration process. Robust navigation also makes it easy for users, including CSRs, to locate policy information and drill down into a granular level of customer detail. This allows insurers to respond more rapidly to customer inquiries, reduce call times and improve customer service.

These release notes contain the enhancements made to Oracle Insurance Policy Administration GA release 11.3.1.0.

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Oracle Insurance Policy Administration

This section describes configuration, features and technology specific enhancements for GA release 11.3.1.0. OIPA now supports the following functionality:

Downstream Message Push using the JMS and SOAP Protocols

This new feature is introduced to provide the ability to define event-based messages and push appropriate notifications to the downstream applications on completion of an activity processing. The feature supports to push notifications in all modes of activity processing that OIPA supports. Based on the configuration, the downstream applications can receive messages when the activities are processed either manually, through Data Intake (DI), or Web services, or Cycle through the JMS or SOAP protocols.

Users can configure this feature in Palette without the need for any external files using the newly introduced business rules namely, DownstreamMessagePushDefinition and PushNotifications. The rules can be configured for various activity types to create a business error on an activity, to rollback an activity in case of message push failure, or to continue processing an activity, and deliver appropriate messages to the downstream applications on activity processing for all entities, such as Plan, Policy (Policy document, Policy financial, and so on), Client, Company, and Customer.

To enable this feature, a new PAS property downstream.service.event.modeis introduced to define an event environment for push notifications, which can be used by all the events across the OIPA system.

For more information, refer Downstream MessagePush Overview

The following table describes the business rules and database table changes as part of this enhancement:

Business Rule Changes Database Table Changes

New Rules Added

  • AcOutboundEvent (Admin Console Database)

Enhanced Features

Allow OIPA Users to Navigate off of the Activity Screen while Activity is Processing

Currently, when an activity of a certain transaction type is created in OIPA, it is processed in "Pending" status either through the ActivityDetailScreen, or manually, or batch processing by Cycle Agent. The ActivityDetailScreen allows only one activity to be processed at a given time. Once the activity is in progress, the user interface and navigation are blocked to make further updates or to navigate to other parts of the application to ensure the data integrity. With this, the waiting time of the user is increased in case of complex spawn activities.

With this enhancement, the user (CSR) can transfer the activity processing to the Cycle Agent and is allowed to navigate to other the screens of OIPA and do other work until the processing is completed. This feature is supported for the activity types such as, Type Code 01 - Natural and Type Code 04 - Redo, that are in Pending status. To support this enhancement several new system properties are introduced.

For more information, refer

The following table describes the business rules and database table changes as part of this enhancement:

Business Rule Changes Database Table Changes
None

Access Stack Trace in a Secure Way and Implement User Friendly Error Messages

Currently, stack traces are thrown in OIPA user interface (UI) for all the exceptions that may occur while the system is accessed by different users such as business users and configurors, or technical engineers that operate OIPA.

An initiative in OIPA has begun to review current system generated errors and replace them with user friendly explanations. This project will be completed over several releases. Now, OIPA provides a secure way of accessing stack traces on UI by restricting specific user roles such as business users to view or access the stack trace through security groups.

  • Only Admin or users with specific roles that have security defined are allowed to view and access the stack trace information with possible Error Cause and Fix Tips to debug/troubleshoot various system/configuration/data errors generated during the runtime.
  • With the stack trace access restriction, OIPA displays only user friendly error messages to the business users on any exceptions/errors that occurs while activity processing, or in case of any configuration, system, or data errors.

For more information refer,

The following table describes the business rules and database table changes as part of this enhancement:

Business Rule Changes Database Table Changes
None Tables Modified
  • AsAuthPage
  • AsAuthCompanyPage
  • AsErrorCatalog

Application Roles Tab on ClientRoleScreen

In OIPA, currently the ClientRoleScreen supports three tabs "Policy Roles, Agreement Roles and Class Member Roles," in which the Application Roles(System code '02') are displayed in the Policy Roles tab along with the Policy Roles (System code '01').

With this enhancement, the user can configure a new tab to display the Application Roles (System code '02') on the ClientRoleScreen in a separate tab. Now, the user will be able to easily differentiate between both Policy and Application Roles on the ClientRoleScreen. It avoids the confusion in case an identification number is used for both Policy and Application roles.

For more information, refer Assign Application Roles

The following table describes the business rules and database table changes as part of this enhancement:

Business Rule Changes Database Table Changes

None

Configure External/Deep Links with Allowed Domains

Currently, OIPA supports configurable External/Deep links to access third party client applications such as, Accounting Management Systems, Document Management Systems (DMS), other External Systems or any other web page that operate outside and independent of OIPA.

This enhancement serves as an added layer of security for this feature, when a user wants to configure external links to navigate to a different website or system while working on the OIPA application for data. With this enhancement, the system ensures security by validating the configured sites/URLs in the business rule and allow only approved domains to be configured in Palette. This implementation ensures that the OIPA system adheres to standard security practices by allowing users to access only the secured links from OIPA.

For more information, refer Allowed Domains

The following table describes the business rules and database table changes as part of this enhancement:

Business Rule Changes Database Table Changes
  • ASALLOWEDDOMAIN

Display System Date on OIPA Banner

Currently, the OIPA users are unaware of the current system date until they add an activity. This enhancement allows to display the system date on the OIPA banner on all the screens next to the Environment Name, so that the users of OIPA can view the current system date when they logs on to the system. The system translates and displays the date format (for example, dd/mm/yyyy or mm/dd/yyyy) as per user's locale on the OIPA banner.

A new environment property application.showSystemDate is added to the PAS properties, with Yes/No values. If the property value is set to Yes, when a user logs in to the system, based on the user's locale, the system date is displayed on the OIPA banner.

For more information, refer Display System Date on OIPA Banner

Forward Ports

Pro-rated Allocations Enhancement

Currently, there is no way to Display/Hide original and final fund allocations other than configuring <Allocations> element in the VerificationScreen / ActivityResultsScreen with Yes/No values. With this enhancement, the attribute SHOWORIGINAL accepts a value from a math variable passed through an activity, which defines either to Display/Hide original and final fund allocations in the VerificationScreen/ActivityResultsScreen.

The following table describes the business rules and database table changes as part of this enhancement:

Business Rule Changes Database Table Changes
None

Ability to Return Bill Detail to a Billed Status After a Transition

Currently, the group-billing feature allows OIPA to generate a bill with multiple details through generation business rules attached to multiple activities. This enhancement allows revoking a payment and its subsequent bill detail reconciliations. The user can add an activity at current Effective date (not a payment date) to reverse the effects of the payment. It provides the ability to move the bill detail statuses from RECONCILED to BILLED. The functionality has been expanded to allow updates to any Bill Detail Status through a new tags <UpdateBillDetailStatus> or <UpdateBillDetailStatusCollection>.

The following table describes the business rules and database table changes as part of this enhancement:

Business Rule Changes Database Table Changes

Rules Modified

None

Display MultiField Rows Based on User Interaction on OIPA Screen

Currently, there was no way to define the number of repeating fields in advance or to generate them dynamically that may be needed by the CSRs to enter data on the OIPA screens.

With this enhancement, OIPA has the ability to dynamically display the number of repeating fields, based on evaluated expressions, or a set of variables on the basis of user interaction on OIPA screens in which the Multifields rule is configured. For example, if the user specifies 3 repeated fields needed to enter data, the system dynamically generates and displays the specified number of multifield indices on that particular screen.

The following table describes the business rules and database table changes as part of this enhancement:

Business Rule Changes Database Table Changes

Rules Modified

None

Ability to Add a Phone Record to using Business Rules CreateClients and CreatePhones

Currently, the CreateClients attached business rule is used to add the Clients, Addresses, Agreements and few other details of the clients. This rule is modified to allow the user to add phone numbers and attach them to client or addresses through an activity. In this enhancement, a new attached rule CreatePhones is introduced to add phone numbers to existing clients or addresses and the rule can be overridden at an Activity-Client level.

The following table describes the business rules and database table changes as part of this enhancement:

Business Rule Changes Database Table Changes

New Rules Added

Rules Modified

None

Requirement Security UIP Extension Support

This enhancement enforces the requirement security using the extension in the Requirement Detail Screen. In the Policy Requirement table status column of this screen, the Edit icon on each requirement row, either be enabled or disabled based on the requirement security access.

OIPA Service Layer (REST API)

CRUD APIs to Manage Users and Security Groups - [GET, PUT, POST, DELETE]

This enhancement provides the REST service endpoints for third-party system integrations to manage OIPA Users and Security Groups using CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) operations through Service Layer. It allows the customers to maintain the user access information outside OIPA in different third-party systems, or directories, or repositories. With this enhancement, the OIPA Service Layer enables seamless integration with the third party systems to push the Users and Security Groups information in OIPA security tables.

With this enhancement, the following services are supported Service Layer:

Users:

  • Create a user
  • Deletes a specific user
  • Get a specific user
  • Get all users
  • Update information for a specific user

Service Groups

  • Create one or more Security Groups
  • Delete a specific security group for a user
  • Delete all the Security Groups for a specific user
  • Delete a specific security group
  • Get a specific Security Group
  • Get all Security Groups
  • Get Security Group(s) for a specific user
  • Get the list of users associated with a Security Group

REST Services for OIPA’s SOAP Services using XML or JSON Payloads

The Service Layer implements a REST wrapper around OIPA’s SOAP web services for REST integration. With this enhancement, the users of third party systems can send requests to perform operations such as, create activities / entities, request an exposed computation, or process a policy through these endpoints. The REST wrapper uses the existing SOAP configurations and accepts the Payloads through Service Layer in JSON/XML service requests, and it adds to OIPA’s flexibility to integrate with other systems easily.

With this enhancement, the following services are supported by the Service Layer:

  • FileReceived - The user can send POST this request to insert data, provide quote details and perform illustrations.
  • ExposedComputation - This POST service exposes OIPA's math engine. The user can send this request to perform exposed computation.
  • ProcessPolicy - This PUT service can be sent to process all the pending activities on an existing policy.

For more information on all the aforementioned Service Layer Enhancements, refer to the Service Layer Documentation.

Run Cycle Start / Stop Operations from Admin Console

Currently, Cycle processing is initiated through a command line interface to process various transactions that are configured in OIPA. When activities are processed through command line, the Cycle interface waits for cycle completion before returning control back to the user or client.

Now, this new feature is introduced to provide a user interface for the users to initiate and control the Cycle operations Start/Stop/Pause/Abort the Cycle processing from Admin Console. The user interface is built using the JET Components and the CycleService REST APIs are used as a mode of communication to run and control the processing operations between the Admin Console and Cycle. The cycle processing results are updated to the Admin Console database using JMX Connection.

The CycleService REST APIs enable easier integration with external applications. It implements the SubmitTask web service to process the Cycle steps/Sequences sent in the request. The users can run Cycle either by choosing one or more Cycle steps or Sequence names (as configured in "CycleSequence" Business Rule in Palette) and view the Cycle results (status of activity processing) in the Admin Console user interface.

For more information,

Display Cycle Results in Admin Console

This enhancement provides the ability to monitor the Cycle results of various activities processing in both the textual and graphical formats. The visual indicator allows the user to view each Cycle step (PreClient, Policy etc) that has the number of activities currently running or already processed in different statuses such as "Successfully completed activities / Failed activities / Pending activities " in that Cycle step. A user can apply filters and view the Cycle result details that are presented in a tabular format.

For more information, refer

Audit Logging and Monitoring of REST and SOAP Service Requests through Admin Console

Currently, all the reporting or audit logs of OIPA application access are maintained in Admin Console. This new feature enables the enterprise users to audit all the REST and SOAP service requests that OIPA receives. It provides the ability to track, manage, and audit the access logs of all REST and SOAP service requests (including the internal and external service requests) in Admin Console with minimal effort.

For more information refer,

Technical Enhancements

TomEE Deployment Support

Now, OIPA 11.3.1 can be deployed on Tomcat Enterprise Edition (TomEE-Plume) version 8.0.x