Administrative data and the PolicyCenter data model

To import or export data from PolicyCenter, you must understand its data model. In particular, you must understand how PolicyCenter uses each user interface field and how that use maps to the database. To build this understanding, review the Data Dictionary, accessible in the following location in the PolicyCenter installation directory:
  • build/dictionary/data/index.html
The Data Dictionary describes the structure of business objects stored persistently by PolicyCenter, and the dictionary defines the properties and foreign key references for each object. If you change the data model, regenerate the Data Dictionary by using the following command:
  • gwb genDataDictionary

Public ID prefix

Each entity that you import into PolicyCenter requires a unique public ID. This is separate from the system ID that PolicyCenter assigns internally and uses for most system processing. Foreign key references between related objects use this public ID.

Typically, a company imports data from multiple external sources. If you do import data from multiple sources, use a naming convention to generate public IDs for external sources. For example, if you import from two systems (Adminsystem and Salessystem), each source can have a contact entity with ID=5432. Thus, Guidewire recommends that you use the following ID format so that the IDs do not register as duplicates:
  • origin:ID

By using this format, the contact from the first system comes in as adminsystem:5432 and the contact from the second system comes in as salessystem:5432. Thus, there is no risk of duplicate IDs. There is also the benefit of knowing from which system the record originated.

Public IDs need to be unique only within objects of the same type. For example, all policy objects must have a different public ID. However, an account and a policy with the same public ID do not conflict with each other. Public IDs cannot exceed 20 characters in length.

Support for unique public IDs in a development environment

During development and testing of a PolicyCenter configuration, multiple developers can create administrative data in their own PolicyCenter installations. Administrative data includes users, groups, roles and so forth. You combine this data into a single production database at the end of the development cycle.

If you ever want to transfer data from one database to another with the export and import utilities, the two databases must have different public ID prefixes. Set the public ID prefix by modifying the value of the following parameter in config.xml:
  • <param name="PublicIDPrefix" value="pc"/>
PolicyCenter appends this public ID prefix to each administrative entity created in an individual PolicyCenter configuration. Thus, the public ID format becomes the following:
  • {PublicIDPrefix}:{ID}

If you have multiple developers, you must coordinate the public ID prefix so that no public ID prefixes overlap. For example, each engineer can use their initials or computer names as a public id prefix.

You can use the same prefix for multiple development and testing databases if you do not ever transfer data between them.