Overview of business rule export and import

The following flow is a typical business rule development lifecycle:

Create and develop the draft business rules on a development server.
Export the business rules to a testing server that replicates the production environment and stage the rules.
After testing, approve the rules on the staging server.
Export the business rules to the actual production server and deploy the rules there.

You use the import and export of business rules to move rules between the multiple servers.

During import, PolicyCenter only brings in rules that are new or have changes on top of existing versions. The version number increases whenever you deploy the rule.

Whenever importing rules from one server environment to another, PolicyCenter takes one of the following actions for each rule:

PolicyCenter	Action
Imports the rule	PolicyCenter imports the rule if any of the following are true: The rule for import is new and does not exist in the importing server environment. The rule for import is an update to an existing rule in the importing server environment.
Does not import the rule	PolicyCenter does not import the rule into the importing server environment if any of the following are true: If there is no difference between the existing rule and the rule for import. If the existing rule is already an update of the rule for import.
Raises a conflict	PolicyCenter raises a conflict if it cannot automatically decide whether to import the rule. This can happen for example, if the existing rule and the rule for import both have updates that conflict. As a concrete example, suppose that you update the rule on the testing server. Then you independently update the rule on the development server. You export the rule from the development server and import it into the testing server. The testing server raises a conflict while trying to import the rule. Within PolicyCenter, you must choose whether to keep the existing rule or take the importing rule. This type of rule conflict can occur also if you update or customize a default business rule and Guidewire later provides an updated version of that rule in an upgrade. In that case, you must choose either to keep one or the other of the updated rules or manage the merge of the two rules.

PolicyCenter

Action

Imports the rule

PolicyCenter imports the rule if any of the following are true:

The rule for import is new and does not exist in the importing server environment.
The rule for import is an update to an existing rule in the importing server environment.

Does not import the rule

PolicyCenter does not import the rule into the importing server environment if any of the following are true:

If there is no difference between the existing rule and the rule for import.
If the existing rule is already an update of the rule for import.

Raises a conflict

PolicyCenter raises a conflict if it cannot automatically decide whether to import the rule. This can happen for example, if the existing rule and the rule for import both have updates that conflict.

As a concrete example, suppose that you update the rule on the testing server. Then you independently update the rule on the development server. You export the rule from the development server and import it into the testing server. The testing server raises a conflict while trying to import the rule. Within PolicyCenter, you must choose whether to keep the existing rule or take the importing rule.

This type of rule conflict can occur also if you update or customize a default business rule and Guidewire later provides an updated version of that rule in an upgrade. In that case, you must choose either to keep one or the other of the updated rules or manage the merge of the two rules.

Rule export does not export utility functions, context objects, or other changes to the business rules plugin. You must propagate changes to Gosu functions or context objects on the development server to the testing and production servers.