Pushing new and updated contact to ContactManager

In the default integration with ContactManager, you can make contact updates on both sides of the integration:

  • You can make contact updates in PolicyCenter and then push the updates to ContactManager.
  • You can make contact updates in ContactManager or in other applications. The integration then pushes updates in other applications to ContactManager. ContactManager broadcasts those updates to the other applications. In the default integration with PolicyCenter, ContactManager is the system of record for contacts. Therefore, PolicyCenter takes all updates coming from ContactManager.

    Although PolicyCenter takes all updates from ContactManager, PolicyCenter may take a different action on the contact. For example, ContactManager deletes a policy address either directly as a contact update or when two contacts are merged. ContactManager pushes that update to PolicyCenter. However, PolicyCenter does not delete that address because it is in use on a policy. PolicyCenter removes the link that connects the contact with ContactManager by removing the AddressBookUID.

  • PolicyCenter does not delete a contact that is in use.

In PolicyCenter, an update made to a policy contact might not be immediately pushed to the Contact entity. In PolicyCenter, the Contact entity is central contact record. PolicyCenter pushes the update to ContactManager only after updating the Contact entity. For example, PolicyCenter does not push a new contact to ContactManager until that contact is associated with an account that has a bound policy. In addition, changes to a policy contact might not be immediately synchronized with the account contact.

All updates are asynchronous. Therefore, there can be conflicts when ContactManager and PolicyCenter update contact information at approximately the same time. Since ContactManager is the system of record for contact information, the ContactManager updates have precedence. If ContactManager cannot make a PolicyCenter contact update, ContactManager notifies PolicyCenter. PolicyCenter then creates an activity for a user to reconcile the change to the contact. The activity text describes the updates that were not made.

See also