Configuring notes and note templates

Note plugin interfaces

There are two plugin interfaces associated with notes. They do not affect the primary use of notes, which are stored in the database and do not require an external system, such as a document management system. They are related to note templates, which can be a customized method of creating notes. The plugin interfaces are:

INoteTemplateSource – Retrieves note templates—INoteTemplateDescriptor objects—that are used to help create notes. The default implementation is gw.plugin.note.impl.LocalNoteTemplateSource. This Gosu class retrieves templates from the server file system, but can also be customized to get them from a document management system.
INoteTemplateSerializer – Customizes reading and writing of INoteTemplateDescriptor objects.

Note fields

Notes and note templates have a set of fields, also called properties. PolicyCenter uses these fields to attach the notes to various policy entities and to search for notes and note templates.

The following table describes the fields of a Note that are visible in PolicyCenter screens.

Attribute Name	Definition of Attribute	How Set	Search for Note?	Editable?
`Author`	Logged-in user who wrote the note	By PolicyCenter	yes	no
`Body`	Contents, the text of the note	By author in editor	yes - any string	yes
`AuthoringDate`	Date the note was originally written	By PolicyCenter	yes - and by range	no
`NoteRelatedTo`	Must exist and be unique	By author in editor	yes	yes
`SecurityType`	Value from the `NoteSecurityType` typelist	By author in editor	no	yes
`Topic`	Value from the `NoteTopicType` typelist	By author in editor or by template	yes	yes
`Subject`	Defined in the template and given to its notes	By author in editor or by template	no	yes

The author, body, date, related to, confidential, and security type are fields unique to notes and are not a part of note templates.

Security type is the Security Level in the user interface.

The following fields are used in note templates. The first two are applied by the note template to a note created from it.

Field Name	Definition of Field	Search for Template?	Search for Note?	Editable in Note?
`Subject`	The subject of the template and of notes created from it.	no	no	yes
`Topic`	The topic of the template and of notes created from it. A typecode of the `NoteTopicType` typelist.	yes	yes	yes
`Type`	A typecode of the `NoteType` typelist, such as diagram, action plan, or status report. You can add others.	yes	no	no

Creating a note template

A note template is a pair of Gosu files, a .gosu file and a .gosu.descriptor file. To access the files, open Guidewire Studio and navigate in the Project window to configuration > config > resources > notetemplates.

The easiest way to create a new template is to modify copies of two existing files for one of these templates. Then save the two files with new, matching names in the same location as the other note template files.

Note template files

A note template consists of two separate files:

A descriptor file with a name ending in .gosu.descriptor. The file contains metadata about the template.
For example, ActivityActionPlan.gosu.descriptor.
A template file with a name ending in .gosu. This file contains the text for the body of the note.
For example, ActivityActionPlan.gosu.

In the base configuration, a note descriptor file has the following fields.

Field	Description
`name`	A `String` value that is a unique, readable name for the template. Can be used in template search.
`type`	A `String` value that is the type of the note, a string that matches a typecode from the `NoteType` typelist. Can be used in template search. Base configuration values include `actionplan`, `diagram`, `interviewreport`, and `statusreport`.
`lob`	The product that the note is associated with. For example, Commercial Package or Workers’ Compensation. Can be used in template search.
`keywords`	A `String` value, a comma-separated list of keywords that can be used to search for the template.
`topic`	The topic of the note, a `String` value that matches a typecode from the `NoteTopicType` typelist. Can be used in template search.
`subject`	The subject of the notes created with this template, a `String` value.
`body`	A `String` value that is the name of the Gosu file containing the body of the note. Be sure to include the `.gosu` extension.