Overview of contact search

Guidewire core applications store contacts locally, and, if integrated with ContactManager, a core application can also store contacts centrally in the ContactManager database. PolicyCenter and BillingCenter support searching for contacts both locally and in an external contact management application, like ContactManager. ClaimCenter supports searching for contacts only in an external contact management application, like ContactManager.

For example, in ClaimCenter, if you have added a contact to a claim, you can see a list of contacts by navigating to the Parties Involved > Contacts screen. All the contacts on the list are stored locally with the claim. Contacts can also be stored in ContactManager. If you click a contact in the list, you see its detailed information below the list. If the contact is stored in ContactManager, at the top of the Basics card is a message starting with the text This contact is linked to the Address Book.

  • In ClaimCenter, you can search for a contact in the Address Book by clicking the Address Book tab and entering your search criteria. All contact data returned by this search comes from contacts stored in ContactManager. You can also search for contacts when creating existing contacts for claims. For example, with a claim open, you can navigate to the Parties Involved > Contacts screen and click Add Existing Contact.
  • In PolicyCenter, you can search for a contact by clicking the Contact tab and then entering your search criteria. Alternatively, you can click the Search tab menu and choose Contact. Additionally, you can open the Contacts screen for an account or policy and select a contact. Then you can click Add Existing Contact, choose a contact type, and then choose From Address Book to open the contact search screen.
  • In BillingCenter, you can search for a contact by clicking the Search tab and choosing Contacts, and then entering your search criteria. Additionally, if you edit the Contacts screen for an account or policy period, clicking Add Existing Contact opens the contact search screen.

Searching for contacts in PolicyCenter and BillingCenter returns information both about locally stored contacts and about contacts stored in an external contact management system, such as ContactManager. The list of search results has an External field that provides the following information:

  • If the value in this field is Yes, the contact is not local, but is stored in an external contact management system.
  • If the value in this field is No, the contact is stored locally and might also be stored in an external contact management system.

In all cases, searching for contacts returns a subset of information about the contact, which you see listed in the set of returned contacts.

Important: Limiting the fields retrieved by a search improves performance. In the base configuration, ContactManager filters search results to reduce the size of the objects returned to the calling application. To avoid performance issues, ensure that your searches are optimized if possible to return only the parts of objects that you need and not the full objects.

The following topics describe how contact search works between the core applications and ContactManager: