New and changed in configuration in 10.0.0

Remove unused locations

In the base configuration, PolicyCenter removes unused locations from policies in a line of business. You can choose to implement your own code that removes unused locations for a line of business.

See also

Configuration changes for quoting and rating performance

Several configuration changes were made for quoting and rating performance.

Incorporating your customizations to QuoteProcess class

Adding two-step quoting to the lines of business in the base configuration required many changes to the QuoteProcess class. In particular, many changes were made to the requestQuote method. This method is now called for requesting a rate in addition to requesting a quote. If you customized the QuoteProcess class, merge your changes with the new class during the upgrade merge process.

PolicyPeriod entity changes

For two-step quoting, added a QuoteMaturityLevel property to the PolicyPeriod entity.

In previous releases, PolicyPeriod.ValidQuote indicated that policy period had a valid quote. With this release, more settings are needed for the quote level. Therefore, the ValidQuote property has been replaced by a new QuoteMaturityLevel typelist with unrated, rated, and quoted typecodes. The PolicyPeriod.ValidQuote property is now virtual. ValidQuote is true when QuoteMaturityLevel is rated or quoted.

New typecodes added to PolicyPeriodStatus typelist

New typecodes have been added to the PolicyPeriodStatus typelist.

For two-step quoting, a new Rated typecode indicates that the policy has been rated. This status is in the Expirable and Open typelist filters.

For asynchronous quoting, a new RateRequested typecode indicates that this policy has been queued to rate asynchronously.

New checking set and blocking point for underwriting issues

Two-step quoting adds a new BlocksRateRelease blocking point to the UWIssueBlockingPoint typelist, and an associated PreRateRelease checking set to the UWIssueCheckingSet typelist.

Changes for parallel rating

Adding parallel rating to this release required changes to the following files, among others:
  • XXRatingEngine
  • XXPolicyLineMethods
  • AbstractParallelRatingEngine

Guidewire Solr Extension updated to Solr 6.6

Guidewire updated the Guidewire Solr Extension version of the Apache Solr free-text search engine to 6.6.

Change to loading Rating Management components

In this release, preload.txt no longer loads Rating Management components on system startup. Now RatebookPrimer.gs in gw.rating.startup loads rate books and the included Rating Management components on system startup. Loading Rating Management components on system startup is enabled by default. You can modify RatebookPrimer.gs to turn off or customize this.

New configuration options for business rules in 10.0.0

The following configurations are new for business rules in PolicyCenter 10.0

New business rule permissions

Guidewire has added the following business rule-related permissions for underwriting rules to file security-config.xml:
  • View underwriting rule
  • Edit underwriting rule
  • Deploy underwriting rule
  • Import underwriting rule
  • Approve underwriting rule
Guidewire now manages the business rule permissions through file security-config.xml.

See the System Administration Guide for more information.

Business rule Lookup expression configuration

New in PolicyCenter 10.0 is the ability to create Lookup expressions in business rules. Guidewire disables the use of Lookup expression in PolicyCenter by default. However, the PolicyCenter BizRulesPlugin implementation class overrides this default, permitting the use of Lookup expressions in PolicyCenter business rules.

See Lookup functions in data lookup tables and Disabling lookup expressions for more information.

Changes to inspections in Guidewire Studio

Guidewire Studio includes multiple changes to the available code inspections, including new inspections and changes to which inspections are enabled by default. These changes could potentially trigger new build errors or warnings in your existing code. Review the enabled inspections listed in Guidewire Studio to familiarize yourself with them, and make any desired changes to the inspections that are enabled or disabled. In many cases, the base Guidewire applications have been updated to conform to the conventions indicated by the inspections.

See also

Product model CodeIdentifier uniqueness

The new StrictProductModelIdUniquenessChecking parameter specifies whether product model code identifier, CodeIdentifier, must be unique for all product model objects. Because the default setting is true, PolicyCenter throws an error if two product model patterns of any type share the same code identifier. For recommendations on how to handle this issue, see StrictProductModelIdUniquenessChecking.

Added configuration parameters

The following configuration parameters have been added in PolicyCenter 10.0.0.

Removed configuration parameters

The following configuration parameters have been removed in PolicyCenter 10.0.0:
  • CheckSpellingOnChange
  • CheckSpellingOnDemand
  • DisableDomainGraphSupport
  • MigrateToLargeIDsAndDatetime2
  • RateTableManagementMemoryRowThreshold

Changes related to PCF files

Themes

The method for changing the appearance and styles of the application has changed.

See also

Dynamic screen layout

In previous versions of Guidewire InsuranceSuite, getting the right screen layout often required you to specify hard-coded pixel sizes in PCF elements. InsuranceSuite 10 uses a more dynamic approach that attempts to automatically size screen elements to fit within the surrounding content. You can also still specify fixed-width layouts, including minimum and maximum sizes.

After you upgrade to InsuranceSuite 10, you may find that pages that once looked fine now require some adjustments due to different font sizes and spacing. When reviewing your pages, follow these guidelines:
  • In most cases, remove hard-coded widths.
  • When you need to limit widths, consider using the minWidth and maxWidth properties on the PCF elements. For example, you can prevent a column that contains long strings from growing too wide, or you can restrict the width of a column that you know will always stay small.
  • When specifying sizes, use the unit em, which scales relative to the current font sizes.
  • Verify that editable list views are displayed properly in edit mode. Columns that are dynamically sized typically grow when they are editable, since the editable control is usually wider than the read-only view.
  • Use new properties to control the appearance of list views. See More control over list view layout.

Icon files and types

The types of icon files and method for specifying them in PCF files has changed.

See also

More control over list view layout

You have more control over the layout and behavior of a list view. Use the new properties stretch, grow, wrap, width, minWidth, and maxWidth to control how a list view and its columns appear on the page.

See also

Dashboards

You can create dashboards, which provide summary information, highlight interesting data, and provide links to more detailed views.

See also

Other PCF changes

The following are changes to the configuration of PCF files:

  • The supported chart types have changed. Radar, Scatter, and XYArea charts are no longer supported. Added the new chart type Donut.
  • You can now set the position of the legend in a chart using the LegendPosition element.

Dynamic screen layout

In previous versions of Guidewire InsuranceSuite, getting the right screen layout often required you to specify hard-coded pixel sizes in PCF elements. InsuranceSuite 10 uses a more dynamic approach that attempts to automatically size screen elements to fit within the surrounding content. You can also still specify fixed-width layouts, including minimum and maximum sizes.

After you upgrade to InsuranceSuite 10, you may find that pages that once looked fine now require some adjustments due to different font sizes and spacing. When reviewing your pages, follow these guidelines:
  • In most cases, remove hard-coded widths.
  • When you need to limit widths, consider using the minWidth and maxWidth properties on the PCF elements. For example, you can prevent a column that contains long strings from growing too wide, or you can restrict the width of a column that you know will always stay small.
  • When specifying sizes, use the unit em, which scales relative to the current font sizes.
  • Verify that editable list views are displayed properly in edit mode. Columns that are dynamically sized typically grow when they are editable, since the editable control is usually wider than the read-only view.
  • Use new properties to control the appearance of list views. See More control over list view layout.

Icon files and types

The types of icon files and method for specifying them in PCF files has changed.

See also

Dashboards

You can create dashboards, which provide summary information, highlight interesting data, and provide links to more detailed views.

See also

Other PCF changes

The following are changes to the configuration of PCF files:

  • The supported chart types have changed. Radar, Scatter, and XYArea charts are no longer supported. Added the new chart type Donut.
  • You can now set the position of the legend in a chart using the LegendPosition element.

Change to exported user data

In 10.0.0, PolicyCenter handles the export of user data from the Administration > Utilities > Export Data screen differently between development and production systems.
Server mode User export data
Development mode The export file contains usernames and the associated passwords in hash code format.
Production mode The export process strips both username and password information from the export file.

Because of this change, it is not possible to import a previously exported data file from a production environment back into PolicyCenter as it does not contain the required username/password data.

Configure environments by specifying multiple values in env attributes

You can now specify multiple values for an env attribute by using a comma-separated list.

The env attribute allows you to switch between configurations for any configuration element that supports the attribute. The configuration elements for which the env attribute allows you to switch between configurations impact the following XML and other configuration files:
  • batch-process-config.xml
  • config.xml
  • database-config.xml
  • messaging-config.xml
  • scheduler-config.xml
  • servlets.xml
  • suite-config.xml
  • work-queue.xml
  • *.gwp
  • *.wsc

A prominent use case of the env attribute is switching URLs based on which environment is active. For example, you can assign production, QA, and development environments to different URLs. A match between the server start environment and an env attribute value determines the URL at which PolicyCenter starts a server. If no match exists, a default env attribute applies to determine the URL.

The new feature allows you to specify multiple values for an env attribute by using a comma-separated list. Designating multiple values for an env attribute eliminates the need for configuration elements that, except for the attribute, are otherwise duplicates. Moreover, the multi- value env attribute reduces the number of configuration elements you must specify by one less the number of env attribute values.

Consider an example of using the multi-value feature of the env attribute. In the Plugins Registry editor, you can set the plugin deployment environment by setting the Environment property. The Environment property lists the deployment environment or environments in which the plugin can be active. You can have several possible deployment environments, such as two test environments and a development environment.

Suppose that you want your plugin to be active in only two of these environments, the two test environments. To effect this change, in the Environment property, specify the test environments by using the following comma-separated list: test1, test2. Responsive to the change, the plugin you are configuring will be active only when the server environment variable has a value identifying one of the test environments—test1 or test2.

See also

New RetryIfInitialConditionsFail parameter in batch-process-config

Guidewire has added a new optional <param> element to file batch-process-config.xml to use in defining a value for the RetryIfInitialConditionsFail parameter. This parameter governs the behavior of a batch process depending on the return value of batch process class method checkInitialConditions. The name of the parameter is case-insensitive.
This parameter takes the following values.
true If the batch process checkInitialConditions method returns false, the batch process does not terminate immediately. Instead, it continues to execute until its component lease expires. This is the batch process default behavior if the attribute is missing from batch-process-config.xml.
false If the checkInitialConditions method returns false, the batch process terminates immediately.

It is also possible to set this parameter individually on a PolicyCenter batch process by including the optional <param> element on the <batch-process> element definition. If you set the RetryIfInitialConditionsFail parameter at the individual batch process level, it overrides any default value for this parameter set at the global level using the root-level <param> element.

See the System Administration Guide for more information.

Externalized server configuration

In Guidewire PolicyCenter 10.0.0, Guidewire provides the means to modify certain configuration files without the necessity to rebuild and redeploy a server WAR or EAR file. This change provides a mechanism that you can use to modify a well-defined portion of the PolicyCenter application configuration from outside the deployment WAR/EAR file.

The change involves inserting configuration placeholders into the selected configuration files. At run time, the server reads the substitution value from an external configuration file rather from the configuration file packaged with the WAR/EAR file. For example, it is possible to insert a placeholder into a PolicyCenter configuration file and then replace that value externally to modify URLs that access integration points.

Configuration files that support value substitution

The following configuration files support substitution:
  • config.xml
  • database-config.xml
  • suite-config.xml
  • scheduler-config.xml
  • messaging-config.xml
  • solrserver-config.xml
  • *.gwp (plugin files)
  • inbound-integration-config.xml

Plugin ExternalConfigurationProviderPlugin

The internal Guidewire Substitutor process uses plugin ExternalConfigurationProviderPlugin to determine the substitution for the configuration placeholders. In the base configuration implementation, this plugin implements public class FileBasedConfigurationProviderWrapper, which contains a single public method:
  • lookupValue(namespace, key)

The namespace value represents the configuration file that contains the substitution, config for file config.xml, for example. The key value represents the substitution value to replace in the configuration file.

Logging substitution information

Guidewire provides information in the application log regarding all configuration substitutions and the initial loading of the ExternalConfigurationProviderPlugin plugin. The logging information is verbose enough to be able to track all steps and problems of any substitution operation.

Guidewire defines substitution-related log messages in file log4j2.xml under the Server.PropertySubstitutor logger.

New gwb build command

New in PolicyCenter 10.0.0 is a gwb build command that you can use to verify your externalized server configuration. Use the following syntax at a command prompt to execute the command:

  • gwb verifyExtConfig

As with all gwb build commands, you must supply the password of an administrative user for the command to execute.

Intentional logging configuration

There are two types of configuration possibilities for PolicyCenter:
  • Enable or disable intentional logging globally for the entire PolicyCenter application cluster
  • Control the individual application elements that PolicyCenter logs during intentional logging

Guidewire abstracts the individual application elements that it logs in intentional logging as ILElement element.

Global configuration

Use IntentionalLoggingEnabled, a static Boolean property on ILElement, to enable or disable intentional logging globally, for example:
ILElement.IntentionalLoggingEnabled = true
ILElement.IntentionalLoggingEnabled = false

Individual element configuration

Use the Boolean Enabled property on specific ILElement elements to enable or disable individual elements in intentional logging, for example: 
(PCProfilerTag.QUOTE_SYNC as ILElement).Enabled  = true

New logging classes

Guidewire provides the following new classes in PolicyCenter 10.0.0 to manage business event markers.
Class Description
PLLoggingMarker Read-only Guidewire class that defines the valid logging categories for business event logging.
LogMessageParams Public class to use in constructing messages for the application log.

User credential masking

In PolicyCenter 10.0.0 it is now possible to mask the input of the user name and password in a command-prompt tool. To do so, insert a dash in the command in place of the actual user name or password, for example:
  • system_tools -ping -user - -password -
Before PolicyCenter executes the tool script, it prompts you to enter the missing information. If you chose to mask the user name and password information:
  • PolicyCenter does not echo the entered user name or password back to the screen.
  • The operating system, either Windows or Linux, does not store the plain text information in the command prompt buffer and command history.