Availability example

For each pattern that supports availability, PolicyCenter creates one condition by default. This condition is available based upon the start effective date set in Product Designer. For an example, navigate to Products > Personal Auto > Availability and view the first condition.

Availability is evaluated by finding the row in the table with the most matching columns and then checking whether the pattern is available or unavailable for that row. In this example, the product is available:

  • To all non-iron ore (NAICS code 212210) companies as of June 1, 2014.
  • To all Colorado companies as of January 1, 2015, even if they are classified as iron-ore.

In this example, an iron ore company in Colorado qualifies for the product beginning on January 1, 2015, as determined by the intersection of the last two availability rows. Because both rows match on the same number of dimensions (columns), the row that decides whether the pattern is available is determined by the precedence attribute on each availability dimension. The precedence attribute ensures that one of the dimensions supersedes other dimensions in the case of a tie. In this example, the State column has a lower precedence value (corresponding to higher precedence) than the Industry Code column. Therefore the product is available after January 1, 2015 without restriction.

To set the precedence attribute, use the Project window in Studio to navigate to configuration > config > lookuptables and open lookuptables.xml. You can examine the contents of this file to determine how the precedence attribute is configured by default. For example, for product lookup, you can examine the following elements:

<LookupTable code="ProductLookup" entityName="ProductLookup" root="PolicyProductRoot">
  <Dimension field="State" valuePath="PolicyProductRoot.State" precedence="0"/>
  <Dimension field="JobType" valuePath="PolicyProductRoot.JobType" precedence="1"/>
  <Dimension field="IndustryCode" valuePath="PolicyProductRoot.Account.IndustryCode" precedence="2"/>
  <DistinguishingField field="ProductCode"/>
</LookupTable>

Notice that the LookupTable element defines a field for every dimension in the availability table together with an associated precedence for that dimension. As PolicyCenter calculates availability, availability dimensions with lower precedence numbers override availability dimensions with higher precedence numbers.