About the validation graph

During database commit, PolicyCenter performs validation on the following items:

• Any validatable entity that PolicyCenter updated or inserted into the validation graph.
• Any validatable entity that refers to an entity that PolicyCenter updated, inserted, or removed from the validation graph.

PolicyCenter gathers the entities that reference a changed entity into a virtual graph. This graph maps all the paths from each type of entity to the top-level validatable entities like Account and ProducerCode. PolicyCenter queries these paths in the database or in memory to determine which validatable entities, if any, reference the entity that PolicyCenter inserted, updated, or removed from the validation graph.

PolicyCenter determines the validation graph by traversing the set of foreign keys and arrays that trigger validation. For example, the data model marks the ProducerCodeRoles array on ProducerCode as triggering validation. Therefore, any changes made to a producer code role causes PolicyCenter to validate the producer code as well.

PolicyCenter follows foreign keys and arrays that triggers validation through any links and arrays on the referenced entities down the object tree. For example, you might end up with a path like Policy → Contact → ContactAddress → Address.

PolicyCenter stores this path in reverse in the validation graph. Thus, if an address changes, PolicyCenter traverses the tree in reverse order from address to contact address. It then moves to the policy contact, and finally to policy (Address → ContactAddress → PolicyContact → Policy).