This interface provides functionality to validate an agent's Financial Practice License & Registration details, from an external validating system. This is handled via a real time web service call to the external validating system with agent details and contract information as input to validate the agent’s overall registration status.
The call to the external agent validating system is currently available, for the below mentioned trigger points:
• Trigger 1 - ALIP Contract Role History Page (All Product Types)
• Trigger 2 - ALIP New Business Submission for Deferred Annuity, Universal Life and Term Life Applications
Additional trigger points can be configured at the client level without requiring to make any changes to the integration layer.
PL&R validation can be applied to all Agents and any additional role types that play agent/advisor roles on a contract as mentioned below
• Writing Agent
• Servicing Agent
• Investment Advisory Representative (IAR)
• Registered Investment Advisor (RIA)
The advisor role types are configurable and can be configured at the client level, if needed.
When invoked from the New Businses application processing scenario, the response from interface can be leveraged by ALIP business configuration to generate waivable/non-waivable requirements for the agents that failed validation.
When invoked on the Contract Role change scenario, the response from interface can be leveraged by ALIP business configuration to stop adding the role and/or display the corresponding error message returned from the external service.
The invocation of this interface on Contract Role change can be controlled by a flag – Bypass PL&R Validation. If a client needs to switch off this PL&R validation, then it can be done by switching the flag value via business configuration lookup tables.
| No. | Trigger Point | Agent Validation rule group Call |
| 1 | ALIP Contract Role History Page | INT-Additional Info Page Start Rulegroup |
| 2 | ALIP New Business Submit from UI (on Submit button click) | INT- Agent Validation service (Underwriting) |
| TR ID# | Technical Requirements |
| TR1 | The interface will receive ALIP format XML from the above listed trigger points configured for agent validation. This ALIP XML will be converted to ACORD 22800 format, and sent by the interface to the external system. |
| TR2 | ALIP will call the external validation service with all the agent details mentioned in Request Data Elements. |
| TR3 | External validation service will return back the response with fields mentioned in Response Data Elements. |
| TR4 | The response from external service, will be in ACORD format. This will be converted into ALIP XML and returned by the interface to the trigger point that invoked this interface. |
| TR5 | The expected response time from the external system is 3 seconds or less. If there is no response received in that time, ALIP will retry 3 times before it considers this as an integration failure. |
| TR6 | ALIP can connect to external service using REST or SOAP. For REST, support is provided for OAuth2 authentication |
| BR ID# | Business Requirements |
| BR1 | Agent PL&R Validation Interface will be called from various trigger points on the basis of business rules. This interface will invoke the validation service provided by the external system, to validate the Agent information. |
| BR2 | The response received from the external system is translated and sent back to the invoking trigger point by the interface. Business rules will further interpret this response, to either generate requirements or error messages, depending on whether the trigger is during application submit or during agent role change on the contract. |
| BR3 | If the validating service of the external system is unreachable or any exception is thrown while invoking the service, the interface will log an Integration Failure in the ALIP database. |
. ALIP system sends a PL&R validation request to the ALIP request queue, from the configured trigger points.
. /XML/Trigger/InvokeIntegration/AdditionalProcessingIndicator tag can be leveraged to check if there are any mandatory fields or additional business validations required to be performed before invoking the external service.
. If “AdditionalProcessingIndicator” tag is set to ‘Y”, integration will call the rulegroup “INT-Agent Pre Validation Rule”. Currently, this rule is used to check if the mandatory fields are available. This enables the interface to be generic across multiple external systems, while giving business configuration the capability to check for the mandatory fields or any other validations.
. If “AdditionalProcessingIndicator” tag is set to ‘N”, integration will not perform any additional validations and will proceed with the available information.
. Message from the request queue is routed to the appropriate interface, which translates the message to ACORD 22800 format and invokes external agent validation service.
. The response message returned by the external service, is translated to ALIP format and sent to the invoking trigger point.
. Business configuration will help further translate the response to error messages/requirements, based on the trigger point.
None
. A single producer inquiry (ACORD) request can have validation request for multiple agents. The corresponding response from the external validating system should include the validations for all the agents.
. PL&R validation can be applied to all Agents and any additional role types that play agent/advisor roles.
. This interface is currently enabled and maintained for the below combinations:
• SOAP with namespace, without authentication
• SOAP with namespace, with BASIC Auth
• REST without namespace with Oauth and POST.
This can be further enhanced to work with other combinations, based on client’s requirement.
Connectivity details to the external systems are highlighted below.
• The connection type for REST/SOAP is configurable for Accenture Dev team, and will be a one time setting. Allowed values are REST and SOAP. Connection Type is set as below:
AgentsLicenseValidation.ExternalServiceType=REST
OR
AgentsLicenseValidation.ExternalServiceType=SOAP
• In order to support SOAP connection SOAP Action and URL of external system is required. It is set as below in property file. IntegrationPoint.SOAP.{RequiredDetails}.
AgentsLicenseValidation.SOAP.Auth=None
AgentsLicenseValidation.SOAP.Url=http://vm-int1.navisys.com:8089/mockAgentValidationService/
AgentsLicenseValidation.SOAP.Action=http://www.client.com/ann/FinancialProfessionalManagement/FinancialProfessionalManagement_V1.0.wsdl/ProcessFPLicenseAndTrainingValidationRequest
• In order to support SOAP connection with BASIC auth, SOAP Action and URL of external system is required. It is set as below in property file. IntegrationPoint.SOAP.{RequiredDetails}.
AgentsLicenseValidation.SOAP.Auth=Basic
AgentsLicenseValidation.SOAP.Url=http://vm-int3.navisys.com:8083/mockAgentValidationService/
AgentsLicenseValidation.SOAP.Action=http://www.client.com/ann/FinancialProfessionalManagement/FinancialProfessionalManagement_V1.0.wsdl/ProcessFPLicenseAndTrainingValidationRequest
• REST connection supports OAauth2 authentication as well, if it is not required it can be turned off. If required token generation details will be required as below.
Oauth2Token.AuthParams=dfsfdhhkkj:gygyuujjlkkj (ClientSecretID:Pwd)
Oauth2Token.Url=http://vm-int1.navisys.com:8084/token(Sample URL, needs to be replaced with client token generation url)
Token Generation Currently supports only application/json format. Also Url and credentials will be shared across all the interfaces for a client.
• The generated token can be cached for certain duration as per client’s requirement. Default Property setting for it will be 0 ms. This can be changed to for example 7200ms
tokenTimeToLive=0
• REST connection supports both XML and JSON content type with POST request. REST connection details are defined as below. IntegrationPoint.REST.{RequiredDetails}.
AgentsLicenseValidation.REST.AuthReqd=Yes
AgentsLicenseValidation.REST.AuthType=OAuth
AgentsLicenseValidation.REST.ContentType=XML (or) JSON
AgentsLicenseValidation.REST.Url=http://localhost:8089/annuity/v1/advisors/lookup
AgentsLicenseValidation.REST.RequestType=POST or GET
• In case connection to the external REST and SOAP service fails, API will automatically retry to connect to service. This setting is also configurable as below. Default setting will be 3 retries. These properties will be shared across all the interfaces.
SOAPConfigurableRetryCount=3
SOAPConfigurableBackOffPeriod=0
RESTConfigurableRetryCount=3
RESTConfigurableBackOffPeriod=0
• API provides the ability to connect to extetrnal system using namespace in the payload. If namespace is required to connect to external system below setting is required. If this setting is provided API will apply it to the external service request and remove the same once the external service response is received before passing it for further processing.
AgentsLicenseValidation.Namespace= http://www.client.com/ann/FinancialProfessionalManagement/ProcessFPLicenseAndTrainingValidationResponse_V1.0.xsd
| Success | Success Scenario Description | Message Code | Message Description | Message Type | Additional Comments |
| #1 | Agent Validation Interface executed successfully. | 1 | Success | Informational | The call to the external webservice is successful.Success entry will be logged on the integration history page. |
| Error | Error Scenario Description | Message Description | Message Type | Additional Comments |
| #1 | Agent Validation Interface was not successful due to validation failure of the response received from the external validating webservice. | Internal Error | Fatal | |
| #2 | Agent Validation Interfacewas not successful due to the webservice being down or timing out | Internal Error | NA | |
| #3 | Agent Validation Service was not successful due to the token generation failing for cases where the external system’s webservice uses REST OAuth2 due to below reasonsToken Generation Url is not validClient Credentials are not validRequest body (if mandatory) is not provided. | Internal Error | NA |