User Associations
Overview
User Associations are a relationship between system users and various entities within the system. These are useful for creating lists of entities that are relevant to a user, without a needing to do a proactive search or using an external tracking system. Associations share some similarities with Tasks, but function separately from tasks.
User associations also have Roles which describe the reason for the association.
The following are the types of relationships that can be modelled with user associations:
User Jack Smith is the lead Underwriter for quote 1234
User Sally Jones is one of several Associate Underwriters for quote 4567
User Frank Brown is a Fraud Investigator for claim C9043
User Tina Wilson was a Customer Support Responder for account A8894, but that association is no longer active
In each of these cases, there is a relationship between a single entity and a single user, described by a Role which describes the relationship. Some assignment roles, like Lead Underwriter above, can be made exclusive: only one user may have that role at a time for that entity for these kinds of roles. Others are non-exclusive, and multiple users may be involved having the same role.
Scope
The following entities can have user associations:
Accounts
Quotes
Quick Quotes
Policies
Policy Transactions
Invoices
Configuration
The work management block within configuration contains information about user associations and roles. It might look like this:
{
"workManagement": {
"assignmentRoles": {
"underwriter": {
"appliesTo": [
"quote",
"transaction"
],
"exclusive": false,
"qualification": {}
},
"leadUnderwriter": {
"appliesTo": [
"quote",
"transaction"
],
"exclusive": true,
"qualification": {
"underwriting": "uw4+"
}
},
"claimsAssociate": {
"appliesTo": [ "fnol", "claim" ],
"qualification": {
"claimsAdjuster": "ca2+",
"claimsManager": "cm1+"
}
}
},
"qualifications": {
"underwriting": [ "uw1", "uw2", "uw3", "uw4", "uw5" ],
"claimsAdjuster": [ "ca1", "ca2", "ca3", "ca4" ],
"claimsManager": [ "cm1", "cm2", "cm3" ]
}
}
}
Here, we see that there can be more than one underwriter on a claim or subclaim, but only one leadUnderwriter. Moreover, not just any user can be a lead underwriter; this is reserved for those users designated as having qualification uw4+ or higher. See Role Qualification, below, for more details.
Configuration changes to assignments and qualifications are all considered “safe” and can be deployed without restriction. As with other parts of the configuration, removal of an assignment type or qualification from a configuration set will result in those items being left as-is when it is deployed.
Role Qualification
Assignment roles can be configured as requiring Qualification, which means at least one of the qualifications listed must be possessed by a user to be assigned that role. A + symbol means that that qualification, or one later in the list of qualifications for that qualification type is acceptable.
The test for qualification when there are multiple items listed under qualification is an “OR” test. For example, for the claimsAssociate role above, users with either ca2 (or higher) or cm1 (or higher) will be qualified.
User Association State
Each UserAssociation will have an associationState which describes its status:
active: This is the typical case, and represents the user is currently involved with the entitycompleted: The user’s need to be associated with the entity has passed and so the association no longer is needed (but is maintained for history)unassigned: The association does not have a user, and so is disconnecteddiscarded: The association should no longer be returned when fetching associations for a user or entity
Association History
When an association is made, or unassigned, completed, or uncompleted, this information is stored in the assignment history, whick is retrievable on a user or entity basis.