InsFocus Insurance Business Intelligence Blog Business announcements, new features & technologies, version releases

Introducing InsFocus BI Version 2.0 – Other Improvements

Hello,

In the two previous blog posts we introduced two major components of InsFocus BI version 2.0 – the all-new Web client and the greatly enhanced insurance data model.

Nevertheless, there are dozens of other small and large improvements to the version 2.0, which expand the system’s functionality, enhances its scalability and simplifies its use. I will talk about those changes in this post.

Report search

This was high on our customers wish list. InsFocus BI, both on Windows and on the Web, now supports searching for reports. Search is done on all sub-categories. Results of search are displayed in a table with the path to each report, its details and the ability to open the report or go to its folder.

Application definitions & log database

In this version we introduced the InsFocus Definitions Database. This database aggregates all application definitions (e.g. users, reports) and states (users connected) into one database. The database replaces the previous XML files. The advantages of the database are:

1. Automatically keeps track of all tables historical changes.
2. User sessions are kept on disk so they are not lost even if the server restarts.
3. The system can now support more scalability and availability in terms of multiple application servers running.

Full-text search for auto-complete filters

Many filters in the input use auto-complete filters, in cases where dimensions have many values and cannot be displayed in lists. Those dimensions may include clients, policy numbers, claimants, etc. When the user starts typing the text, a list of values is loaded from the database. When dealing with large tables containing hundreds of thousands or millions of rows (for example clients table), performance can be an issue. To overcome this problem, we now utilize SQL Server’s full-text search feature to make those searches within fractions of a second.

Announcements / Information mechanism

Two new mechanisms are now available in InsFocus:

1. Information – constant information visible to users on login, such as internal support phone and e-mail.
2. Announcements – announcements visible to users on login, such as new features, system downtime, etc.

Even more

Other improvements that are part of this version include:

1. New System Center reports screen – for easier administration of report libraries.
2. Support for “exclude” restrictions (e.g. users who are NOT allowed to view claims).
3. Report definitions now support “next” periods (e.g. see report for next 1 month).
4. Definition of a default role and a default restriction level.

To download a summary of all changes in version 2.0, click here.

Hanan Taiber
CTO, InsFocus Systems
hanan@insfocus.com

Introducing InsFocus BI Version 2.0 – Data Model

Hello,

Yesterday we introduced InsFocus BI version 2.0, beginning with the brand-new Web client (see our previous blog post).

Another important enhancement in version 2.0 is the new data model, which I’ll introduce in this post.

General

The InsFocus Insurance Data Model is a data warehousing model, built specifically for the world of insurance. This model has been a central part of our system from the early beginning.

In this version, we introduced dozens of improvements to our data model. Some of the improvements are lessons we learned during projects, and some are direct feedback from our clients. This set of changes makes the data model of even greater value to our current and new customers.

What is new in the data model?

We added a lot of new functionality and subject areas to the data model. Some of the changes are design changes, some are ETL changes and some are new items (KPIs) definitions. The data model now contains more than 300 different items, running dozens of different calculation templates.

The additions in the latest version to the data model include:

• Improved item naming – we went over all item texts and improved naming for better clarity and understandability.
• Support for multiple source systems.
• Support for product group risk codes.
• "New/cancelled section" flag for counting new, cancelled, net sections
• Policies in-force count in accounting time base (previously available only in accident/pro-rata time base)
• Item counting days from last outstanding claim estimate change
• Client count in snapshot
• Items of FGU (from ground up) claims incurred for finding claims that rose over a threshold in report period
• Bordereau sums insured for policy transaction list
• Bordereau outstanding value for claim outstanding change list
• Full Storno (reversal) support
• New/renewal policy as a dimension
• Earned adjusted policies / sections in accounting
• Optimized unearned calculation templates to work ~75% faster
  

New report library

The report library is an essential part of our offering. It is supplied with our system and is the base for companies’ analysis. All reports in the library can be fully customized and extended by the clients. The library in this version has been completely re-written, and now contains 172 targeted insurance reports, in the following categories and sub-categories:

• Actuarial
  • Analysis
  • Triangulation
• Audit
  • Exceptions
  • Validations
• Claims
  • Activity
  • Parties
  • Reserving
  • Service
• Financial
  • Billing
  • Profit-loss
• Marketing
  • Channels
  • Other
  • Renewals
  • Sales
• Reinsurance
  • Analysis
  • Exposure
• Underwriting
  • Analysis
  • Clients
  • Pricing

The new InsFocus Report Library

The new data model, complete with the new report library, should help our current and future customers gain even deeper insights into their businesses, and improve their bottom lines.

Hanan Taiber
CTO, InsFocus Systems
hanan@insfocus.com