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 BlueSource™ Streamlines the Management, Versioning, Publication, Routing and Distribution of Annuity Product Data, Forms and Marketing Materials For decades, Insurance Carriers have struggled with providing their distribution channels and consumers consistent and current information about their annuity products, forms and marketing materials. Traditionally, this effort has consisted of time-consuming updates to, and costly distribution of printed information. More recently however, the financial services industry has moved to electronic distribution of product information via the ACORD Product Profile for Annuity (PPfA) message. Although use of this XML format streamlines the delivery and application of annuity product information significantly, the management and distribution of these electronic files has created different questions for Carriers:
BlueSource™ Features and Functions BlueSource™ Product and Forms Introduction BlueSource™ Business Rules BlueSource™ Rules Engine Blue Frog’s Product Profile Administrator BlueSource™ Product Rules Manager BlueSource™ Product Manager BlueSource™ Publisher BlueSource™ Product Routing & Insurance Data Repository BlueSource™ Subscriber Product Management BlueSource™ Post-Processing BlueSource™ Product Service For More Information about BlueSource™ BlueSource™ Features and Functions BlueSource™ provides the optimal way to introduce and disseminate product information by providing features that insure high-quality data management for both manufactures and distributors. 
BlueSource™ Product and Forms Introduction Product Data may be introduced either via the Blue Frog’s Product Profile Administrator tool or as an ACORD-standard PPfA Message from a Third-Party Source. 
Introduce Product Data as an ACORD XML Message.... 
....Or Enter Data via the User Interface. BlueSource™ Business Rules BlueSource™ Includes multiple business rules libraries that are stored as XML metadata. Storing the business rules as metadata as opposed to hard-coded allows the same rules to be used for many purposes, and provides for fast turnaround as the libraries expand and evolve. 
BlueSource™ Rules Engine 
The Rule Engine applies applicable rules libraries to products sent or uploaded from third-party product management systems, and returns detailed error information for machine or human use.
Blue Frog’s Product Profile Administrator Those who use the Blue Frog’s Product Profile Administrator to manage product rules have a powerful suite of tools available to ensure product data quality. 
BlueSource™ Product Rules Manager The Product Rules Manager allows the user to easily select which business rules libraries to apply to a given set of product data.  BlueSource™ Product Manager The Product Manager Solution provides product data source control, as well as environments for development and pilot testing of product data.  The Rules Engine provides the product data developer with detailed rules-driven guidance via error and warning messages as they enter product profile information.  BlueSource™ Publisher The Product Publisher automatically generates the correct product data content for a selected consumer. The selection is based on Blue Frog product topologies, which are stored as metadata as opposed to hard-coded. BlueSource™ Product Routing & Insurance Data Repository 
Blue Frog has implemented an infrastructure for the internal routing of product data from the carriers to the product data subscribers, which may be order entry systems, third-party entities, etc.
Generic product information (historic and current) is routed the Blue Frog Insurance Data Repository, and subscriber-specific information may be routed to subscriber-specific repositories.
The routing mechanism includes a sophisticated “self healing” process to assure that all published products are in place for the subscriber.BlueSource™ Subscriber Product Management The complex and dynamic nature of annuity product data dictates that the subscriber must be able to easily manage product data through a workflow that includes support for pilot testing and production release of versioned product data.  Blue Frog also provides the subscriber with a product testing manager application to view and manage product data.  In some cases, the distributor/subscriber may introduce more restrictive selling rules that are to be applied to carrier product data. An example may be a universal maximum owner’s age for compliance purposes.  BlueSource includes a utility for a distributor/subscriber to enter and manage more restrictive product selling rules.  BlueSource™ Post-Processing If product data is to be used for order entry or other complex tasks, such as subaccount fund transfer, then additional dynamic processing may be required to apply rules imposed by the distributor, and to eliminate any unnecessary information, such as non-applicable jurisdictional information.  Blue Frog is in the process of patenting the composite product mechanism. BlueSource™ Product Service Finally, the product data is made available to the subscriber, either as batch message or using a request/response Web service, typically as an ACORD XML message.  Summary
In summary, Blue Frog’s BlueSource™ infrastructure provides a comprehensive architecture to assure that product data is provided to the subscriber with a high degree of quality and control, while minimizing the workload on the publisher. For additional information, please contact:
Bradley M. Levine |
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