Application Services Brings the “Chatter” to Cortina

According to my research, “chatter” is slang used by skiers to describe going fast. Having been born and raised in a part of the world where I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen snow, I’ll have to defer to experts like Diego Devalle to enlighten me on whether or not this is true. (If you haven’t already done so, you can read all about his love for skiing and Cortina here.)

So why am I writing about chatter, and what does it have to do with Guidewire? To start, Diego wrote about how Cortina is all about going faster. In addition, my colleague Rob Sloan recently explained how the new capabilities of Guidewire Cloud Infrastructure enable you to go faster.

Guidewire Application Services brings even more speed to the story of Cortina – Guidewire’s latest product release. We have a saying here at Guidewire: “Application Services is where developers live.” Nothing enables your business to go faster than the developers, designers, and engineers who are building the apps, services, and experiences that make your business unique. Their work turns innovation into reality, giving you a competitive advantage.

Application Services provides three core areas of functionality for developers working on Guidewire Cloud Platform:

• Configuration Services that enable developers to rapidly design, build, and perfect products

• Integration Services that enable developers to connect all their applications to Guidewire to create new ecosystems and automate workflows across the whole enterprise

• DevOps Services that enable developers to do all this faster and more efficiently

Here’s what’s new with Cortina for Application Services:

Meet the New “Home” for Guidewire Developers

We’ve introduced a new entry point for Guidewire Cloud. Here, developers and admins have a single screen where they can access all the services behind the scenes. This new Guidewire Cloud Home enables developers to configure solutions outside InsuranceSuite — which means work gets done more quickly and teams can release new enhancements faster.

Integration Services Do More, So You Can Go Faster

For the InsuranceSuite Cloud API, we’ve introduced new endpoints that enable integrations to interact with unverified policy claims, claim and exposure assignments, more service request flows, underwriting activities, out-of-sequence endorsements, producer codes and organizations, and product model definitions including Advanced Product Designer (APD) editions. We’ve also introduced the first publicly accessible API reference starting with the ClaimCenter API, helping developers more easily study the API, and, well, go faster.

Customers participating in the Early Access program were introduced to additional new Integration Services, including a simple user interface that lets developers “push” data and business events from InsuranceSuite to webhook APIs that third-party systems can then access. Think of it as an automation “chain reaction” that enables sophisticated workflows to be automated across your entire ecosystem.

We’re also introducing a new low-code service that helps developers orchestrate all these connections so that building new integrations is less complex and developers can get integration apps to market faster. This service is built on widely adopted and open frameworks, meaning developers will be able to connect Guidewire more easily to just about any application.

Meet GT: Framework – The Test Automation Framework That Simplifies Guidewire Testing

When it comes to speeding up development cycles, Behavior-Driven Development (BDD) has become a key methodology for accelerating the process. This can be enabled through the way test scenarios are written — in a ubiquitous language that both technical and nontechnical team members can easily understand. From subject matter experts to analysts, developers, and quality teams, part of what makes BDD work is clearer communication between teams. Development teams spend less time defining and understanding business requirements because the requirements are written as easy-to-understand test scenarios. GT: Framework provides the specialized tooling needed to implement BDD and, in turn, helps teams accelerate speed-to-market. Built on widely used open-source frameworks and tooling, GT: Framework for Cortina includes:

• GT: UI – End-to-end UI testing for Guidewire applications

• GT: API – End-to-end API testing for Guidewire APIs

As the P&C industry continues to evolve, everyone is looking for more ways to innovate, differentiate, and do it faster. In today’s digital world, these opportunities are created by developers. Your developers. Cortina brings new capabilities, but really it is your developers who will ultimately bring the “chatter” to your business.