Since Ehp3, name of FS-ICM ( Incentives and Commissions Management ) was changed to FS-ISF ( Incentives and Sales Force Management ). The core reason behind this name change was the introduction of 2 new modules named as Portfolio Management (PFO) and Credentialing Management (CRD).
In this blog we'll discuss Credentialing Management module of FS-ISF.
In Insurance Industry, many countries have laws related to licensing, qualification, and certification of insurance agents. The law requires Insurance agents to comply with these requirements before they can sell policies and receive commissions on them.
Credentialing Management system of FS-ISF takes care of defining and managing these licensing, certification, qualification requirement for each sales representative and checking if sales representative ( agent ) is entitled for a specific business transaction or not.
Typically there are 3 process which forms the core of CRD ( Credentialing Management ) application:
a) Defining Credentials Types and Attributes:
CRD allows for creation of Credential Types which are required for any business scenario. Example of typical Credential could be: License, Qualification, Certifications, and Participation in Seminars etc.
During Application Modeling of CRD we can create attributes ( known as Credential Description ) for Credential Types. The attribute values stored for these credential types would then be check against the credential values assigned to each sales representative.
For ex: If an Insurance Company requires their agents to have a particular certification so as to receive commissions on their sales, then they can create a credential type as Certification ( CERT ); The attributes can be Certification Name ( CERT_Name ) and Issuing Authority ( ISSUE_INST ).
The values stored against this credential type attributes would then be checked against sales representative credentials during his commission calculation.
Credtype
| CERT_NAME | ISSUE_INST |
CERT | INS21 | AICPCU |
b) Assigning Credentials to Sales Representatives:
Once credential types are created then they can be assigned to Sales Representatives, This part of Assignment of Credentials to BP's ( sales representatives ) is available in CRD application via separate portal role named as Credential Manager. In this portal role the credential manager can assign
credential types to BP's and update them with valid data. Also they can store supporting documents too.
For ex: in above mentioned scenario, we can assign Credential Type 'CERT' to our BP and update it with value INS21.
BP
| CREDTYPE | CERT_NAME | ISSUE_INST |
111 | CERT | INS21 | AICPCU |
c) Credential Check and Notification:
Once the credential types are created, their required values are maintained and Credential Types are assigned to BP's then the last step in process would be credential check. The credentialing check process of CRD is integrated with ICM module. During creation of Commission Case the system makes a call to credentialing system to check if the BP under consideration has the required credentials. If yes, then everything goes smooth and his remuneration is marked for settlement process. If Credentialing Check fails for the BP then Commission System puts a lock on the Remuneration earned by the agent so that it doesn't goes for settlement.
If the Commission agent gets the required credentials at later point of time, then a notification will be triggered which will unlock any remuneration lines which were locked because of this credential type.
This was the simplistic, brief overview of Credentialing Functionality offered in FS-ISF. I'm sure that this will find its use in many industries in coming days as requirement for credential management are common for many industries.
