UK Life and Pensions

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[edit] Instructions for using the Application

[edit] Selecting a Customer

On starting the application you are shown this screen. It represents your own back office application, providing you with access to information about your own customers.

In a real application it is likely that the adviser would be presented with a list of the customers they are going to see in the next day or so.

Here you may search for a customer either by entering a unique reference, or by searching for a particular name.

• The Customer Ref field is already selected. To input a value:
  • Click once on the round button at the centre of the arrow buttons just above the numeric keypad.
  • Now type cust1 into the field and click on the button immediately beneath the word "OK", to the right of the arrow keys. NB do not click directly on the word OK, as this will throw you right out of the form. This is due to a bug in Sun's emulator. We are working on a fix!
• You are returned to the form, and the trigger labelled "Find" has focus.
• To carry out a search for the customer click the round button again.

[edit] Select the Pension Policy

The server now returns the details for cust1, including a rather unflattering image to help you recognise them.

There are three tabs of information to see at this point. The last is the one we are interested in.

• To select the "Policies" tab click on the Right Arrow button three times.
• Click on the round button to navigate to the Policies tab.
• You are presented with a drop-down list of pension policies for Mr Willy Wonka.
  • To select the list, click on the Right Arrow button once.
  • To open the list click on the round button once.
  • There is only one value. Another single click on the round button will select the pension policy.
• Focus now moves to the "Retrieve" button. A single click of the round button will activate it.

[edit] Viewing Pension Policy Details

You have now simulated a call to a service hosted by the pension company. It returns the latest information for your customer's pension policy, using the UK industry standard message. This is rendered directly by the application. We have been somewhat selective with displaying data, focusing on fund and asset valuations. In a real application more or less data can be displayed as appropriate.

Please explore the data, though we will just draw attention to a couple of points:

• The Strategy and Valuation tabs both have sub-tabs. This is okay, but perhaps not the most efficient use of limited screen real-estate. We will explore alternatives in the near future.
• We have added some graphs dynamically generated from the data. These are under Strategy/Funds and Valuations/Funds. It is worth giving thought to the best ways of presenting information to users; the raw numbers are not always the most useful representation.

[edit] Conclusions

Building this application was certainly made much easier by being able to use the appropriate Origo standards. We reused their data structures directly in the application, which saved a huge amount of time and effort for us.

The application itself feels both usable and useful, and hopefully gives a good indication of the kind of functionality that could be provided on such a restricted platform. For example, a service that provides notifications of progress for a client applications could be built in a similar fashion.

[edit] Next Steps

The obvious next step is to run the same application in our browser component to see how it behaves on a larger device such as a tablet or conventional PC (this has been done, see: The Multi-Modal Web App.).

We may also add functionality to allow the user to change the composition of their pension funds, etc.

[edit] PicoForms in the Industry

The UK Life and Pensions Industry is data driven. Interaction between people and data is key; people are responsible for providing most of the data the Industry relies on and people are responsible for interpreting and using much of it.

Traditionally people and data mix through:

• The medium of paper: in forms and letters.
• The medium of sound, by talking to each other.

Businesses are engaged in an attempt to dramatically reduce the amount of paper-based and person-to-person information exchange generated by the processes of selling to and looking after its customers.

They need to do this in order to:

• Reduce business costs, as profit margins remain tight.
• To improve, or at least maintain competitiveness, by improving the level of service offered to both the people who sell life and pension products and the customers who buy them.

[edit] The Sales Process

The sales process for life assurance and pension products is driven by an exchange of data between the potential customer and the life company. Each provides the other with increasingly detailed information until:

• The life company is able to determine:
  • Whether or not to offer a product to the customer.
  • If so at what terms.
• The customer decides whether or not to purchase the product on offer.

It is normal for structured data to be collected from customers through the use of paper forms. Information flowing the other way ranges from relatively unstructured marketing material to very structured and detailed information explaining exactly what a customer has purchased. An intermediary, known as a financial adviser (either independent or an agent of a life company), is normally on hand to manage the collection and interpretation of information for the customer.

During the purchase cycle there may be supplementary information exchanges between life company and customer and/or financial adviser to handle:

• Errors caused by missing or inaccurate data
• Special conditions where more information is required (e.g. if the customer has revealed significant ill health).
• To inform client/financial adviser of progress in processing a purchase request.

These exchanges are traditionally handled by a mix of verbal and written communication. These are time consuming, error prone and consequently expensive.

[edit] Electronic Information Exchange

The UK Life and Pensions Industry has put considerable effort over the last ten years into developing standard, electronic messages designed to replace the paper-based and verbal communication previously used to drive the sales process.

The industry funds the not-for-profit organisation Origo, to develop these standards. There is now a range of standards available that cover everything from request for quote through to providing up-to-date information on in-force policies. Origo data standards should provide an excellent starting point for the development of computer applications to support key business processes.

[edit] Requirements For Data Capture

We will now take a closer look at requirements for data capture and exchange across the sales process to see in more detail how well PicoForms' tools fit.

[edit] The Financial Adviser

In the less paper-dependent world envisaged by the Life And Pensions Industry it is the adviser who will be responsible for capturing data in an electronic format and transmitting it to the life company. For advisers to want this to happen, data capture and exchange must not just fit in with adviser business processes, but enhance them significantly. This is where PicoForms can help.

Requirement	PicoForms' Solution
Mobility Advisers are often mobile. They might meet clients in an office, in the client's home or even some neutral venue convenient to both.	Our solution can be deployed as applications Web browsers running on a laptop, tablet PC, PDA or mobile phone. It can be deployed over conventional telephony services to provide voice-based services.
Flexibility Advisers very often only capture the data they absolutely have to when with a customer, and complete forms when back in the office.	Applications can run on or off-line as needed. Data capture and checking can be begun in the field and completed in the office.
Data reuse A lot of basic data is collected and kept up-to-date by advisers when they meet a customer. This often has to be input into life company forms over and over again.	Data can be imported seamlessly into applications from existing, electronic sources. This saves time and improves accuracy and consistency.
Joined up business processes An adviser should be able to move from a request for a quotation to the acceptance of an application by the life company in one seemless, error free and speedy process, whilst still with the customer.	PicoForms provides an ideal platform for bringing together separate, electronic services as sophisticated, functionally rich applications.
Accessibility Adviser's may need to access applications in a number of ways, depending on circumstances. For example, if they are visually impaired, or just don't have access to the Web for some reason.	Our products are expressly designed with adaptive technology in mind. Applications can be heard as well as they can be seen, on a computer or even directly over the telephone. There are also many possibilities for visual presentation, without having to rewrite application logic.

[edit] The Life Company

In the UK it tends to be the life companies that have built electronic data exchange infrastructure, so their requirements also encompass the roles of development and maintenance.

PicoForms' platform is based on the same technology used in Origo standards, so the standards form a large, reusable part of the code used in applications.

Requirement	PicoForms' Solution
Cost effectiveness Developing applications to facilitate data capture and exchange has traditionally been slow and expensive.	PicoForms' products are built to take advantage of the latest Web technologies that make code quicker to write and simple to maintain. Regular application updates, e.g. to reflect product changes, are normally applied automatically, without the need for expensive and time consuming developer involvement.
Future-proofing Data capture applications are strategic assets. Whilst they must be adaptable, it is also important for them to have a long shelf-life.	Our products are built on W3C standards. Your applications will run in any other product that adheres to the same standards. You are not tied to PicoForms. Future migration needs are not compromised.
Compatibility Many companies already offer on-line applications for advisers, including services to provide information, such as valuations and application progress updates. These are mostly built over the first generation of Web standards. New services, or the repackaging of existing services must be compatible with what is already deployed.	PicoForms products are not only compatible with the new generation of Web technologies developed by the W3C, but also fully backwardly compatible with the first generation Web. Our products offer an effective migration strategy from the old to the enhanced functionality of the new.
Quality Many life companies have expensive problems with the completeness and accuracy of data supplied on paper forms.	Our products allow fine-grained validation and control of data, using Origo data standards and your own business rules. This makes data checking easier to implement, and so much more likely to work. Our usability features also make it easier for the user to provide accurate data, and also to reuse data that has already been captured, thus ensuring speed of input and consistency.
Usability Electronic data collection and exchange only work if people are happy and able to use applications provided.	The standards on which we have built our products have usability and accessibility at their heart. Whilst it is certainly still possible to produce bad applications, it is much less effort to provide a positive user experience, on the desktop, the mobile device, or even over the telephone.
Standard The Industry has invested in building standard definitions of important data exchanges. Using these standards lowers costs by increases re-usability and uptake of electronic services.	PicoForms' products place Origo standards themselves right into your applications. So not only can you guarantee compliance, but a great deal of the code you normally need to write to implement the standards is now redundant. The standards literally become part of your code base, thus giving an excellent return on investment in standards.
Portable Currently the same application must often be redeveloped for every channel and deployment platform.	Applications developed to work with PicoForms' product range can be deployed to a Web browser on a PC, laptop or tablet PC; a PDA or mobile phone, and even to voice-based telephony systems. In each case the core application logic remains exactly the same, only the presentation styling may require adaptation.

[edit] Conclusions

By bringing together technology standards developed by the W3C and industry standards developed by Origo PicoForms has created a compelling package for the UK Life and Pension Industry.

Clearly there is a strong possibility that the same can be done for other verticals, and we will be exploring other avenues in future articles.