What's New in BenefitPoint 2021 R1

We have overhauled the technologies BenefitPoint uses to process web service calls. While our web services were already generally following SOAP 1.2 standards, we will now be doing so more strictly. Before 21R1, some practices that were not fully compliant with SOAP 1.2 standards were still workable. Moving forward, the BenefitPoint API will fully embrace these well-known standards.

Common examples of XML practices that will no longer be acceptable include:

• Out of order tags
• Empty tags
• The nesting of namespaces

Additionally, the responses returned by BenefitPoint may show some small changes such as:

• Dates are now returned with the time zone (as before, the date format will continue to be ISO8601, a standard SOAP format)
  • Dates sent in without a time zone will be assumed to be system time (PST) instead of defaulting to UTC

• Response XMLs will now include a header that wraps around the body (<soapenv:Header>)

Please ensure that your API clients are following SOAP 1.2 standards as closely as possible. You can find in-depth technical details on the standards here: https://www.w3.org/TR/soap12/

For those customers who utilize our API’s, there will be a small change to how enumerated values (i.e., “enums”) are treated. Enumerated values include fields where the API user can submit a value from a set list. For instance, a plan’s origination reason can only be one of New, Renewal, Replacement, or Prospective. Today, when submitting or changing these types of fields during an API call, if an invalid value is submitted, an error is returned. After 21R1, submitting an invalid value will result in the field being set to None Selected. If there is no None Selected option for the field, an error will be returned.

The below is an example from BenefitPoint’s API documentation of a field with enumerated values. Only the values in the list are acceptable.

This change should not affect existing API integrations unless your custom API client allows invalid values to be submitted. When setting these values, it is recommended that API consumers draw valid inputs from a controlled list instead of allowing any kind of freeform input. BenefitPoint development has made plans to address this in the future so that invalid enumerated values will instead evoke an error.

We are continuing to add the most popular rate types for use in BenefitPoint’s web services. The following rate types are now able to be created and updated via the createRate() and updateRate() endpoints:

• Life & AD&D Basic Employee + Dependents Fully Insured

• Voluntary AD&D

• Stop Loss Fully Insured

• Prescription Drug (Carve-out) Fully Insured

• Stop Loss Self Funded

• EAP

• State Disability Per Number of Employees Fully Insured

• MH/SA Fully Insured

• BTA

• HSA

• HRA

• Life & AD&D Supplemental Fully Insured

• Section 125 Premium Only Fully Insured

• Life & AD&D Basic Employee Fully Insured Age Banded

• State Disability Per Covered Payroll Fully Insured

• Life Basic Employee + Dependents Fully Insured

• STD Base Only Per Number of Employees Fully Insured

For optimal performance of the application, we recommend the following as a minimal configuration:

https://support.vertafore.com/

We value your feedback to ensure we are working on what is most important to you. Please use My Vertafore to provide feedback. We appreciate your input, whether positive or negative, on any visible change.