BusinessRules in SOA - IQA

 Q) What is Business Rule?

It provide a declarative mechanism for defining business rules externally to our application.

 Business Rule is one of components of SOA Suite tool. We use this component to define business policies. Oracle Business Rules allows a business analyst to change policies that are expressed as business rules, with little or no assistance from a programmer.

BRE is designed to automate business rule and policies.

Business Rules are statements that describe business policies. These rules are:

-          Expressed using declarative mechanism.

-          Implemented in an interface-capable business rules engine.

-          Created / Modified by business users /analysts.

Reasons for using Rules:

Agility

"Business analyst can create and modify business rules that are separated from the application 

code using Oracle Business Rules."

  Business users can change business rules without the need to stop business process.

Transparency

  Rules are accessible as business rules are externalized that allows business users to manage business rule directly without involving technical programmers.

Rules are reused across processes and consistent enough as can be modified at one place itself.

Volatility

Frequently changing rules

Impact

Rules having major impact on business.

Ownership

Business parties who own the rules.

Compliance

Regulatory requirements implemented using rules.

Q) What are benefits of Business Rule component?

 Below are the benefits of Business Rule component in SOA Suite.

1. Business Rules are easier to change .i.e. when we need to make the change in business rule then we need not to make changes in code, we need to go one web browser and update the business policies there.

2. Very little or no knowledge required for business user to work on these business rules.

3. Rules are more responsive to business requirements.

4. Rules are easily accessible.

Q) How we can use Business Rules in SOA Composite?

 We can use the Business Rules in SOA composite by following ways.

1. Standalone : We expose Business Rules to client.

2. From BPEL: We invoke Business Rules from BPEL process.

3. From Human Task: We Invoke Business Rules from Human Task component.

Q)What is Fact in Business Rule?

 Fact in Business Rules represent the data or business objects that rules are applied to.

Q) What is Rule in Business Rules?

A rule consists of two parts, an IF part which consists of one or more tests to be applied to fact(s), and a THEN part, which lists the actions to be carried out should the test to evaluate to true.

Q) What is Rule Set?

 As the name implies, it is just a set of one or more related rules that are designed to work together.

Q) What is Dictionary?

 A dictionary is the container of all components that make up a business rule, it holds all the facts, rule sets, and rules for a business rule.

Q)What activity we need to use in BPEL to call Business Rules?

 We use Business Rule activity in BPEL to invoke Business Rules.

Q) What we use in Business Rule when we need to define multiple rules?

 We use Decision table when we need to define multiple rules with corresponding actions in Business Rule component.

Q) What is Tab in Business .rules file?

Facts

 Facts are the objects that rules reason on.

Functions

 A function, in Oracle Business Rules, refers to the standard mathematical functions.

Globals

 A global, in Oracle Business Rules, is similar to a public static variable in Java.

Bucketsets

Bucketsets define the data types of fact properties.

Links

 Links are used to link to a dictionary in the same application or in another application.

Decision Functions

 A Decision Function is a function that is configured decoratively, without using RL Language programming.

Rulesets with Rules and Decision Tables

 A rule set provides a unit of execution for rules and for Decision Tables. A Decision Table provides a mechanism for describing data processing tasks.

BR Concepts

Facts

Are data or BO that rules are applied to

Facts are the objects that rules reason on.

if

If part that consist of one or more tests to be applied to a facts 

and a THEN part that lists the actions to be carried out, should  the test evaluate to true.

Ruleset

is a collection of one or more related rules designed to work together. 

It is a unit of  execution and may be chained.

Dictionary

is container  of all components that build a business rule, that holds all fact types, global 

variable/constants, functions,rulesets and rules.

Bucketsets : 

 A constraints  applied on rules as lists of values, list of range values, or enumerations  that are defined in the rule dictionary.

Bucketsets define the data types of fact properties.

Functions

Decision Function is a service around rules  dictionary that

 A function, in Oracle Business Rules, refers to the standard mathematical functions.

 Manages the rules  engine session
 Execute  rulesets  and returns results.
Reset session

Handles the assertion of input as rule facts.

Global are shared constants or variables defined in the rule dictionary that are accessible to all rules.

A Decision Function is a function that is configured declarative, without using RL Language programming.

RL Functions are used in rules and defined in the rule Dictionary using OBR language.

Globals A global, in Oracle Business Rules, is similar to a public static variable in Java.

Links   Links are used to link to a dictionary in the same application or in another application.