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Rules Engine Administration
Installing and enabling
Rules repository
Transferring workflows
Workflow and repository versions
Starting Rules Builder
Creating and exporting rules
Reinitializing regions
Troubleshooting
   

Using Rules Engine

The Rules Engine is an optional feature that enables process designers and business analysts to create and add business rules to workflows. Business rules are associated with the individual steps of a workflow in Process Designer but are created in ILOG JRules, a third party application purchased separately from Process Engine. Each step in a workflow can have multiple rules that execute at different stages of the step. The user specifies when a rule is to execute by setting its type; rules can be set to run Before Execution, On Save, or After Completion.

When a running workflow encounters a rule, Process Engine sends a request to the Rules Engine, also know as the Rules daemon, to execute a rule set. Rules Engine executes the rules in the rule set and returns the results to the Process Engine.

NOTE If the Rules daemon is stopped when a workflow tries to run a rule, the Process Engine executes the Malfunction map. The default behavior for this map is to place the workflow in the Conductor queue. To view or manage items in the Conductor queue use vwtool or the Process Administrator.

NOTE If the Rules Engine interface is disabled, workflows will run but will ignore any rules called by the workflow. See Enable Rules Engine Integration in the Installation Guide for instrustions.

See About Business Rules for more information on using business rules in workflows.

Implement rules functionality in a workflow definition

Use the following general steps to implement rules

  1. In order to create and run workflows that use rules, the Rules Engine interface must be enabled and started (see Installing and enabling the Rules Engine).
  2. Specify data fields and rule sets in a workflow definition. Using Process Designer, a workflow author specifies data fields and rule sets in the workflow properties, then specifies the appropriate rule sets to execute at different stages in one or more steps in the workflow definition. See Workflow Properties - Advanced in online Help for Process Designer.
  3. When the workflow definition is transferred to the Process Engine, the rule sets defined in the workflow definition are transferred to the rules repository, along with all the data fields in the workflow definition. See Transferring workflows to the Rules repository.

  4. Develop the rules in the Rules Engine using data fields defined in the workflow definition. See Creating and exporting rules.