[Enterprise Extensions only]
  Next topic

Business Rule Beans - overview

The business rules defined by the BRBeans framework are organized in a straight-forward manner. Each rule is represented by an entity EJB that is used to persistently store information related to that rule. It is assigned an appropriate rule name, and stored in an appropriate rule folder. It is set up much like the file system on your computer's hard drive, and has many of the same characteristics. For example:

In terms a naming scheme for the folders, it is recommended that the Java package naming convention be adhered to. That is, base the names on the domain name of the organization where the rules are developed. So, ACME's isSeniorCitizen rule's fully-qualified rule name, or full rule name, might be com/acme/ageRules/isSeniorCitizen. In this example, the com/acme path would be used by all rules developed by ACME, and the ageRules folder would be used to separate "age" rules from rules of other kinds. Note that the root folder has no name meaning that fully-qualified path names never start with a '/'.

A fully-qualified rule name consists the following:

This fully-qualified rule name is used by a trigger point to identify the rule that is to be triggered. Note that when there is more than one rule with the same fully-qualified name, all the rules with that name that are currently in effect are triggered, and the results are combined using the combining strategy specified on the trigger point.

A business rule has a start date and an end date (see Rule Attributes) that together define the interval during which the rule is in effect (see Rule States). By default, trigger points will only trigger rules that are currently in effect based on the current date and time when the trigger point is called. This can be overridden by specifying a date on the trigger point. This date is referred to as the As Of date. If no start date is specified, then the rule is not valid, and will not be found by trigger points. Conversely, if no end date is specified, then the rule will never expire. Dates and times with a precision of one second can be assigned using the Rule Management Application.

  Next topic