The Decision Connect capability for IBM ODM is part of the IBM Business Operations Connect concept which includes IBM BPM and ODM.
It provides support and guidance to create decision based Swagger API’s and both provide and consume Managed APIs. It also provides entitlement to use IBM API Connect V5 Essentials as a supporting program to enhance the API capability in IBM ODM.
Finally it is part of the IBM Connect initiative to provide API support to unlock, transform and use the solutions you already have to make your cloud strategy a reality.

When should Decision Connect be used ?

The following are examples of where Decision Connect can be used

• Provide a Central list of Managed Decisions across the business to be easily introspected for asset and governance purposes.
• Cloud based Systems of Engagement require use of ODM based decisions as APIs like Pricing, Eligibility, Compliance
• Cloud based Cognitive Applications or Processes require use of ODM based decisions as API’s like Pricing, Eligibility, Risk or Compliance
• Further enhance existing ODM event based Situation Detection with enriched context via API’s or enable new Situations where API’s provide Cognitive insight into dark data which could not leveraged and used before
• Creation of new composite APIs which include ODM based Decision APIs to expose internally or monetize and expose externally

How can Decision Connect be used to do this ?

ODM and Decision Connect as an API Provider

For decision catalogs and to unlock and exposing decision based API’s to Cloud based Systems of Engagement, Cognitive Solutions, Composite APIs, business decisions running on IBM ODM need to be selected and published as API’s into a Managed API Catalog .
This allows them to be easily introspected.
Where the decisions will be used in Systems of Engagement or Cognitive solutions or Composite APIs provide capabilities for Application Developers to view the inputs and outputs in detail, test the API’s and when an API is chosen, provide a way to subscribe to the API to obtain the correct security, authorization, rate of access so it can be enforced and monitored appropriately.
To learn more please read this article on Using Decision Connect to expose managed decisions apis to Cloud Applications

ODM and Decision Connect as an API Consumer

Where ODM based Situation Detection decisions need to consume API’s to enrich the context around an interaction, ODM Developers require the ability and tools to introspect APIs in an Managed API Catalog to select and use those to provide enrichment to the context in event based pattern detection.
ODM Developers also require a method to subscribe to the API to obtain the correct security, authorization, rate of access so it can be enforced and monitored appropriately.
This can provide improved detection rates using a broader context, or detect new patterns