Orchestrating rules

In task models, you manage and build the items that comprise the business logic of your application: rule artifacts and ruleflows. Ruleflows orchestrate the execution of rules.

In a task model, you create and edit all the artifacts you need to define your decision: rule artifacts, ruleflows, and variable sets. You can organize and group related artifacts in folders and subfolders.

Rule artifacts

You create rule artifacts to define the decision logic that you want to implement. Two types of rule artifacts are available in task models: business rules and decision tables.
  • Business rules are if-then statements that are written with a syntax close to natural language that can be readily understood by business experts. If-then statements associate a condition (if) with an action (then). When the condition is met, the rule action is triggered. You write rules by using a guided editor that lets you assemble statements and add missing variables.
  • Decision tables represent decision logic as a table where each row corresponds to a business rule. You use the special facilities that are provided by the decision table editor to work with decision tables.

Ruleflows

With ruleflows, you can manage the flow of rule execution within your task model. A task model must contain at least one ruleflow, but can contain more.

Ruleflows are composed of a set of nodes that are used as building blocks:
  • Start nodes and end nodes are graphical markers for the start and the end of the execution flow.
  • Rule task nodes contain sets of business rules and/or decision tables.
  • Action task nodes contain rule action statements.
  • Subflow task nodes reference other ruleflows contained in the same task model.
  • Function task nodes reference other models. The referenced model can be any other model contained in the same decision service.
Ruleflow with one start node, three task nodes and an end node

Transitions connect rule tasks in a ruleflow and define the sequence of the ruleflow from one rule task to another.

Variable sets

Variable sets allow you to group related variables. These variables are internal to the task model and can be referenced in business rules and decision tables.

The variables can also be used as input and output parameters in functions.