Creating a decision table

You use the decision table editor to create and work with decision tables and use the special facilities provided.

About this task

Decision tables comprise rows and columns, and each row corresponds to a rule. They are used to represent in tabular form all possible situations that a business decision may encounter, and to specify which action to take in each of these situations.

Procedure

In a diagram, click the decision node that you want to edit and open the Logic tab.
Click the + button and select Decision table.
The decision table creation wizard opens.
Enter a name for the decision table.
Select the criteria that you want to use in the decision table. The criteria that you select define the condition columns of the table.
The list of criteria depends on the inputs of the decision node.
Note: Selecting criteria provides you with a more complete draft of the table, but you can edit it entirely after the table is created.
Click Create.

Results

You can now use the decision table editor to define the condition and action columns for the decision table, and to specify values for each row, that is, for each rule.

For more information about how to build decision tables, see Working with decision tables. The rule language reference manual is available in the Rule language section.

Example

For example, consider a decision that defines the minimum age requirement for renting a car depending on the state where the rental originates.

When you create a table, the table template in the preview only contains an action column. You can generate a table that is closer to the decision logic that you want to express by selecting the input data that the table needs to make the decision.

Here, the input data is the age of the driver and the state where the rental originates. When they are selected in the list of criteria, condition columns are automatically added to the table template.

You can drag column headers to reorganize the order of the condition columns.