Workflow for developing applications

To develop and run a z/OS® application (COBOL or PL/I application) that executes rulesets on zRule Execution Server for z/OS, add API calls to the z/OS application to connect to the server, execute rulesets, and disconnect from the server. Then include an API stub in your load module to resolve the API calls to the external libraries.

The following diagram shows the workflow for developing application for zRule Execution Server for z/OS:

Here are the steps in more detail:

1. Use Rule Designer to create your rule project and business rules from a z/OS data model (COBOL copybook or PL/I include file). Choose the rule engine to build the ruleset.
2. Use a RuleApp to deploy your rules either to zRule Execution Server for z/OS or Rule Execution Server. You can deploy RuleApps from Rule Designer, the Rule Execution Server console, or by using Ant scripts.
3. In your integrated development environment on z/OS, develop or adapt the z/OS client application to call your business rules on zRule Execution Server for z/OS. In your application, include zRule Execution Server for z/OS API calls to connect to a specified server instance and execute the ruleset:
   • HBRCONN to connect to the server
   • HBRRULE to execute the ruleset
   • HBRDISC to disconnect from the server
   Initialize the ruleset parameters that are specified in the rule project to pass the input values to HBRRULE.
4. Your z/OS client application must either statically or dynamically resolve the API calls to the external libraries that contain the zRule Execution Server for z/OS API code. For more information, see Resolving API calls from z/OS clients statically and Resolving API calls from z/OS clients dynamically.