Example Task Assignment with a Decision Table

Edit online

The following scenario describes an example of configuring a task to obtain its assignment values from a IBM webMethods Rules Development decision table. For implementation information, see Configuring a Task Assignment with a Decision Table. For more information about working with rule projects, see the IBM webMethods BPM Rules Development Help.

Suppose you have a task that processes incoming orders. You want to use a decision table to return assignment values that will:

  • Assign the task to the correct North American, Central American, or South American order desk when the order is less than $10,000.
  • Assign the task to the corresponding Regional Sales Manager if the order is $10,000 or more.

In this case, the task business data contains these fields:

  • TaskOrderRegion— identifies the originating region.
  • TaskOrderAmount— identifies the order amount.

The decision table data model contains these fields:

  • RuleRegion
  • RuleAmount
  • RegionalOrderDesk
  • RegionalSalesManager

The decision table itself looks like this:

The display of the sample rules decision table

The rules in the decision table look for these region conditions:

  • RuleRegion=NorthAmerica
  • RuleRegion=CentralAmerica
  • RuleRegion=SouthAmerica

and for these order amount conditions:

  • RuleAmount<10000
  • RuleAmount>=10000

and define these results:

  • RegionalSalesManager=peter_jones (Note: This is a user ID. You can specify multiple user IDs with a comma-separated list. To assign a task to multiple user IDs, use a String List data type for the assignee field of your IS document type.)
  • RegionalOrderDesk=NA_OrderDesk (Note: This is a role.)
  • RegionalSalesManager=enrico_salazar
  • RegionalOrderDesk=CA_OrderDesk
  • RegionalSalesManager=elena_cortez
  • RegionalOrderDesk=SA_OrderDesk

In your assignment configuration, you map your task info to the decision table data model input elements:

  • RuleRegion=TaskOrderRegion
  • RuleAmount=TaskOrderAmount

For the assignment results, you would select both of the following fields from the decision table data model:

  • RegionalOrderDesk
  • RegionalSalesManager

When the decision table executes, it will examine the region and amount of the order and return an assignment role (for orders under $10,000) or an assignment user ID (for orders of $10,000 or more).