Rules Overview

In irAuthor, complex business logic is managed as rules grouped together within rule sets. The logic, conditional expressions, and resulting actions authored in rule sets determine the direction and outcome of your rule application.

A rule is a logical condition with associated actions that are executed when the condition evaluates to true. Rules can be nested within other rules and can call other rules by name within their conditions. The basic components of rules are “If Then” statements that result in “Actions”. Rules may be created in a business language syntax, an expression-based syntax, decision tables, or as data parameters.

Powerful Business Language Authoring

InRule’s business language authoring offers a menu-driven approach to rule creation using English- like syntax and point-and-click authoring. This enhanced authoring interface lets users build expressions by selecting choices from drop-down menus, while context-sensitive prompts intelligently display the available and appropriate choices.

Creating Logic with Rules

For script-based rule authoring, there are many constructs and functions provided by InRule to allow the rule author to articulate even the most complex of business logic scenarios. The condition portion of the rule is an expression made up of literals, operators, functions, and named references to other values and rules. InRule has four major rule construction components: a Rule Set, an If/Then/Else Rule, an If/Then Rule and a While Rule.

The following sections cover the various rule construction components within InRule in detail:

• Rule Sets
• Rule Constructs