Rules engine

The Rules engine allows to extend business functionality where the normal configuration via administration mask ends. It provides code snippets which can be executed in critical core functionalities to steer the behavior of the business application. They are based on the DRL (Drools Rules Language) standard, a future-proof and well-documented technology for defining business rules. A wealth of literature and tutorial videos will help you explore the possibilities for designing your rules.

This page shows how to maintain and manage your different rule engine snippets. For learning how to use and how to write snippets read the documentation Rules Engine API

In the rules engine administration you can list all rules snippets and edit them or create new snippets and describe them.

The rules list view

The list view provides you with an overview over all currently registered rules snippets. You can use the table headers to define filters or to change the column width and order. Pressing the column chooser icon will give the possibility to add additional columns, e.g. about the change history.

Overview registered rules snippets

Create / Edit rules snippets

Press the create or edit button. In the upcoming edit mask fill the relevant properties

Input mask to define the rules properties

Rules properties

A rule snippet contains the following information

Name

Defines the label of the location shown to the user in the application

Manual Id

A clear technical name is specified, which should not be changed later. It is uses to address a data pools in other technical modules like reports, email content, tms rules, rest api

Category

Field for free input to create some categorization in case many rules have to be managed

Library

If activated as library, the rules and the functions are fully available everywhere. In this case no assignment to resources, activities or project is necessary. They are automatically assigned for execution. Generally libraries should contain functions for reuse in other rules files rather than rules for execution.

Description

Free space for describing the purpose and function of your rules.

Assignments

Shows to which resources, activities and projects the code snippet is assigned to for execution.

Script

The executable DRL code.

The rules editor

The rules editor is a text editor for DRL files which use the PeakTMS Rules API. It provides the following functionalities

Code editor for DRL files

Syntax highlighting (1)

The Drools rule language keywords are highlighted to allow for more orientation when reading the code.

Autocomplete and context-sensitive auto suggestions (2)

DRL keywords and declared variables are autocompleted for convenient editing. Depending on where in a rule you are the system will provide you with templates or available API methods you can use.

Validate / compile the code snippets (3)

Clicking the validate button to check whether your written rule is valid and compiles. Only rules with valid code can finally be saved.

Open external DRL file (4)

You can open existing .drl files from your system and upload it into PeakTMS for validation and later execution.

Download rules file (5)

The snippet can be downloaded as .drl file for further editing or exchange. The download will contain the exact tact of what is currently the content of the code editor.