Chapter 13 – Business Rules

Publisher Summary A business rule is a constraint upon the business that the business puts upon itself (i.e., it is self-inflicted). It clarifies what the business allows and what it prohibits. Another way to express this definition is to say that business rules provide guidance to the business. This chapter surveys the rise of business rules, both as a discipline (just documenting rules is useful to the business) and as a new approach to writing applications (isolating business rules so they can be maintained by businesspeople). Business rules can be extremely effective tools in managing the business once they are captured and made available to businesspeople. Business rules, by their very nature and purpose, are business metadata. The chapter uses one business rule engine product as an example and illustrates some of the features of rule engines. In addition, rule management products are discussed, which link the rules with data element definitions, stewardship information, and so on. A few suggestions are provided in terms of implementation so that the end result will be a 360° view of both business rules and their associated data elements (and vice versa), along with other important business metadata.