Conceptually, rules perform three types of discrete roles:
These distinctions are simply conceptual – in fact there is no difference between the rules in syntax or operation. They are a convenient way of thinking about different types of rule operation, and help you to organize your rules for easiest maintenance.
TIP: The physical structure of the rulebase, that is the location of the rules in the rulebase, should reflect the actual structure of the underlying source rules, while accommodating the conceptual division described above.
Once the scope of the rulebase has been determined and documented, you need to create rules documents for the sections of the material that are in scope. One of the primary activities in interpreting source material is to identify the logical foundation blocks in that material – the logical operators and the conditions. Identifying conditions first helps you to break down your rules and further identify logical operators between them.
These source rules need to be transformed into Oracle Policy Modeling format. During this process, the rule text may need to be changed in order to explicitly model relationships between the rules and to adequately handle entities. However, as a general rule, the structure and semantics of the source material should be retained as fully as possible.
Once the source rules are created, the language may still be too complex for an ordinary user. Hence it is often essential to use plain English language to express the same concepts and reuse information wherever possible. This interpretative step is captured as a separate layer to ensure that the source rules are as pure as possible and that the interpretative step is explicitly recorded in the rules.
A typical rulebase modeled solely on source and business rules is not suitable for use as a user-oriented software application. System rules, also known as application rules, are used to provide an additional layer between source rules and user input where the application requires it.
System rules may take a number of forms including:
You can compare the language, structure and logic of your Word rule document with the source material quickly and efficiently using the Compare feature in Word (assuming the source material is also written in Word). For more information, see the Microsoft Word help.