Rule Validation Video

The Rule Manager will soon be enhanced with a new feature that allows the Interactive Rule Map as a Rule Debugger. See a video here: Rule Validation Video. It almost became an action movie :).

This is part one of providing Rule Validation (that is: testing your rules) with the Rule Manager.


Color legend for Rule:

• Green: Rule fired
• Red: Rule failed
• Orange: Rule is pending

Color legend for Term:

• Green: Term is assigned
• Orange: Term is unknown
  
  

How it works? We use the backward chaining algorithm to resolve a goal. The user can select any business term as a goal.

• When the user clicks resolve, the inference engine will try to resolve this goal by executing the rules.
• When a term is encountered that can not be derived from other rules, an ask dialog will be shown to the user. The user value will be stored into an internal table, so consecutive runs will first use this table before asking the user. Internally the rule manager supports defining restrictions on business terms. This allows the inference engine to show input options when asking a value for a term.

About the user data value table:

• The table can be cleared by clicking on 'Reset All Values' from the context menu.
• You can change the value of one particular term by selecting the 'Reset Term' on the Term context menu.
• Note: also business terms that are inferred by the inference engine can be overwritten by the user. Be careful with this because this would skip the backward-chaining of this rule branch.

13 years ago

Found my old research paper from 1994 "An object-oriented approach to knowledge representation in a biomedical domain". Looked like they scanned the contents of the original paper.

It's pretty outdated. Note that this was before the existence of Java or C#, but there was good old Smalltalk.

One thing is still relevant. The construction of a hybrid knowledge based system. Translated to 2007; the semantic web 3.0. Defining a clear terminological component (vocabulary) in order to make assertions from basic facts.

Importing Biztalk rules and export to Windows Workflow Foundation

The new Rule Manager (version 1.4.0.50) is released!



With just a few mouse clicks, the Rule Manager from Acumen Business imports a BizTalk rule policy and export the rules to the Windows Workflow Foundation format.



The export generates a complete Visual studio solutions. This includes the .rules file, the Business Object model and the code that calls Windows Worklow Engine.

And voila, here is the results of a CarDiagnosis example with the recommendation that I have to get 'Fuel'

It's just a console output, but you hopefully get the idea. It's an executable solution that can be incorporated into the IT infrastructure.

I don't think we can make it any easier.

What you need:

• Microsoft BizTalk 2006
• .NET 3.0 (this includes Windows Workflow Foundation)
• Acumen's Rule Manager with the BizTalk and Windows Workflow Foundation adapters

What you get:

• Your BizTalk rule policy converted to Windows Workflow Foundation. The best part is that the Windows Workflow Foundation is free and is included in the .NET 3.0 framework.

Business Rules for the Windows Workflow Foundation

If you like to see the latest version of the RuleManager with support for Microsoft Windows Workflow Foundation, you can request to see the product in action at the Business Rules Forum. Fill in the form here.



The image shows the imported DiscountRuleSet from the Microsoft Windows Worklow Foundation advanced policy example.