OpenL Tablets

Getting Started: Write Rules

Introduction

The purpose of this tutorial is to help you to get started with OpenL Tablets. This page describes how to start using OpenL Tablets with a simple example.

In the course of this tutorial we will create a simple rule based on existing requirements in Excel file and show how to check that it works.

OpenL Tablets is a business rules management system based on tables presented in Excel documents. Providing business-oriented approach, OpenL Tablets treats business documents containing business logic specifications as executable rules. In a very simplified view, OpenL Tablets extracts rule tables from Excel documents and executes them. The rules can be accessible from different applications. OpenL Tablets tools check all data, syntax and type errors in order to avoid any user mistakes.

OpenL Studio is a web interface application employed by business users and rules experts to view, edit, and manage business rules and rule projects created using OpenL Tablets technology.

OpenL Studio and Excel are used for comfortable work of business analysts and subject matter experts with OpenL Tablets rules allowing them to represent, test, and maintain business logic.

Before we dive in, here are OpenL Tablets basic concepts:

Concept	Description
Rules	In OpenL Tablets, a basic rule is a logical statement consisting of conditions, actions and returned values. If a rule is evaluated and all its conditions are true then the corresponding actions are executed or/and result value is returned to the calling program. Basically, a rule is an IF-THEN statement. There are calculator and workflow (algorithm) rules representations as well.
Tables	Basic information OpenL Tablets deals with, such as rules and data, is presented in tables. OpenL Tablets offers different types of tables for different types of processing. OpenL includes such rule table types as decision tables, lookup tables, decision trees, spreadsheet-like calculators.
Projects	An OpenL Tablets project is a container of all resources required for processing rule related information. Usually, a simple project contains just Excel files with rules.

More details can be found in OpenL Tablets Reference Guide, Chapter 1: Introducing OpenL Tablets

Quick Start

To start working with OpenL Studio you can use our online demo. Please note that it is for demonstration purposes only and all the content is deleted from it once a day.

Use the following links to the applications of our Live Demo:

Demo application	Url
OpenL Studio	http://demo.openl-tablets.org/webstudio
Rule Services	http://demo.openl-tablets.org/webservice
Rule Services client example	http://demo.openl-tablets.org/webservice-client.html

 You can always download and install OpenL Tablets Demo package from Downloads page, Demo (zip) link. To start OpenL Tablets Demo, locate <unzipped Demo package folder>\apache-tomcat-x.x.x\start.cmd file and run it by double-click (or via console window commands). Open the browser and use the following link to Welcome Page of your local OpenL Tablets Demo:

Demo Package Url	http://localhost:8080/

Note: There are some specifics of launching OpenL Tablets Demo under Linux or Mac. A working directory for OpenL Tablets Demo is located <unzipped Demo package folder>\apache-tomcat-x.x.x\openl-demo\. That is why after unzipping OpenL Tablets Demo zip file a user should change access rights to this folder by entering the following command in command line:sudo chmod 775 -R /<unzipped Demo package folder>

For more details on OpenL Tablets Demo you can refer to OpenL Tablets Demo Package Guide.

When you open OpenL Studio you will see OpenL Studio start page at your browser:

Figure 1: OpenL Studio Home page

Rule Creation

OpenL Tablets utilizes Excel concepts of workbooks and worksheets containing rules. Rule project where rules are maintained consists of Excel files that are called modules. Each workbook is comprised of one or more worksheets used to separate information by logical categories (so you’ll understand your rules better). Each worksheet, in turn, is comprised of one or more OpenL tables that represent rules. Workbooks can include rule tables of different types and different underlying logic.

Rules can be created with following tools:

1. OpenL Studio Table Wizards.
2. Microsoft Excel. In this case the rule file should be uploaded in OpenL Studio where it will be validated and properly tested.

In this tutorial we are going to see creation of a rule and its test in Microsoft Excel and then their updating and testing in OpenL Studio. Yet you can create the same rule directly in OpenL Studio using Simple Rules Table Wizard on your own.

Details about creating rules and different rule table types can be found in OpenL Tablets Reference Guide, Creating Tables for OpenL Tablets

Here we are going to create a business rule according to Excel file that contains requirements. The idea is that by slightly modifying original requirements we can create ready-to-execute OpenL rules without any special efforts and few special knowledge.

‘Air Ticket Price’ Rule Creation in Excel

The following example demonstrates how to create a simple rule that determines the air ticket price value depending on a city of departure and a city of destination. For example, if departure city is Chicago and destination city is Madrid, we want our rules to return $900 as an air ticket price.

The business requirements are represented as following Excel table at TicketsPrice.xls file:

Figure 2: A spreadsheet requirements for Air Tickets Price rule

To enable this table as executable rule table all you need to do is just to add several OpenL Tablets instructions:

This table matches Simple Decision Table structure. To instruct OpenL how to treat your rules and to specify that the table is a Simple Decision Table, add a new row just above our requirements table, merge cells in it across the table width and enter corresponding OpenL Tablets instruction with the following content:

SimpleRules Double AirTicketsPrice (String departureCity, String destinationCity)

Figure 3: Adding a table header with OpenL Tablets instructions

Here:

SimpleRules is the keyword identifying a decision table. It instructs OpenL how to process your table.

Double, String are type names specifying value types returned by the rule and input value types respectively. Double stands for a number with float point, String stands for any text input.

AirTicketsPrice is the name of the rule used to reference this table from other rules or your rules-consumer-application.

departureCity and destinationCity are names of input parameters for the rule. You can use these names anywhere in your rule. Depending on the input values, that the user enters, OpenL Tablets selects the result value.

Details on data types can be found in OpenL Tablets Reference Guide, OpenL Tablets Functions and Supported Data Types

Rule Project Creation

Now after we have the rule created and ready to use let’s create a project with just created rules in OpenL Studio. We’ll create a project from Excel file TicketsPrice.xls containing our AirTicketsPrice rule that we prepared in previous step.

To do it:

1. Switch to the Repository Editorby clicking the Repository link.

   

   Figure 4: Repository Editor

   Repository provides the following main features:

   • organizing collaboration work within the company
   • modifying project structure and properties
   • managing project deployments and project revisions
2. Click Create Project button. Create Project from window will appear. Select Excel Files tab.

Figure 5: Create Project from.. window

1. Add and Upload TicketsPrice.xls file.

Figure 6: Upload Excel file

1. In the Project Name field, enter ’Air Ticket Price’ and click Create.

Figure 7: Creating project from Excel file

1. Your new Project Air Ticket Price appears in the Projects tree in ‘Editing’ status. It means that you can change your project and rules in it in Rules Editor.

Figure 8: Created Air Ticket Price project

It’s worth to mention that OpenL Studio allows creating projects with Tutorials and Examples quickly from Create Project dialog.

Editing Rule

1. Switch to the Rules Editor using top level menu and select the created Decision rule from the tree on the left.

Figure 9: Air Tickets Price Decision table in Rules Editor

Rules Editor allows you to browse rule modules (in other words – Excel files in the project), create and modify rules and other rule tables, ad-hoc test rules and create test tables for them. OpenL Tablets verifies syntax and type errors in all tables. Moreover, Rules Editor provides calculation explanation capabilities, enabling expansion of any calculation result and viewing the source rule table for that result so that the user gets full information on how the rule result was calculated.

1. Now you can edit AirTicketsPrice rule directly in OpenL Studio.
2. Click Edit button to edit Decision Table and update ticket price for Atlanta/London.

Figure 10: Air Tickets Price Decision table update

1. Save updated Decision Table.

Alternatively, you can click Open button - the rule file is opened in Excel – and apply all required changes in Excel. Your changes become available in OpenL Studio right upon Excel file saving.
Note: This is valid only when OpenL Studio runs on your machine, if not – use Export and Update buttons to download the file on your machine, edit in Excel and then import the updated file into the project).

Testing Rule

So, what we see is that OpenL Studio doesn’t highlight the rule we created with red and problem pane at the bottom of the page is empty. It means we’ve created the rule correctly.

Now let’s ensure that the rule logic is the proper one.

OpenL Studio has ad hoc testing of rules feature. For that you should click Run button on the menu, input values for test and click Run button in the popup.

Figure 11: Running ad hoc test

The following result will appear:

Figure 12: Results of test run

The second way to test the rule is to create a test table where you define test cases - their input and expected result values. Test table calls the rule for each test case and checks whether the actual returned value matches the expected value or not. Test tables can be created and modified in OpenL Studio or Excel, it’s up to you which option to choose.

Let’s create a test table for our rule in OpenL Studio.

‘Air Ticket Price’ Test Creation in OpenL Studio

To create a table for testing the AirTicketsPrice rule, proceed as follows:

1. Click button Create Test to create a new Test while you view the rule table.

Figure 13: Create Test

1. Test Name is prefilled automatically by the decision table name and word ‘Test’ is added in the end. Click Next.

Figure 14: Create test window

1. Click Save accepting default values of destination where the test table will be placed in.

Figure 15: Select destinationwindow

1. Test Table is created. Now you can edit the table by updating column titles (if needed) and adding test data (as with rule tables, it can be done in OpenL Studio or in Excel file).

Figure 16: Initial Test Table

Editing Test in Excel

1. To edit the test in Excel click and update the table in opened Excel file.

Figure 17: Test Table being updated in Excel file

1. Save changes made in Excel. Your changes become available in OpenL Studio right upon Excel file saving (as we mentioned before, if OpenL Studio doesn’t run on your machine then you need to update the file in OpenL Studio - click Update button and upload updated version of the file).
2. Test Table is refreshed and updated data is displayed in OpenL Studio.

Figure 18: Updated Test Table in OpenL Studio

Editing Test in OpenL Studio

1. Click Edit button to edit the test table one more time but in OpenL Studio.
2. Add test data:
   1. Click on any table cell. Table editor menu becomes enabled.
   2. In Table editor menu select button to insert row before the selected one. Insert two rows.

   

   Figure 19: Table editor menu

   1. Add test data and Save your changes.

   

   Figure 20: Add test data

Test Execution

1. Run the test table. To execute all test cases, click the Run button.

Figure 21: Run Test

1. OpenL Studio will display test results.

Figure 22: Test resultswindow

Failed test cases are marked by the .

Passed test cases are marked by the .

All test cases are passed. Hence, our rule AirTicketsPrice works correctly.

Conclusion

Congratulations, your first rule is created, tested and ready to be used by the consumer-application!

You have created the Rule, which defines the air tickets price value depending on a city of departure and a city of destination. You have also created the Test for your Rule to check correctness of rule logic.

We hope that work with OpenL Tablets was interesting and easy for you.

Now, you can try to create more advanced Rules. To create more advanced rules please follow descriptions in Tutorials.