by Robert Eaman | Feb 12, 2021 | All, Automation, Business Rules, Tools
My job on the ROAD Services Team at InRule involves connecting with a variety of InRule users, evaluating their business requirements, and turning those requirements into functional rules in irAuthor. Over the years, I’ve run across a variety of interesting...
by Robert Eaman | Sep 15, 2020 | Business Management, Business Management, Business Rules, Business Rules, Patterns & Practices, Patterns & Practices, Tips & Tricks, Tips & Tricks
In computer terms, what is nothing, and why should you care? Even for rule authors with a development background, a quick review of how InRule handles “nothing” values can be useful for those occasions when you need to know if you have a value. In this post, I’ll...
by Robert Eaman | May 4, 2020 | Business Rules, Business Rules, Patterns & Practices, Patterns & Practices
A couple years ago I wrote a blog post that highlighted an excellent irAuthor method which adds a member to a collection of messages in a ruleset using a Vocabulary template. While that blog post and that pattern is highly useful even to this day, I came across a...
by Robert Eaman | Mar 10, 2020 | All, All, Tips & Tricks, Tips & Tricks, Tools, Tools
In irAuthor, as with most software with structured logic, when you decide to implement a new application or a new addition to an existing application, you must make several decisions: What will my rules do? What are the intended inputs and outputs of these rules? Are...
by Robert Eaman | Nov 5, 2019 | Rule Harvesting, Rule Harvesting
Why Rule Harvesting Isn’t Usually Easy Translating someone’s business logic into functional requirements is never a simple and straightforward effort. Existing business decisions must be reevaluated with an eye towards automation, and there are many common challenges...
by Robert Eaman | Apr 25, 2019 | All, All, Business Rules, Business Rules, Patterns & Practices, Patterns & Practices, Tips & Tricks, Tips & Tricks, Tools, Tools
Testing rules in a rule engine is not quite the same as testing code. Verifying correct behavior and results in simple rule applications can be as simple as a quick glance at irVerify and the Rule Engine Feedback tab. But more complicated rule applications take the...
by Robert Eaman | Apr 3, 2018 | All, All, Business Rules, Business Rules, Tips & Tricks, Tips & Tricks
You’d Like to Say Yes to a Rule Engine: Here’s How to Prepare for Success in Your Implementation It can be exciting to envision the day when the functional business logic currently trapped in your code is now implemented and managed by subject-matter experts (SMEs) in...
by Robert Eaman | Oct 10, 2017 | Business Rules, Business Rules, Rule Harvesting, Rule Harvesting
In the Midwest, the end of summer traditionally represents the “harvest season,” when fully-grown crops are harvested from a farmer’s fields. While the concept of “rule harvesting” borrows metaphorically from the notion of producing...
by Robert Eaman | Aug 15, 2017 | All, All, Business Rules, Business Rules, Patterns & Practices, Patterns & Practices, Process, Process
Beyond the basics of PEMDAS for individual calculations, how does the “order of operations” work in a rule application? Here’s a quick blog post about how to understand order of operations in InRule®. Troubleshooting: Begin at the End The first thing to know about the...
by Robert Eaman | Nov 11, 2016 | All, All, Business Management, Business Management, Business Rules, Business Rules, Rule Harvesting, Rule Harvesting
Computers are useless: they can only give you answers. Questions are what matter. –Pablo Picasso While computers obviously aren’t “useless,” Picasso’s point is a good one: knowing the right questions to ask can often turn out to be of more importance than...
