COIT20235 Business Process Modelling Week 7: Business Process & Rules Repository

Objectives On completion of this module you should be able to: define business rules describe a business rules repository explain the relationship between a business rule engine and BPM examine the relationship of organisational security policy and a BPM repository © Marilyn Wells 2012

Business Rules Definition Business Perspective a business rule is an obligation concerning conduct, action, practice, or procedure within a particular activity or sphere. Note: a business would need business rules to operate even if it did not use software in any form. Information Systems Perspective a business rule is a statement that defines or constrains some aspect of the business.  It is intended to assert business structure, or to control or influence the behaviour of the business. The Business Rules Group (BRG), accessed August 16, 2012, http://www.businessrulesgroup.org/defnbrg.shtml Ask the students to use the above rules and combine them to produce a business rule for business processing. Business rules describe the operations, definitions and constraints that apply within an organisation when attempting to achieve its goals. © Marilyn Wells 2012

Business Rules Specify Checks to be made on relationships in a task dataset and that the relationship conforms to statutory restrictions Values that must be set in an entity record Actions that must be performed Rules may be conditional and specify a condition when the rule is applied © Marilyn Wells 2012

Repository Definition A place or storage where things are kept for safekeeping For example, a library is a repository of books. Purpose of a business rules repository Provides security and integrity for business rule and related information Supports stakeholder’s business rules information needs either directly or indirectly Queries and reports rule re-use, traceability and impact analysis © Marilyn Wells 2012

Business Rules Principles - 1 As businesses change so should be business rules evolve When a business process changes so should the business rule evolve The business rules must be clear and be easily understood by ALL stakeholders A business rule must make sense across the whole organisation Business rules must be able to be explicitly stated © Marilyn Wells 2012

Business Rules Principles - 2 A business rule must mean exactly what the words used to express it mean Business rules must have a practical purpose © Marilyn Wells 2012

Articulate Business Rules Business concepts are ideas for a new product or a new approach using a current product, described with enough information to allow an informed decision to be made. Fact models define shared business concepts Fact models (concept models) explicitly state the process events using business expressions containing nouns and verbs © Marilyn Wells 2012

Business Policies become Business Rules Business policies define critical events in organisational operations Core business rule is developed directly from a business policy Business rules ensure compliance with business policy Note 1: if policy changes, so should the business rules aligned with that policy Note 2: Not all business rules are derived from business policy. Rules might also come from legal or government regulations © Marilyn Wells 2012

Harmon, P., 2007, Business Process Change, Morgan Kaufmann, pp 288 © Marilyn Wells 2012

Business Processes & Business Rules Business processes and business rules are not the same! Business rules do NOT reference business processes or tasks by name, but by the state to be achieved © Marilyn Wells 2012

Relating Business Process Models & Business Rules - 1 Never embed the evaluation criteria of a condition in the condition itself Rather name the conditional using an adjective. For example valid or required for the following example Evaluation criteria for conditionals should be expressed as business rules © Marilyn Wells 2012

Relating Business Process Models & Business Rules - 2 Conditional Flow “if owner approval required” Ask the students for some examples of business rules that that can evaluate the conditional flow on slide 11 Ross, R., G., and Lam, G. S. W, 2011, Building Business Solutions: Business Analysis with Business Rules, Business Rule Solutions, LLC Chapter 6. © Marilyn Wells 2012

Relating Business Process Models & Business Rules - 3 Business processes transform inputs to outputs guidance through policies, standards and business rules Guidance is provided by business rules Knowledge is represented by the business rules © Marilyn Wells 2012

Business Rules and Strategy Harmon, P., 2007, Business Process Change, Morgan Kaufmann, pp 285 © Marilyn Wells 2012

Categories of Business Rules The four categories are: Definitions of business rule The language used to express a business rule is the most basic element of the rule as it describes how people think and talk about things. Facts relating terms to each other The facts within an organisation which relate to each other can be described as the operating structure of an organisation. Constraints (action assertions) This category of business rule prevents an action taking place. For example data may or may not be updated. Derivations Business rules define how knowledge in one form is transformed into other knowledge, and possibly a different form. © Marilyn Wells 2012

Business Rules Engine Software that executes one or more rules in a production environment. Allows operational decisions to be maintained external to the application Engine software, as part of a business rule management system maintains and manages all the rules verifies rule consistency defines relationship between different rules interfaces with application software as required © Marilyn Wells 2012

Workshop Activity Research software vendors and compile a table listing the security features included in their SOA software.  Compare and contrast these features and prepare a brief report for management ranking the vendors from the most secure to the least secure.  Complete the tutorial questions. © Marilyn Wells 2012

Lecture Content Source Ross, R., G., and Lam, G. S. W, 2011, Building Business Solutions: Business Analysis with Business Rules, Business Rule Solutions, LLC. The Business Rules Group, 2000, Defining Business Rules – What are they really?. Accessed 17/8/2012 http://businessrulesgroup.org/first_paper/br01c0.htm Jackson, M., and Twaddle, G., 1999, Business Process Implementation: Building Workflow Systems, Pearson Education Ltd, Harlow Harmon, P., 2007, Business Process Change, Morgan Kaufmann, Burlington © Marilyn Wells 2012

Next Week Implementing Process Management © Marilyn Wells 2012