OpenL Tablets: No-code, Open-Source & MS Excel-Driven Rules Engine For Managing Business Rules And Data
Business rules are the foundation of any organization. They define how the business operates, what decisions must be made, and how they are made. Managing business rules can be a complex and time-consuming task, especially as the number of rules grows. That’s where OpenL Tablets Rule Engine comes in. It is a powerful tool for managing business rules to help organizations streamline their operations and make better decisions.
Introduction
Analyst friendly interface
OpenL Tablets is a powerful tool for managing business rules, while Microsoft Excel is a popular spreadsheet application used for data analysis and management. Using these two tools together can help you manage complex business processes and make better decisions. Here are some steps to help you use MS Excel with OpenL Tablets:
- Define your business rules: Before you can use OpenL Tablets with MS Excel, you need to define your business rules. OpenL Tablets supports a wide range of rule types, including decision tables, decision trees, and decision graphs. You can define your rules in OpenL Tablets using a user-friendly interface that does not require any programming knowledge.
- Export your rules to Excel: Once you have defined your rules in OpenL Tablets, you can export them to Excel. OpenL Tablets provides a built-in Excel template that you can use to export your rules. Simply click on the “Export to Excel” button, and your rules will be exported to an Excel file.
- Import your data into Excel: After exporting your rules to Excel, you can import your data into Excel. This will allow you to use your rules to analyze and manage your data. You can import data from a variety of sources, including CSV files, databases, and web services.
- Apply your rules to your data: Once you have imported your data into Excel, you can apply your rules to your data. This will help you make better decisions and manage your business processes more effectively. To apply your rules, you can use Excel’s built-in formulas and functions or create your own.
- Analyze your results: After applying your rules to your data, you can analyze your results. Excel provides a wide range of tools for data analysis, including charts, pivot tables, and conditional formatting. These tools can help you visualize your data and identify trends and patterns.
Get Started
In OpenL Tablets, there are four types of tables
- Decision tables: Decision tables are a set of rules describing decision situations where the state of a number of conditions determines the execution of a set of actions. It is the basic table type used in OpenL Tablets decision-making. Recent experience shows that in 95% of business cases, the very simple logic of decision-making is used. To implement such cases just table. Sometimes you need to enter formulas into Table cells. To do this you need to enter ‘= before the formula (alternatively, OpenL Tablets code can be enclosed by { }). Formulas have access to Rules input parameters. The calculation result type must match the type of the cell.
- Data tables: Data tables are used to define and store data in OpenL Tablets. A data table consists of a set of rows and columns that define the data elements or fields. Each row represents a single record or instance of the data, while each column represents a data element or field. Data tables are used to manage reference data, such as product names, pricing information, or customer information.
- Column match tables have an attached special algorithm (MATCH, SCORE, or WEIGHTED) which denotes how the return value is calculated. Let’s examine each algorithm separately by examples.
- MATCH table is designed to map different conditions to a single return value. It takes an argument from the upper row and matches it against condition values from left to right. If they match, the algorithm returns the corresponding return value. If values do not match, the algorithm switches to the next row.
- SCORE table is designed to calculate the total score — the sum of weighted ratings or scores for all matched cases (independent conditions). It takes an argument from the upper row and matches it against condition values from left to right. When a match is found, the algorithm takes the score value in the corresponding sub-column and multiples it by the weight of that row. The product is added to the resulting sum (total score). After that, the next row is checked. The total score is returned.
- WEIGHTED table is designed to calculate the total score and determine the return value by the calculated score. It combines SCORE and simple MATCH (with 1 condition) algorithms. The result of the SCORE algorithm (total score) is passed to a simple Match algorithm as an input parameter.
- TBasic tables: allows us to implement complex algorithms using several clearly defined structural components (a list of some components is described further below). In other words, TBasic Table is a sequential algorithm in a structured user-friendly manner. It supports basic nested looping and branching (WHILE, IF-ELSE, GOTO), subroutines, and defining and setting variables. Each row represents a line of code, while each column represents a variable or expression. TBasic tables are a powerful tool for creating custom functions and procedures that can be used in business rules.
Setup overview with docker-compose
https://github.com/rajat965ng/openl.tablets/blob/main/docker-compose.yml
- OpenL Tablets Rule Editor: This is the core component of OpenL Tablets that provides a user-friendly interface for defining and editing business rules. It supports different rule types, including decision tables, decision trees, decision graphs, and rules written in natural language.
- OpenL Tablets Rule Execution Server: This component provides a runtime environment for executing business rules. It is designed to be highly scalable and can handle large volumes of rule executions.
- OpenL Tablets Spreadsheet Editor: This is an Excel-like interface that allows users to define and edit business rules in a spreadsheet format. It provides a simple and familiar way to define rules and is ideal for users who are more comfortable working with spreadsheets.
- OpenL Tablets Studio: This is a comprehensive development environment for creating, testing, and deploying business rules. It provides a range of tools for managing rules, including version control, testing, debugging, and deployment.
- OpenL Tablets Decision Services: This is a framework for building and deploying decision services that can be used in enterprise applications. It provides a scalable and efficient way to manage and execute business rules in distributed environments.
- OpenL Tablets Decision Modeling: This component provides a graphical modeling tool for creating decision models. It supports different modeling techniques, such as decision trees and decision tables, and provides a visual way to model and analyze business rules.
Conclusion
In conclusion, OpenL Tablets is a flexible and powerful tool that provides a range of integration options to work with other tools and systems like Web Services, Databases, Excel Sheets, Messaging Queues, and BPMN. This makes it an ideal tool for managing business rules in a variety of contexts, providing the necessary tools and components to manage complex decision rules and reference data. Its flexibility and scalability make it ideal for use in a wide range of industries and applications. Additionally, the integration of OpenL Tablets with MS Excel allows for better management of complex business processes and improved decision-making through the application of defined rules to data and analysis of results. Overall, OpenL Tablets provides a robust solution for managing business rules and data that can help organizations achieve better outcomes.
