As OpenRules Decision Manager experiences growing popularity, many potential customers want to develop a POC (Proof of Concept) before committing to our product. Here is our typical POC implementation roadmap:

Here are the implementation steps:

1. You start with defining the scope in plain English.
2. Then you define an initial but expandable enterprise-level Glossary and test-cases (even before we define business rules). These test cases define some input and expected output. You only need a name of your decision service to create a working (!) decision project with stubs instead of rules that produce the expected results.
3. Then you develop the structure of the expandable Rules Repository and define folders and Excel files in which you are going to place the rules (mainly decision tables). Initially, these tables produce the expected results. After every change you test your decision model to make sure that it is still working correctly.
4. You add to the initial decision table conditions, actions, and multiple rules to implement to proper pieces of the decision tables. These decision tables should use the default rules to report all uncovered situations as errors. Again, you test that the modified decision model is still working correctly.
5. You continue to improve your rules and test cases and testing the modified decision model by running it through the OpenRules rule engine. You continue this process until you believe the decision model is well-tested and the entire Business Logic of your POC is implemented correctly.
6. Deploying the decision model as an AWS Lambda function or a RESTful web service
7. Testing your decision service using POSTMAN. In POSTMAN you may use JSON-based test cases automatically produced by OpenRules based on your Excel test cases.

A good example of a POC is the decision model “Patient Therapy” described in this video (start with 10th minute). Our roadmap utilizes the Goal-Oriented Approach to Decision Modeling described in this book. You can look at more samples decision projects to be used as a prototype for your POC.

So, if you want to create your own POC with OpenRules, please send its plain English description and a few test cases with expected results to support@openrules.com. Our Technical Support will help with a quick implementation of your POC following the Steps 2-7.