DMN is a modeling language and notation for the precise specification of business decisions and business rules using well-defined tabular formats. This popular standard even includes an interchangeable XML format. However, contrary to XML (eXtensible Markup Language), DMN can hardly be called extensible. Today’s DMN allows a user to define complex problem-specific decision modeling constructs using powerful FEEL boxed expressions (that still are being criticized as too close to programming). But DMN doesn’t specify means for building simple domain-specific decision tables that look very natural for business users and hide complex implementation details that actually may require programming.
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Using Templates to Create Domain-Specific Decision Tables
While DMN-like decision tables are powerful enough to represent business logic for many practical problems, in real-world our customers frequently define new types of decision tables that are specific for their business domains. For example, years ago OpenRules was chosen for a large project that in particular dealt with spatial business rules. Their customers,, suppliers, and operations vary by region, and distance between then affected their decisions. They already used a Geospatial Information System (GIS) in order to explore spatial relationships that leveraged the industry standard Java Topology Suite (JTS) with a powerful Java API.
However, they wanted their business (!) users to natively define and maintain complex spatial rules without becoming experts in specific Java API. This 2014 presentation describes how OpenRules helped this customer to create a Spatial Decision Table template allowing stakeholders with no GIS training to use plain English in familiar Decision Model spreadsheets to define spatially aware business rules without any additional software. Continue reading