Drools Business Central Workbench, often referred to as Drools Workbench, is an open-source web-based application that serves as a centralized repository and management platform for business rules and decision management solutions. It is part of the Drools project, which is a popular rule engine implemented in Java.
The Drools Business Central Workbench provides a user-friendly interface for business users, developers, and administrators to collaborate on defining and managing business rules, decision tables, and complex event processing (CEP) rules. It offers features such as rule authoring, testing, deployment, and monitoring of rules.
Below is the explanation for terminology used in Business central:
1. Spaces
Spaces are isolated environments that allow users to organize and collaborate on rule-related projects and assets. Spaces provide a means to represent work areas, departments, and divisions. In our situation, since we are focused on the Walmart integration work area, we have designated a space called “walmart-integration” in the sections below to effectively manage and organize our resources.
A Space can hold multiple Projects.
2. Projects
Projects are containers that hold related rule-based assets and resources, and each project belongs to a single Space. They serve as organizational units for managing and developing rule-oriented applications. They provide a structured environment where users can define and store rules, decision tables, data models, and other assets specific to a particular application or business domain. In this document, we have created a project named “items” within the “walmart-integration” space to specifically address the rule creation for the Items domain.
Projects are in fact a Virtual File System based storage, that by default uses GIT as backend.
3. Assets
Assets refer to the individual rule-based components or resources that are created, managed, and stored within projects. Assets encompass various types of artifacts used in rule management, such as business rules, decision tables, data models, processes, functions, and more. They represent the building blocks of rule-based applications.
Business Central Workbench supports various asset types that can be created and managed within projects. Some of the common asset types available are Data object/model, Guided Rule, Decision Table, DRL file, Guided Decision Table, Guided Rule Template, & Test Scenario. Following is the explanation for the asset types applicable or in scope for this document:
- Data object: Assets for defining data structures, objects, and entities used in rule-based applications. Example, you might create a Person object with data fields Name, Address, and Date of Birth to specify personal details for loan application rules.
- Guided Rule: A user-friendly asset type that offers a guided interface to assist business users in defining rules without the need for extensive technical knowledge.
- Test Scenario: The Test Scenario asset type allows users to define and manage test cases for rule-based applications. It provides a structured environment for specifying test inputs, conditions, and expected outputs to validate the behavior and accuracy of rules. Test scenarios help ensure the reliability and correctness of rule execution by simulating different scenarios and evaluating results.
