The concept of using rules to control business activities has its roots in technological advancements going back to the 1980s. Over the course of their history, business rules have always been constrained by the capabilities of solutions used to perform data modeling and manage the complexity of these sets of rules.
Today’s business rules engines are nothing like what you could have found 25 years ago—or even five years ago, for that matter. They incorporate machine learning, artificial intelligence, and advances in application development to deliver powerful, flexible solutions that can enforce business rules in virtually any instance, across all industries.
This “new world” of business rules engines delivers capabilities and efficiencies that simply can’t be achieved through manual rule enforcement. Here’s a look at how a new generation of business rules solutions is delivering tangible benefits to forward-thinking organizations.
Automation at Any Scale
When used in combination with a workflow solution, a business rules engine can automate management of tasks and actions to simplify workflow management, optimize interactions, and speed up task and workflow completion.
Business rules make it possible to set up trigger actions or notifications within the construct of a single workflow. Rule sets can be used to manage multiple rule types that might be relevant to any specific action or event. You can also use rules to validate data, flag discrepancies, and even initiate protocols to clean this data and correct errors across any of your integrated systems.
Highly Complex Case Management
Early iterations of business rules software were limited in the amount of complexity they could handle. Rules could be implemented, but there was a ceiling on not only the volume of rules that could be established but also the domain and overlap of those rules.
The next generation of business rules engines has solved these challenges. Even complex business logic involving thousands of different rules can be seamlessly built and managed to ensure compliance with all regulations and business protocols. Because of this performance power, business rules engines can be deployed in healthcare, finance, and other industries that must juggle privacy laws, security regulations, and an intensive network of rules that govern even simple tasks and processes.
Simple, Flexible Design
Software that can manage complex business logic doesn’t require a complicated user experience. Modern business rules engines are designed with the end user in mind, which includes both IT professionals and the department-level employees who use a business rules engine to support their own work. To maximize adoption and engagement with these tools, today’s rules engines prioritize simple, intuitive user interfaces, as well as the ability to adapt business rules over time to keep up with changing business demands, policies, or external regulation.
One challenge of creating a flexible design is the coding required to edit business rules. This simple step requires support from IT professionals, which can create workflow bottlenecks as various instances in an organization await assistance from professionals with coding experience.
Decisions developed its own no-code platform to address this specific challenge in building and maintaining a business rules engine over time. By building elements and offering users drag-and-drop editing capabilities, Decisions enables clients to operate a business rules engine that is as simple as it is comprehensive.
Common Misconceptions of “No-Code” Solutions
For many business professionals, no-code software remains a relative unknown. As a result, many businesses maintain a number of misconceptions about how this software works and how it can help deliver a responsive, powerful business rules solution.
Some of the top myths about no-code software include that it isn’t fast and that it can’t scale. In reality, though, the drag-and-drop development tools enable application development that is 6-10 times faster than traditional, coded development.
And while no-code uses prebuilt elements to offer simple design options, it also allows businesses to make a wide range of customizations, including integrating their own coded elements to achieve a more personalized, branded end user experience. By simplifying the development process, workers can implement changes without overwhelming your IT department, allowing those professionals to focus on other, more pressing matters.
A New Era of Rules Enforcement
A business rules engine gives large and complex organizations the ability to enforce important rules throughout their organization, resulting in streamlined operations that reduce operational waste, adhere to industry-specific regulations, and accelerate project completion.
