Overview of SAP NetWeaver Business Rules Management with SAP NetWeaver Composition Environment

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Overview of SAP NetWeaver

Business Rules Management with

SAP NetWeaver Composition

Environment

Michael Hill

Product Manager

SAP Technology Group

Market Development and Enablement

SAP Labs, LLC

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Disclaimer

This presentation outlines our general product direction and should not be

relied on in making a purchase decision. This presentation is not subject to

your license agreement or any other agreement with SAP. SAP has no

obligation to pursue any course of business outlined in this presentation or to

develop or release any functionality mentioned in this presentation. This

presentation and SAP's strategy and possible future developments are

subject to change and may be changed by SAP at any time for any reason

without notice. This document is provided without a warranty of any kind,

either express or implied, including but not limited to, the implied warranties

of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. SAP

assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions in this document, except if

such damages were caused by SAP intentionally or grossly negligent.

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Agenda

1. Introduction

1.1. What are Business Rules?

1.2. Enforcing Business Rules

1.3. Typical Customer Challenges with Conventional Methods

1.4. Solving these Challenges with Business Rules Management

1.5. BRM in the Real World – A Real World Case Study

2. SAP NetWeaver Business Rules Management Offers

2.1. Easier implementation of Complex Business Rules

2.2 Tight integration with BPM

2.3 Reusable Rules!

3. SAP NetWeaver BRM as Technology

3.1 Building Blocks

3.2 Business Rules & BPM – A Deep Dive

4. Demo

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What are Business Rules?

Business Rules represent the constraints on behavior of the business

The policies and guidelines which drive business decisions

Business Rules are owned by LoB and not by IT.

Example - Interest Rate Calculation

Example for IT Rules

Database Constraints

Object Model Rules

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Examples from Across Industries

Telecom

Content Based Customizable Billing

Insurance

New Products, Claims Settlement, Agent Commissions

Mortgage

Eligibility, Pricing, Underwriting

Logistics & Shipping

Parts Management, Duties Calculations, Pricing Calculations

Public Sector

Tax Calculations, Customs Duties, Land Regulations, License Fee Calculations

Stock Exchanges

Alert Engines

Education

Fee Calculations, Course Selections

CRM

Quotations, Campaigns, Discounts, Recommendations, Pricing, Cross Sell

HealthCare

Claims, Patient Monitoring, Fraud Detection

Banking

Relationship based Pricing, Scorecards, Credit Decisioning

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Types of Business Rules – A Compilation

Validation Rules

Claim Validation, Loan Application Validation

Rate Calculation Rules

Computation of Taxes, Interest Rates, Sales Commissions, Premiums,

Bonuses, Duties

Decision Rules

Is Applicant Eligible for a Loan Product? Can this good be cleared by

Customs?

Recommendation Rules

Marketing Promotions, Medical Recommendations, Online Product

Chooser

Personalization Rules

Website Personalization, Product Personalization , Relationship

Personalization

Internationalization &

Localization Rules

International Products e.g. Maintaining similar Insurance products

across countries, Cross border Custom Duties

Exceptions and Special Rules

Exceptions, Special Accounts , Special Arrangements, etc.

Optimization and Configuration

Rules

Product Configuration, Deal Configuration

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Enforcing Business Rules –

Conventional Methods

Rules inside Code

Business

User

Business

Expert

Business

Analyst

Rules as Tacit Knowledge

No/Semi Automation

Automated Enforcement

Rules In Documents

Rules inside Database

Sales Commissions Premium Calculations …

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Typical Customer Challenges

Zero visibility into business decisions

Critical business rules are locked in code or databases

Business has no visibility into how systems take decisions

Change resistant IT systems

Business rules can be very volatile

Hardwired business rules make change difficult for IT

Unacceptably long testing and change cycle times

High costs of correction and rework

Inefficient and Costly Human Experts

Need to maintain a pool of trained experts

Continuous training and hiring costs

Very complex rules and error prone & time consuming human

decision making

Scattered knowledge

Business rules not centrally managed

Scattered across code, manuals and as tacit knowledge

Inadequate, ambiguous and inconsistent business rules across the

Enterprise

High risk of compliance violation

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Enter Business Rules Management …

With BRM

You Get

Externalize

critical business rules

Agile and maintainable Systems

Model

executable

complex

business rules

Automate key business decisions

(Centrally) manage business rules

Consistent application of

corporate policy and government

regulations

Business Users can model and

manage critical business rules

Visibility, accountability and Error

free Business

Visible, Flexible and Informed Decisioning – With BRM

Flexible & agile business systems

Precise & informed decision making

Faster turnaround times for change

Improved visibility for the business

Reduced cost for change

Positive improvement in quality

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Case : Leading Truck Manufacturer

(Case Study from YASU)

Business Rules

Contracts Management – Liability

Assessment

Claims Processing – Settlement Rules

Product Returns – Q Inspection Rules

Reports Generation

Major Process Challenges

Hard coded rules – Low Visibility

Loss of Domain & Application Knowledge

Slow Turnaround Times

Company

Fortune 500 company

Leading truck engine manufacturer

Challenges

Warranty Claims process took 1week to process

a warranty.

Several parts were not even sent to suppliers

due to complex warranty arrangements with

suppliers

Benefits

Cost reduction of up to 1.87 million USD

Reduction in process time by 80%

Reduction in IT personnel costs

Reduction in inventory storage losses

Reduction in losses arising out of unrecovered

claims

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Agenda

1. Introduction

1.1. What are Business Rules?

1.2. Enforcing Business Rules

1.3. Typical Customer Challenges with Conventional Methods

1.4. Solving these Challenges with Business Rules Management

1.5. BRM in the Real World – A Real World Case Study

2. SAP NetWeaver Business Rules Management Offers

2.1. Easier implementation of Complex Business Rules

2.2 Tight integration with BPM

2.3 Reusable Rules!

3. SAP NetWeaver BRM as Technology

3.1 Building Blocks

3.2 Business Rules & BPM – A Deep Dive

4. Demo

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Easy implementation of Complex Business

Rules

Rich rule formats

Classic if-then rules (inference rules/ production rules)

Decision tables – score cards and tabular rules Natural language-like rules representations

Support for multiple data models for rules implementations

Seamless navigation from process to rules through integrated process & rules modeling

This presentation and SAP's strategy and possible future developments are subject to change and may be changed by SAP at any time for any reason without notice. This document is provided without a warranty of any kind, either express or implied, including but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement.

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Rule Representation Formats

If – Then Rules

Simple english like statements joined with

and/or

Priorities for specifying sequence of execution

Rule overrides to declare mutually exclusive

rules

Decision Tables

Tabular representation of Rules

Easier to relate for Business Users with

Spreadsheet like structure

Integration with Microsoft Office Excel (NW

7.2)

Powerful features like returning multiple rows

of values, dynamic invocation of decision table

etc

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Business Rules Refinement

Rules Refinement and Alignment

Business rules testing for Business Analysts

Business rules refinement and validation throughout rules lifecycle

Business rules refinement towards optimization

Simulate Rules Analyze

Rules Optimize Rules

Application UI

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Tight integration with NetWeaver BPM

BRM

Rules accelerates BPM

Clear decoupling of process logic from

decision logic

Accelerated process efficiency with

automated decisioning

Reusable business rules services

Rules based correlations for real-time

business events

Rules in BPM – Some Use cases

Complex rule based decisions (Pricing,

Credit Decisions etc.)

Responsibility determination (Rule

based task assignment)

Recognition of business events

Routing rules (receiver determination)

Parameter thresholds & tolerance

(constraint rules)

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Reusable Rules

Rules Modeling

Integrated Rules & Process Modeling

Independent Rules Modeling

Model in Rules Composer

Wider consumption across

applications

Model in Process Composer

For consumption by a business

process

Rules Consumption

Web Service

Rules Connector

Business Processes

Composite Business Process

Guided Procedures

System2System Processes.

Composites

Composite Services & Events

Composite Applications

UI Composites

Situational Composites

ABAP Applications

Through ABAP Connector

Direct consumption of Rules

Service

Web Service

JEE Clients

As a Stateless Session Bean

As a Rules Service

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Agenda

1. Introduction

1.1. What are Business Rules?

1.2. Enforcing Business Rules

1.3. Typical Customer Challenges with Conventional Methods

1.4. Solving these Challenges with Business Rules Management

1.5. BRM in the Real World – A Real World Case Study

2. SAP NetWeaver Business Rules Management Offers

2.1. Easier implementation of Complex Business Rules

2.2 Tight integration with BPM

2.3 Reusable Rules!

3. SAP NetWeaver BRM as Technology

3.1 Building Blocks

3.2 Business Rules & BPM – A Deep Dive

4. Demo

(18)

SAP NetWeaver Business Rules Management

-Building Blocks

Key Features

Rules Modeling & Implementation

Business user-friendly rich rule formats

Support for multiple data models for rules

implementation

Data model independent business vocabularies

Rules Composer

Rule Testing & Refinement

Validation of business rules

Testing & refinement of rules based on test results

Report generation for rule invocations

Rules Composer, Manager

Rule Execution

High performance rules engine

Stateless EJB Engine

Rete-based Inference & Sequential Engines

End-to-End Change Management

Web-based rules maintenance by business analysts

Rules versioning & repository services

Permissions, access control & governance

Rules Repository, Rules Manager

Rules engine

Rules

composer

Process

Desk

Rules

management

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Business Rules & BPM – A Deep Dive

Various ways of modeling rules:

Model with rules composer and use as a rules

service

Model in the context of a business process

And, many ways to integrate:

Rules services through an automated activity

Use rules as mapping transforms

Use rules through EJB functions

Use rules from human-task user interfaces

Use rules as gateway conditions

Process server

Process

composer

Process

Desk

Process

desk

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Agenda

1. Introduction

1.1. What are Business Rules?

1.2. Enforcing Business Rules

1.3. Typical Customer Challenges with Conventional Methods

1.4. Solving these Challenges with Business Rules Management

1.5. BRM in the Real World – A Real World Case Study

2. SAP NetWeaver Business Rules Management Offers

2.1. Easier implementation of Complex Business Rules

2.2. End to End Change Management

2.3 Tight integration with BPM

2.4 Reusable Rules!

3. SAP NetWeaver BRM as Technology

3.1 Building Blocks

3.2 Business Rules & BPM – A Deep Dive

4. Demo

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Investment Approval Process (IAP)

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Demo

SAP NetWeaver Business

Rules Management

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Agenda

1. Introduction

1.1. What are Business Rules?

1.2. Enforcing Business Rules

1.3. Typical Customer Challenges with Conventional Methods

1.4. Solving these Challenges with Business Rules Management

1.5. BRM in the Real World – A Real World Case Study

2. SAP NetWeaver Business Rules Management Offers

2.1. Easier implementation of Complex Business Rules

2.2. End to End Change Management

2.3 Tight integration with BPM

2.4 Reusable Rules!

3. SAP NetWeaver BRM as Technology

3.1 Building Blocks

3.2 Business Rules & BPM – A Deep Dive

4. Demo

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Q1

Q2

Q3

Q4

Q1

Q2

Q3

Q4

2009

2010

RELEASE PLAN

SAP NetWeaver 7.2

“Wave 3”

“Wave 2”

Business Reason

Easier and quicker change

management cycles

Increased integration

capability and reduced TCO.

Reuse rule components

across applications

FOCUS AREAS

BUSINESS VALUE

RAPID RULE

DEVELOPMENT

CONSUMABILITY

ENTERPRISE

READINESS

Future Direction

Business Rules Management

2009

“Wave 2”

PLANNED

“Wave 3”

VISION

Rapid rule

development

Consumability of

Rules

Enterprise

readiness

DETAILS

Sequential and Flow rule

modeling options

Model complex rules

using drag and drop

capability

Rule testing capability

Tighter integration with

Business Process

Management

Rules available across

application stack from CE to

ABAP business applications

Integrated with SAP life cycle

management tools

Business user interface for

rule management at runtime

Enhanced and expressive rules

language

Improved rule testing and

debugging capabilities

Provide rule engine

improvements

Provide localization for Rules

Historical invocation capability

Improved re-usability

Rich design time integration with

Galaxy

Provide lean consumption of

Rules

Generic extension point of Rules

for other components

Analytics for what-if

scenarios

Capabilities to model and

represent rule-based event

correlations

Integration with ESR

Rule based responses to

business events

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Business Rules Management – Scope of 7.11

High performance Inference Rule Engine

Tightly integrated with BPM

Rules on XML Schemas and Java Objects

Support for simple If-Then Rules

Support for Decision Tables with powerful

features like dynamic invocation, other

conditions etc

Ability to create Definitions to hold

intermediate values

Assign Priorities and Preconditions to Rules

Rules to be consumed as a Stateless EJB or

Web service by other applications

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Business Rules Management – Overview of 7.2

Features

Support for designing complex rules using

Flow Rulesets

Integration of decision tables with Microsoft

Office Excel

Enumeration types to restrict input of few

parameters

Simple menu driven facility to generate a web

service for a Ruleset

Rule testing of rules written on XSDs

Web interface with access control mechanism

for Business Users to change and manage

Rules

Version management of Rules

HTML Reports of Rulesets

Rules engine

Rules

composer

Process

Desk

Rules

management

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Rule Representation Formats

Flow Rules

Rules laid out in a flow like structure

Complex rules can be modeled using

Gateways to branch out into different paths

Rule scripts to hold a set of actions

If-then rules

Decision tables

Other flows and rule sets

Capability to iterate through flow elements until

some condition is satisfied

Easier to get an overview of the rule

implementation

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New features introduced in BRM 7.2

HTML Report Generation - Rules Composer will provide a capability to generate a printable

report for Ruleset and Decision Tables.

Web Service Generation - Simple menu driven facility in Rules Composer to provision a web

service for a Ruleset written on XML schema

Integration with Excel Documents - Rules Composer will provide a capability to export a

Decision Table to a spreadsheet.

Check Consistency - Rules are checked for consistency like overlapping conditions in rules,

missing ranges in decision table etc.

Compare with DTR rules and runtime rules - Rules Composer will provide the capability to

compare different versions of Rulesets in the DTR in a text format

Logging - Logging of Engine Execution Events with Business Logging

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Rules Manager - Experience

Check Consistency of Rules

Rules manager provides

consistency checker feature to

check syntactic properties of rules

and decision tables

It can be used to make checks like

rule consumption, overlapping

conditions and missing ranges in

decision tables

Show Usages

Rules manager allows

business users to find

usage of a decision table

or a definition. It is easier

to track the affect of

changes using this

feature.

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Rules Manager - A Preview

Rules Manager

A web based business user interface to help

business analyst manage, review and change

rules.

Provides Access Management and

Traceability

Role Based Activity

Role based access can be

specified to various BRM entities

for different users using the SAP

NetWeaver Administrator.

Permissions can vary from Edit to

Read.

Different access permissions can

be given to different entities of a

rules project.

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Rules Manager - Experience

Modifying Rules

Rules manager allows the

business user to create, edit and

manage If-Then Rules and

Decision Tables

Create different types of

actions

Set Static or Dynamic

Action values

Modify existing Conditions.

(32)

Rules Manager - Experience

Viewing Version History

Rules manager shows

version history of rules

projects.

Business users can

also compare different

versions where they can

see modified, added and

deleted If-Then rules and

decision tables.

Report Generation

Business users can

generate reports of

Rulesets, rules and

decision tables.

(33)

End-to-End Change Management

End-to-end development support using the

Eclipse based Rules Composer

Web based collaborative business user

interface with role based access to manage

and deploy business rules at runtime

Manage access permissions using SAP

NetWeaver Administrator

Version management

Business rules reports & rules traceability

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New features introduced in BRM 7.2

Effectivities - Date Effectivity can be used to specify the time

period during which a rule is effective, and can thereby be

executed.

Enumerations - Aliases can be restricted to take only a

specific set of values using Enumeration Types of the same

data type

Common Definitions - Capability of creating definitions at

Project level that can be used in all the Rulesets of the project

Rule Overrides - A Rule Override helps resolve conflict

between two satisfied If-Then rules by suppressing execution

of lower priority rule

Rule Testing - Testing for Rules in Rules & process Composer

written on XML Schemas. No Java Code required for testing

rules on XML

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Resources on the Web for NW BRM

Business Rules Home Page on SDN

https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/nw-rules-management

The Rules Tutorial Center – ~30 ready to run Demos/Videos/Tutorials

https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/nw-rules-management?rid=/webcontent/uuid/f066ec08-474b-2b10-4a97-b66d605de037

The Business Rules Management Forum on SDN

https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/forum?forumID=359&start=0

Technical Articles & White Papers on SDN

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Q&A

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