Java/Cayenne Compatible Business Rules Language: Suggestions? Velocity? (CRM Application)

[Eric Lazarus <er...@yahoo.com>]

Folks

First, let me thank you developers - Cayenne saves my rear everyday and I could not be more grateful. 

I have a CRM application built on top of Cayenne (works great!) where deals move though a work flow. We are using a version of Jboss' jBPM work flow engine where we use lots of BeanShell scripts in the XML work flow document to represent both conditions as well as actions. It took us a while to get it integrated but it does work for us pretty well. 

I am thinking that in addition (or perhaps someday instead of) the work flow engine, we should have work flow “rules” so that an administrative user at the client site could add actions to the work flow without having to understand the complex semantics and syntax of  jBPM. 

Can anyone suggest a rule system which would make adding actions to my system a sort of “user serviceable part?” 

I do not need prolog-like backward chaining or OPS5-like forward chaining. I just need a very simple syntax for asking questions about my DEAL and objects that are referenced by my DEAL, i.e., :

If (deal.seller.getAge() < 18) and (deal.getOverride() < 27)
then deal.getRepresentative().sendDoListItem(“Handle age issue!”)  


I could use bean shell scripts. I could use the java version of python, I suppose. I was hoping that there is a biz rule language that I could use and that, ideally, someone has seen work well with Cayenne objects. Ideally I would like something open source/free and/or very cheap. We have budget constraints.  

Do folks think I would be wise to use Velocity for this? See: 

http://www.theserverside.com/tt/articles/article.tss?l=VelocityEngine

Is there a vb like language that I could use that could access my Cayenne objects, invoke methods on them? 

PLEASE do not get hung up in the word RULES. Really these could be thought of as like triggers for biz policies that it makes sense for end-users to edit, at least admin end users. 

Ever used a sales force tool like goldmine? These tools have an extension language to handle automation and reminders. Something like that!

Thanks!

 

Eric
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Re: Java/Cayenne Compatible Business Rules Language: Suggestions? Velocity? (CRM Application)

[Aristedes Maniatis <ar...@maniatis.org>]

On 06/10/2007, at 1:13 AM, Eric Lazarus wrote:

> I could use bean shell scripts. I could use the java version of  
> python, I suppose. I was hoping that there is a biz rule language  
> that I could use and that, ideally, someone has seen work well with  
> Cayenne objects. Ideally I would like something open source/free  
> and/or very cheap. We have budget constraints.

I have a very similar requirement for which I was researching options  
recently. Some things I found were:

http://www.jessrules.com/jess
http://www.manageability.org/blog/stuff/rule_engines/view

Nothing Cayenne specific. Also, I'd add Jira to that list as an  
example to look at (which I think is based on the OfBiz engine). It  
contains a quite nice workflow concept.


In our application we have developed a concept of 'saved find'. This  
is essentially a serialised form of a Cayenne query expression. You  
could use EJBQL (http://cayenne.apache.org/doc/ejbqlquery.html) but  
we chose to do it slightly differently since we don't want users to  
write the queries by hand but instead create them in a GUI (which  
looks a bit like many email applications' rules editor).

If you think there is any potential to collaborate on this, please  
contact me off list. I'm happy to share what we've got so far. My  
requirements are for a reasonably simple GUI based rule designer  
rather than an infinitely flexible XML or language based approach.


Cheers
Ari Maniatis




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Aristedes Maniatis
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