Incorporating Optimization Engines in Business Decision Models

On June 30 I will present “Developing Decision Optimization Microservices for Real-World Decision-Making Applications” at DecisionCAMP-2020. Preparing my presentation, I thought about the major points I want to make. Of course, first of all, I want to demonstrate how to develop optimization services, but I also want to stress how the proposed approach helps to bring already great optimization tools into the everyday reality of business application development.

Solution for DMCommunity Challenge “Pay-As-You-Go Pricing Rules”

There are already 3 solutions to DMCommunity May-2020 Challenge. I especially like how Carol-Ann Berlioz created her solution using a test-driven approach when test cases prompt her which rules should be added. So, I’ve tried to reproduce her solution but instead of a product specific GUI I decided to use OpenRules decision tables defined in Excel. So, here are our test-cases with input data and expected results:

OpenRules Decision Manager Release 8.2.0

On June 15 OpenRules, Inc. released OpenRules Decision Manager 8.2.0 that summarizes major advances made in the first half of 2020 in the following areas:

OpenRules: Enhanced Testing Capabilities

Let’s look how the release 8.2.0 enhanced OpenRules testing capabilities by extending tables of the type “DecisionTest” with new columns:

• ActionDefine
• ActionActive
• ActionComment.                                                                Here is an example:

                                       (You may click on this table to enlarge)

Decision Model Execution: Improved Explanations

Traditionally when we ran an OpenRules-based decision model using a script “test.bat”, a user received an execution protocol on the console view, a “black” screen. While it showed all executed rules, it still was difficult for a user to find all changes especially when there are too many rules. The latest release of OpenRules Decision Manager essentially beatifies rules execution protocols and reports showing all rules in a hierarchical order and highlighting the variables which values that were actually changed.