Designing a Business Rule

A business rule is a Calculation Manager object that consists of calculations. The calculations are grouped into components. A rule can contain one or more components, templates, or rules.

You create a business rule for a Financial Management, Planning, or Essbase application. (Your ability to create rules is determined by the role you are assigned in Shared Services. See the Oracle Hyperion Enterprise Performance Management System User and Role Administration Guide.) The rule is represented graphically in a flow chart into which you can drag and drop components to design the rule.

Note:

Before you create a business rule, make sure that an application exists in the product (Financial Management, Planning, or Essbase) for which you want to create the business rule.

  To design a business rule:

  1. In the System View, do one of these tasks:

    • Select File, New, Rule.

    • Expand the Financial Management, Planning, or Essbase application type, the application, and the calculation type, plan type, or database. Right-click Rules, and select New.

  2. In New Rule, enter the rule's name, the Application Type (Financial Management, Planning, or Essbase), and the Application Name. The application name must be a valid Performance Management Architect application, a Classic Financial Management or Planning application, or an Essbase application.

    • If you select Financial Management, select the Calculation Type.

    • If you select Planning, select the Plan Type.

    • If you select Essbase, select the Database.

    Click OK.

    Note:

    If you right-click Rules and select New to create a new business rule, the New Rule dialog is populated with the application type, the application, and the calculation, plan type, or database you are working in within the System View.

  3. To design the business rule, from the Rule Palette, drag new and existing objects, and drop them into the flow chart within the Rule Designer.

    Note:

    You can also create new objects like formulas and scripts independently of the rule, and add them to the rule later.

    From New Objects, drag and drop these components to insert a new component into the rule's flow chart:

    From Existing Objects, drag existing objects from Financial Management, Planning, or Essbase applications and drop them into the rule's flow chart. When you drag an existing formula or script component into the flow chart, by default, the formula or script becomes a shared object. If you do not want it to be shared, clear the Shared check box on the formula or script component's Properties tab. See Sharing Script and Formula Components (Financial Management, Planning, and Essbase Block Storage Application Users Only).

    Tip:

    Financial Management, Planning, and Essbase block storage application users only: If you want to work with the business rule in its non-graphical format (that is, its script format), select Edit, Script. (See Editing a Business Rule in Script Mode (Financial Management, Planning, and Essbase Block Storage Application Users Only).)

  4. On Properties, enter properties for the rule.

    Note:

    The number and contents of the tabs change as you add components to the rule and move amongst the rule's components in the flow chart. To enter properties and other information for the rule's components, select the component in the flow chart. See Using Components to Design Business Rules and Templates (Financial Management, Planning, and Essbase Block Storage Application Users Only).

    • Optional: Edit the name by entering a new one of up to 50 characters. (The name defaults from the New Rule dialog.)

    • Optional: Enter a description of up to 255 characters for the rule.

    • Optional: Enter a caption for the rule. The caption displays below the rule's icon in the flow chart.

    • Optional: Enter comments for the rule. For example, you may want to tell users what the rule should be used for.

    • Financial Management users only:

      • Select Enable Logging so, if the rule has log text, it is included in the log file when the rule is launched. You can enable logging for rules, rulesets, and components. However, you specify what log text to include, if any, with a business rule's formula statements.

        Note:

        If logging is not enabled for a ruleset, but is enabled for a rule and component that belong to the ruleset, no log file is created, because the log setting for the ruleset overrides the settings for the rule and component.

      • Select Enable Timer so the time taken to process the rule is recorded in the log file when the rule is launched. You can enable the timer for rules, rulesets, and components. The process time is included in the log file for every object whose timer is enabled. For example, if you have a ruleset whose timer is enabled and the ruleset contains three rules whose timers are enabled, the time taken to process the ruleset, and each rule in the ruleset, is recorded.

      • Select Disabled to temporarily disable the business rule while the script is generated.

      • Select Is Function so the rule is used as a function that can include execution variables that you specify as parameters on the Parameters tab.

        Note:

        Any business rules with Is Function selected are displayed as functions in the Function Selector.

  5. Financial Management users only: On Parameters, you can view the execution variables that are used in the business rule and select any execution variables you want to use as parameters. Complete these steps:

    Note:

    When you first open a new business rule, this tab is empty. If you add components to the business rule, and any of those components use variables, the variables are displayed on this tab.

    1. Select Is Parameter to use the execution variable as a parameter. If the execution variable has a ruleset scope (that is, it is passed from one business rule to another business rule within the same ruleset) Is Parameter is selected by default. If the variable has a rule scope (that is, it may be used only in the business rule for which it is created and is not passed to another business rule) Is Parameter is not selected.

      Note:

      If a business rule contains at least one execution variable for which Is Parameter is selected, when you include this business rule in another or the same business rule, you can specify values for its execution variables on the Parameters tab.

    2. In Passing Method, select By Reference or By Value. (By Reference is the default.)

  6. Planning and Essbase users only: On Global Range, specify what dimensions are common to all of the components in the rule by selecting values (that is, members, variables, and functions) for each dimension. The values you select for the dimensions are the values that are calculated when the rule is launched.

    1. Select values for a dimension by clicking its row in the Select Value column.

    2. When the Actions icon is displayed, click it, and select one of these:

  7. Planning and Essbase users only: On Variables, select Merge Variables to merge all instances of the same variable used in the business rule so only the first instance of each variable is displayed when the rule is launched. If you do not select this check box, all instances of each variable are displayed.

    Note:

    If you select Merge Variables, the first value that the user enters for the runtime prompt is used for all subsequent occurrences of that runtime prompt during validation and launch.

  8. Financial Management, Planning, and Essbase block storage users only: On Script, you can view the generated calc script for the rule.

    Note:

    You cannot make changes on this tab. If you want to make changes to the script, select Edit, Script. See Editing a Business Rule in Script Mode (Financial Management, Planning, and Essbase Block Storage Application Users Only).

  9. Financial Management, Planning, and Essbase block storage users only: To search for a text string on Script:

    • Click the Find icon to find text within the script.

      1. Enter the text for which you want to search in the script.

      2. Select Match case if you want the text you are searching for to match the case of the text you enter in the dialog.

      3. Select Match whole word if you want the text you are searching for to match the whole word (versus a part of the word) you enter in the dialog.

      4. Click Find.

    • Click the Find and Replace icon to find and replace text within the script.

      1. Enter the text you want to find in the script.

      2. Enter the text you want to replace it with.

      3. Select Match case if you want the text you are searching for to match the case of the text you enter in the dialog.

      4. Select Match whole word if you want the text you are searching for to match the whole word (versus a part of the word) you enter in the dialog.

      5. Click Replace to find and replace one instance of the text string at a time.

      6. Click Replace All to find and replace all instances of the text string simultaneously.

  10. On Usages, you can view which rules and rulesets use the rule, if any. (You cannot edit any of the information on this tab.) This is the information you can view about the rules and rulesets:

    • The names of the business rules and business rulesets that are using the business rule

    • The calculation or plan type of the business rules and business rulesets that are using the business rule

    • The application name of the business rules and business rulesets that are using the business rule

    • Whether the business rules and business rulesets that are using the business rule are deployed

    • Whether the business rules and business rulesets that are using the business rule are validated

    • A description of the business rules and business rulesets that are using the business rule

    Note:

    By default, a rule is not used by any rules or rulesets when you create it.

  11. Repeat these steps for each component you want to add to the business rule.

    Tip:

    As you add components to a business rule, you may want to increase or decrease the size of the component icons and the amount of detail that is displayed in the flow chart. You can use the zoom bar to zoom in and out within the flow chart. You can select a component to view its properties, and edit a component, on the Properties tab.

  12. Select File, Save.

After you design and save the rule, you can do any of these tasks: