Decision Tab

The Decision view in the Debugger presents all the paths for a goal simultaneously, whether the goal is known or not. The decision view is always shown from the perspective of a goal attribute in a particular entity instance. Underneath the goal attribute the decision view displays the attribute instances in a tree.

The user interface of the Decision view in the Oracle Policy Modeling Debugger

Tip: To open all of the nodes below an attribute in the decision tree, right-click the attribute and select Expand All Nodes.

You can set the values for any attributes in the tree. As you provide values for attributes in the decision view, some paths of the decision tree will become irrelevant, others will become known. Eventually there will be no more unknown relevant attributes and the goal itself will become known. When the goal is known, the decision view appears like an explanation showing all the relevant paths that contributed to the goal attribute's value.

Debugger Decision view showing a known goal attribute

Tip: You can right-click on any attribute, select Attribute Usage and see how the attribute is used in the rules.

Note that if you have the Debug unsubmitted interview values checkbox selected in the Debugger, all of the input values on the current interview screen (on the Interview tab) are visible in the Decision view for further examination, including all the inferred values derived from those input values.

If your goal attribute belongs to an entity of which there are multiple instances, you can switch to view the decision tree for different entity instances using the drop-down list of entity instances at the top of the Decision view.

The Decision view in the Debugger showing the filtering of attributes by entity

The following options are available to alter the behavior of the Decision view:

  • Relevant only - when selected (default behavior), this hides irrelevant paths through the policy model to the selected goal. (When this option is not selected, irrelevant attributes are shown in grey text.)
  • Base only - when selected, this hides intermediate attributes and only shows input attributes that require an answer in a flat list.
  • Show silent and invisible - when selected, this shows attributes in the Decision view that would normally be hidden as a result of silent or invisible operators added to the rules.
  • Show reference tags - when selected (default behavior), any reference tags that have been included in the rules will be shown after the conclusion or condition they apply to. These can be clicked on to access the rules that use the tags. For more information, see Find and Navigate to Where a Reference Tag Is Used In the Rules.