BizTalk Rule Engine

1 of 174 | Chart Advisor - Today's author, Scott Ruble, a Program Manager on the Excel team, is seeking feedback on a new prototype for building charts. When Office 2007 was released, one of the strong pieces of feedback was Excel needs to do a better job guiding users in the proper selection of charts to effectively communicate their data. Though it wasn't our intent, some of the new formatting options such as glow and legacy 3D charts can be used inappropriately, which obscure the meaning of a chart. Some people felt that these features contributed to creating more "chart junk." In an effort to improve this situation, we have created a prototype called the Chart Advisor. The Chart Advisor intelligently s......

2 of 174 | ASP.NET MVC Preview 5 and Form Posting Scenarios - This past Thursday the ASP.NET MVC feature team published a new "Preview 5" release of the ASP.NET MVC framework.  You can download the new release here.  This "Preview 5" release works with both .NET 3.5 and the recently released .NET 3.5 SP1.  It can also now be used with both Visual Studio 2008 as well as (the free) Visual Web Developer 2008 Express SP1 edition (which now supports both class library and web application projects). Preview 5 includes a bunch of new features and refinements (these build on the additions in "Preview 4").  You can read detailed "Preview 5" release notes that cover changes/additions here.  ......

3 of 174 | Biztalk Server Interview Answers - on recent days Stephen W Thomas posted on his blog Biztalk Server Interview Questions what a biztalk interview might contain, i´d like to provide the answers to those questions -at least try- gathered from different sources, any comments are welcome: Development Focused Questions What is BizTalk?  for this one i prefer the formal definition provided by webopedia: "BizTalk Server is Microsoft's central platform for Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) and Business Process Management (BPM) and embodies the integration and automation capabilities of XML and Web Services technologies. BizTalk Server functions as a process execution engine and ......

4 of 174 | BTSUG Aug27th - A4SWIFT and BizTalk - Hi folks, Have I got a deal for you.... no seriously we’ve got a great night planned leading up into TechEd. I’m really looking forward to it. (ok let me get my dates right) On August 27th Wednesday night (Wednesday week from now) we’re lucky enough to get.... Angelo Laris from Decillion(seasoned member of our user group) lined up to talk to us about A4SWIFT (which is basically what Angelo and Decillion roll out). Decillion are formally recognised by Microsoft as being experts in this area and are also a member of the Microsoft BizTalk Virtual Technology Specialist Program. (I’ve also got a couple of house keeping tasks to mention…..first the great stuff…) Angelo ......

5 of 174 | Part V: Keeping WiE Mobile Client in sync with the Cloud, a first pass at synchronization. - The Implementation of WiEModelWithLocalCache As we discussed in the previous articles, the data layer for the WiE Mobile Client is made up of “providers” that each implement the IWiEModel interface and work together to implement support for the occasionally disconnected mobile scenario.  Over the past two weeks article we covered the implementation of the local data store: WiELocalModel and of the remote data store WiERemoteModelSSDSForMobile.   In this article we combine both along with a simple synchronization mechanism to implement the complete occasionally connected data store. As a refresher, the IWiEModel interface is shown below:   interface IWiEModel ......

6 of 174 | InRule Technology Announces InRule Version 3.0 - InRule has announced the general availability of Version 3.0 of their InRule business rules engine based on and optimized for .NET technology.   This new release has several new features addressing the needs of the .NET development community, including: A new feature called irSOA which allows the InRule rules engine to be used as a service in SOA development projects; New custom, business specific vocabulary within the Rules Template; irCatalog enhancements allowing more granular use and reuse of rules; Out of the box integration with Windows Workflow Foundation.  For more information or access to the free download, go to http://www.inrule.com/products/InRule......

7 of 174 | ILOG Announces Rules for .NET 3.0 Offer - ILOG has announced the availability of a free six-month trial of their ILOG Rules for .NET 3.0, which provides the power of the ILOG rules engine to .NET developers.  Supporting the launch of the six-month trial is a new .NET developer community providing a Microsoft-centric portal for .NET BRMS including a quick start guide for ILOG Rules for .NET, online tutorials, recorded Webinars, blogs and interactive forums.  ILOG Rules for .NET 3.0 has comprehensive integration with Microsoft platforms and products: Rule Solution for Office System enables rule authoring directly from Microsoft Word®, Microsoft Excel®, and deployment to Microsoft SharePoint®, providing an easy and fam......

8 of 174 | QuickLearn Offers Expert Level BizTalk Classes - QuickLearn is offering a series of 2-day, expert level BizTalk classes focused on the Business Rules Engine (BRE), Business Activity Monitoring (BAM), RFID and Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) starting in July in Redmond.  Classes in the Expert Series are available to be delivered privately beginning in July.  If you check out the QuickLearn calendar you’ll see they begin being delivered publically in the late summer.  Previous QuickLearn customers are eligible for a 25% discount to attend the first public delivery of classes in the BizTalk Expert Series.  To receive the discount the discount, please use the promotional code “Expert “ when you register.  T......

9 of 174 | Where do I store my custom configuration for a BizTalk solution - Written by: Michael Stephenson (http://geekswithblogs.net/michaelstephenson) Problem Definition It is a common design decision on BizTalk projects when you are implementing your solution and you find that you need to store some custom configuration. The challenge is where to store it. For some BizTalk components such as Adapters and Pipelines you can take advantage of the configuration meta data stored in SSO to handle this. This is the proper approach for these components and you have the BizTalk Admin Console and Binding Files to help you manage this. Where the configuration becomes more of a problem is when you have say an orchestration or a helper class which is called by an orchestr......

10 of 174 | Evaluation Engine - The Evaluation Engine is a parser and interpreter that can be used to define rules for Business Rules Engine....

11 of 174 | Sent To or Received From - In previous blog entries we have covered several aspects of the Outlook Rules engine, and some interesting ways to leverage its capabilities to better triage the constant inflow of e-mail messages. We often hear from users that they get confused whether to choose “Sent To” or “Received From” when creating ‘move incoming email messages’ rules for Distribution Lists. This confusion usually results in having messages from random senders getting moved unexpectedly to a folder that was created as part of a ‘move messages received from a Distribution List’ rule. Here’s how to choose which type of rule condition to use: Choose ̶......

12 of 174 | Business Rules Engine - I WANT TO BELIEVE - This is a call to anyone who happens upon my blog, thru my contact page , let me know why I would want to use the Business Rule Engine. As I see it, it seems like it is a lot of work to do something that can be done using SQL, C#, etc. In many cases,...(read more)...

13 of 174 | Anti Pattern: Dumming down your BizTalk installation - Ive seen/heard of this scenario far too many times over the last couple of years i've decided to write it up as an anti-pattern like I did with some posts early last year. Name: Dumming down your BizTalk installation   Description: This pattern is simple to explain.  An organisation begins a project using BizTalk and focuses on their core requirements to deliver orchestrations or messaging components to deliver their required functionality.  When they come to setting up their BizTalk environ......

14 of 174 | Thinking Through Rules in C# - As I continue with writing the manuscript on rules engines, I've isolated my examples to be coincidental with the overall theme of engineering decision support applications. Today, I am taking a close look at the seemingly simple act of identifying and rejecting unattractive alternatives when competing projects are under review to determine whether or not a given project will warrant funding. Some of the determining factors are well known algorithms in the financial world. Specifically I am thinking about the rate of return on investment (roi), present worth (pw), annual cost (euac), annual benefit (euab), benefit-cost ratio (bc), net present worth (npw).  Overall, these calculations can q......

15 of 174 | DSLs, Compilers and the Irony of it All - In a previous post, I posted about the Lang.NET symposium and rolling your own compiler.  I cited an MSDN article that was a good starter for someone interested in writing that new language in .NET we've all been waiting for.  It's not by any means to get you towards finishing IronRuby by yourself, but some of the fundamentals are covered. The reason I've stated that I'm pretty interested is that of course I'm a geek, but I'm also interested in Domain Specific Languages (DSLs) lately as you may notice from my blog and what you can do with compilers to help that along. DSLs in General So, why DSLs and why am I interested?  I think Oren Eini, aka Ayende laid the reasons out well here......

16 of 174 | MS BRE: Using Compensation handlers - Being known for my interest in rules processing, I quite often get asked to help with problems with MS BRE.   A couple of days ago, I was asked to help investigate an issue occurring in production for a BizTalk Server application.   Occasionally, in a fairly high throughput system, BizTalk logs an error stating that a problem has been encountered while executing a rule set.   That is the only information provided, with no hint of what the problem might be, and because the issue only occurs intermittently under real-world conditions in the production environment, it was not obvious how to obtain further insight without disrupting live operations. This article investigates one way of handlin......

17 of 174 | Is Microsoft a BPM player? -     I haven't written any thing for a while. Part of the reason is because I'm now back to school - Stevens Institute of Technology. As my career advancing, I'm more and more focusing on Enterprise Architecture and Business Process Management. Of course, as an EA, you'll never hand off on technologies. So as a Microsoft guy, I'm always curious about what Microsoft will offer to BPM. I'm a little suprised when I talk to my professor Dr. Michael zur Muehlen (his blog: bpm-research.com). He sees Microsoft as just a vender of System Integration Solution. And it seems Gartner is agreeing with him. Check out this gartner BPM Magic Quadrant 2007(free with registered user). I also find that Sa......

18 of 174 | MS BRE: The Rules Engine Update (REU) Service and Policy Execution - A question came up tonight on BizTalkGurus on my favourite subject of rule engines.   I don’t blog enough these days, so this gives me an excuse.    Essentially, the question concerned an incorrect, but understandable, suspicion that MS BRE may be using remoting to execute rule sets out-of-process.   This is not the case.    You can find an article describing what actually happens at: http://geekswithblogs.net/cyoung/archive/2008/01/13/118506.aspx ...

19 of 174 | Microsoft BizTalk RFID and its considerations !!! - Hi All,   This is Lakshmi Murthy and i am a biztalk enthusiast. I have been awarded my third consecutive MVP Award in BizTalk Server technology for this year. I  have been blogging for many years now and you can find my blog posts in BizTalk and other related technologies at http://techsavygal.wordpress.com (old blog : http://techsavygal.blogspot.com).   Microsoft has released RFID platform in September last year as a part of BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Release. BizTalk RFID enables to integrate disparate RFID devices from multiple vendors, filter and manage collected data and provides ability to use this collected data inside a business process.In order to encourage worldwide adoption of RF......

20 of 174 | Mining Stored Procedures to Develop Business Rules - I am currently working on a manuscript about business rule engines; their purpose in large scale enterprise integration projects; their role in soa architectures--and their untapped capability in enriching data warehouse-based intelligence delivery. Today, I am outlining the criteria for comparing two divergent products: TIBCO's iProcess Decisions (part of the BPM product suite) and Microsoft's Business Rule Engine (BRE) (installed with BizTalk Server). For the nuts and bolts of this first comparison, I will be using the same SQL Server 2005 database instance. From what I've observed, databases have loosely become de facto rule engines for many large organizations. Frequently the onl......

21 of 174 | SIGN UP NOW! New Biztalk Developer and Architect Courses in London - Two new courses available for Developers and Architects for Biztalk 2006, in London. Developers 44CO049 - Introduction to BizTalk 2006 for Developers   Day 1 Intro to BizTalk and it’s architecture   In the introduction to BizTalk an it’s architecture we’ll have a look at the different pieces which come with BizTalk. Which process model is used and how the different pieces fit together or communicate with one another.  Messaging Engine (Includes Adapters, Pipelines, Maps) The core of BizTalk is the messaging engine. Although all the tools provided 17 Dec 2007 44CO049 - Introduction to BizTalk 2006 for Developers 05 Feb 2008 44CO049 - Introduction to BizTalk 2006 for Develo......

22 of 174 | ESB: Appendix or Skeleton? - Is an ESB about as useful as a human appendix? A recent ZDNet article, ESB: Useless as a Human Appendix?, quotes an article by Bobby Woolf that raises this question. "ESB-oriented architecture is inherently flawed in that it builds connectivity no one might ever want to use. The business does not derive additional value until systems connect to each other and are working together. Until then, the ESB is just cost with no benefit. It might make the IT department feel good because they have built something, but it will not make the business feel any better, because the business is not accomplishing anything it couldn’t have already accomplished without the ESB. The ESB becomes the equ......

23 of 174 | Changing your BizTalk Service accounts - The other day I came across a great MSDN article that explains how to do this across all the BTS Services from SSO through to the rules engine. http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa561505.aspx ...

24 of 174 | A note about the WF Rules Product Derby Sample - A couple of months ago, we posted a new sample on our community site which is based on the UServ Product Derby scenario showcased at the Business Rules Forum. At the webcast a few weeks back, I briefly mentioned this sample as one that showcases a lot of our extensibility points and I got a few queries about it which I thought I'd clarify. The sample we have posted is demonstrating the following things - The WF Rule Engine is availably freely in the .NET Framework 3.0 as part of Windows Workflow Foundation and increases the reach of Rules to all windows developers It is possible to leverage the extensibility points, and implement something like the UServ Product Derby Sample on t......

25 of 174 | Choosing Between WF Rules and BizTalk Business Rules Engine - If you’re still facing issues deciding which sort of workflow/rules technology from Microsoft to use (e.g. Windows Workflow vs. BizTalk), check out the latest well-written piece by Charles Young. He covers many of the specific differences to consider...(read more)...

26 of 174 | Rule Vendors - Product Derby - Once a year, during the business rules symposium , vendors of rule engines can show how they implement a general use case that contains many business rules. This use case is known as the UServ Product Derby. You can read the specifications here . A few...(read more)...

27 of 174 | Orchestration Profiler for BizTalk Server 2006 and BizTalk Documenter - Hi, I've recently taken ownership of the source for the BizTalk Orchestration Profiler and BizTalk Documenter tools that Jason Birth originally developed, the documenter has worked fine with BizTalk Server 2006 but the Profiler was broken in a number of places.   I have just finished a new build of the Profiler which now works with 2006 and fixed a few other niggles, both tools are now available and I'm open to feature suggestions for both tools moving forward. If you haven't seen or used the tools before then do take a look - they are invaluable in many circumstances and I for one use them one way or another on every BizTalk engagement, the Profiler is here: http://www.codeplex......

28 of 174 | Windows Workflow Rules Engine - Part 2 Webcast on July 6th - I am doing another webcast on WF Rules, this time more advanced and extensibility scenarios. Cheers, Kavita...

29 of 174 | Go Buy The Book “Professional BizTalk Server 2006? - I recently purchased a copy of Darren Jefford’s new Professional BizTalk Server 2006 book and am quite pleased with the material. I had the pleasure of checking this book out during its construction, and must admit, my first thought during that review was “wow, this is great … but it seems to be a bit of a brain dump.” It seemed like lots of great topics and points, but I didn’t grasp the continuity (probably because I was skipping through chapters, and, reading them out of order). Now that I’m holding the printed copy, I am REALLY impressed with the organization and content. I love the other BizTalk 2006 books out there, but this is now my favorite. I just bought an armful of copies......

30 of 174 | Enterprise Application Integration with Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006: Part 1 - BizTalk Server has grown beyond just messaging and orchestration to include a Business Rules Engine, Human Workflow Services, Enterprise Single Sign On, and Business Activity Monitoring—all of which are significant components....

31 of 174 | Intro to WF Rules Webcast - I will be giving a "Introduction to Windows Workflow Foundation Rules" webcast on Friday May 18th at 11am PST. Hope to see you there! Description: This session provides an introduction to the rules engine capabilities provided in Windows Workflow Foundation (WF). In this webcast learn more about the WF Rules mechanisms, which also supports more advanced scenarios. See an example of how to externalize rules so that they can be maintained separately from the workflow assembly. In addition, learn how to author and execute rules outside of a workflow. Start Date: 5/18/07Start Time: 2:00 PM (GMT-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)End Time: 3:30 PM (GMT-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada) ......

32 of 174 | Biztalk Server Interview Answers - on recent days Stephen W Thomas posted on his blog Biztalk Server Interview Questions what a biztalk interview might contain, i´d like to provide the answers to those questions -at least try- gathered from different sources, any comments are welcome: Development Focused Questions What is BizTalk?  for this one i prefer the formal definition provided by webopedia: "BizTalk Server is Microsoft's central platform for Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) and Business Process Management (BPM) and embodies the integration and automation capabilities of XML and Web Services technologies. BizTalk Server functions as a process execution engine and ......

33 of 174 | BizTalk Server 2006 R2 - BizTalk RFID - Microsoft are working on BizTalk Server 2006 R2. Remarkable news was the announcement of a specialist application for RFID, based on BizTalk. The product is called BizTalk RFID, and is included on the installation media of BizTalk Server 2006 R2.   Now, what is this?   In RFID-terms, I think BizTalk RFID is best described as "edgeware". It is meant to sit close to RFID-hardware and related things like printers, actuators and signal lights. This is the RFID-equipment on the shop floor. BizTalk Server 2006 can be used for back-end side integrayon of things.   Traditional problems with end-to-end solutions including RFID hardware is the lack of standardization and the absence of device d......

34 of 174 | MS BRE: Controlling rule side effects - For almost two years now, I've been intending to write an article about the mysterious 'side effects' flag used in Microsoft Business Rule Engine policies.  Microsoft documents this feature (see http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa559124.aspx), and describes very briefly how to control it.   The mystery that surrounds this flag arises because it is represented by an attribute named 'sideeffects' in Microsoft's BRL (Business Rule Language) although it actually controls a caching mechanism, and because Microsoft has not provided access to the flag in their Rules Composer, thereby giving the impression that it is not a 'first-class' feature of rule definitions.  ......

35 of 174 | InRule announces general availability for Windows Workflow Foundation - Congratulations to InRule, who have released their InRule™ for Windows Workflow Foundation (WF). Theresa O'Neil, VP of Business Development at InRule, passed along this exciting information yesterday. InRule for WF provides end-users the ability to author, visualize, verify , and manage complex business rules through a business-analyst accessible user interface. Besides giving business users the ability to manage and author their own rules, the solution runs on .NET 3.0 – providing additional capabilities to .NET-based solutions and providing flexibility of use in multiple different scenarios. Read below for additional information: InRule Technology has announced the general availabilit......

36 of 174 | Microsoft BRE: Fact Identity in the Microsoft Rules Engine, or how the author chased a non-existant bug - I recently had reason to revisit the exact mechanisms Microsoft use when you assert facts to the Microsoft Rules Engine.   I was discussing stuff on-line with a fellow rules enthusiast when a terrible thought occurred to me.   Can the MS BRE always uniquely identify each different fact, or is there a chance that sometimes it might confuse two facts with each other? For a couple of days, I was convinced that I had stumbled on a significant bug.   Indeed, at one point, I thought there was such a serious problem that I would have to recommend to my company that we desist from any further use of Microsoft’s rules engine.   Melodramatic, huh!  &......

37 of 174 | Announcing the OBA Reference Application Pack for Loan Origination Systems (OR-LOS) - The Architecture Strategy Team has just released an Office Business Applications Reference Application Pack for Loan Origination Systems (OR-LOS) that leverages SharePoint, BizTalk Orchestrations, BizTalk Business Rules Engine, WF Workflows, and Office Clients to automate a Loan Origination process spanning multiple human and system participants. Mike Walker has posted all the details including whitepapers, an introductory video, and the sample bits (including a new MISMO accelerator) on his blog. Attached is a pic from one of the whitepapers that shows the high level view of the process.  Also, Mike and the Financial Services team have some more great content on building OBAs on top ......

38 of 174 | Comparing the Workflow Rules Engine to the BizTalk Business Rules Engine - Back in November I delivered a presentation to the Twin Cities BizTalk User Group titled 'Rule Engines: Workflow Rules vs. BizTalk Rules'. Since then I have been working with the Rules Team in Redmond and with their input I have updated and added content to that presentation.  Hopefully the presentation will help you when you get questions about how the Workflow Rules compare and relate to the BizTalk Rules Engine....

39 of 174 | A Resume of My Resume - Recently a friend asked if I could make a resume available, but as a result of my recent inactivity in the employment-seeking market, I could not help.  I am happy in my current position as Senior Programmer Analyst at Seibels Bruce, furthermore, so I am not about to invest precious hours in writing a new one.  I hope that this "resume of my resume" will suffice for those who are interested. Background Senior developer with architecture, design, coding, and maintenance responsibilities in a Microsoft.NET environment that interfaces with legacy systems.  Have exercised multiple technical leadership responsibilities, including design reviews, code reviews,......

40 of 174 | Business Process Modeling and Management - I recently attended the Microsoft Architect Insight conference in Wales where I gave a presentation on SOA. One of my ex-colleagues (Dr Andrew Rivers) gave a presentation on Business Process Management with a particular focus on Microsoft BizTalk Server and it just got me thinking... One thing I have noticed is that the Microsoft don't have their own business process modeling & simulation tool. Other vendors in this space often boast about theirs. Although these tools are very useful in the analysis and design phases, and in later iterations, it occurred to me that none I have seen attempt to go to the next level. At University, on my engineering course, I remember......

41 of 174 | Rules engines and dependancy injection - a response to Nick Malik - Nick Malik published a thought-provoking article on rules engines recently.   You can read it at http://blogs.msdn.com/nickmalik/archive/2007/03/06/perhaps-it-is-time-to-declare-victory-in-the-battle-of-rules-engines-vs-dependency-injection.aspx.   He adopts a fairly negative attitude to rules engines in general, suggesting various reasons why he considers that they are not often useful.  His preferred route is to use dependency injection patterns, implementing rule logic in code components that are then loaded in some dynamic or configurable fashion into consuming applications.   I believe Nick is quite wrong to contrast rules engines and dependency injectio......

42 of 174 | Whitepaper: Rules Processing & BPM: An Architectural Perspective - Over the last few weeks, I've been working on a whitepaper which SolidSoft has published today on our web site.  It's been published to coincide with the Microsoft Architect Insight conference at Newport which started today.   SolidSoft is one of the event sponsors, and I spent the morning delivering a workshop looking, from an architectural perspective, on the use of rules engines in business process management.   It seems to me that while there is lots of guidance and information on rules processing in BPM for business stakeholders, and some for business and enterprise architects, there is far less material orientated towards solution architects.   I've ......

43 of 174 | Another sample from the rules team - Rules against XML - There's another new sample up, written by one of our testers Charlie. This sample shows how the WF Rules Engine can be used to process rules on Xml documents. This is something BizTalk BRE customers were able to do inside the Business Rules Composer, but is not obvious how to do with the WF Rules engine because of lack of first class tooling. However, since all the WF Rules Engine deals with is a .NET type, if you can convert your data as expose it to the engine as a type, you can easily accomplish the scenario. Get the sample here - http://wf.netfx3.com/files/folders/rules_samples/entry8981.aspx  ...

44 of 174 | Fully qualified name differs for XSD’s withmultiple root nodes in the Business Rules Engine - One of the most common problems that exist when using the business rules engine is forgetting to use the fully qualified name from a schema in definition of the rule.Posts like this on Google Groups can clarify what I mean if what I am talking about is not clear.I have discovered something new regarding the fully qualified name which caught me out this morning and I thought I’d mention it here in case you have the same problem. If you are using the fully qualified name of a schema with multiple root nodes in the BRE, the fully qualified name must include the name of the root node. When you go to your orchestration and try to feed a rules shape your XSD you will find it won’t recognize it (n......

45 of 174 | Mapping complex conditions in BizTalk with XSLT - Recently I found myself in a situation where I needed to evaluate a set of complex conditions that I could not use the Business Rules Engine for. The BizTalk mapper was able to achieve the conditionality by chaining a series of about 21 functoids together but this became very unmanageable especially since I was combining false statements to see if both were false, then returning a true to an “And” functoid (&) which evaluated another branch as true and passed a result to the node in the destination schema, you get the idea.An easier way is to plug in XSLT. There are disadvantages to doing this, the main one being its maintainability and transparency but when faced with the daunting set of f......

46 of 174 | Sample: Analyzing Objects of the Same Type in a Business Rule - In many scenarios, you will write a business rule against a type and expect the rule engine to separately analyze and act upon each instance of the type that is asserted into the engine. For example, if you write a rule against a .NET type and assert three .NET objects of that type into the rule engine working memory, the rule engine performs match-conflict resolution-action phases on each .NET object separately. In some scenarios, however, you will want to analyze multiple instances of a given type simultaneously in a rule. This sample demonstrates how to analyze multiple instances of a type in a business rule. (Download the attachment, and then go through the readme.doc first)...

47 of 174 | Sample: Deploying Business Rules Programmatically - The Rule Engine Deployment Wizard, which ships with BizTalk Server 2006, provides a graphical user interface to perform the following operations: ·     Import a policy from a Business Rule Language (BRL) file into the Rule Engine database, and publish the policy ·     Export a policy from the Rule Engine database to a BRL file ·     Deploy a published policy ·     Undeploy a deployed policy One of the disadvantages of this wizard is that you can perform only one operation at a time. For example, if you need to export two policies, you need to launch the wizard twice. This wizard is also not scriptable......

48 of 174 | Windows Workflow Foundation BRE Does Not Update Value Type Fields of a Structure - The Business Rules Engine of Windows Workflow Foundation does not appear to update value type fields that are part of a structure. When the THEN action of a rule is executed and a calculation updates a value type in a struct, the value of the structure member remains zero. Turning on tracing of the execution of individual business rules shows successful execution of the assignments, but the targeted field maintains its initial value of zero during its use in subsequent calculations. No exceptions are thrown and tipping the BRE via the "update()" command has no impact on this behavior. In my case, changing the struct to a class cured the BRE of this ailment.     ...

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