Business Rules
- Adam Milward
- Charlotte Reynolds
Business rules are complex rules that would usually be expressed in code over and above simple data types.
Business Rules are related to:
- Classes
- Data Elements
They define a set of rules and relationships between data elements within the context of a set of classes within the context of a model.
They are contextualised within a class/model and aren't necessarily portable from one model to another (although it may be interesting to see that a data element is involved in a rule in another model).
Ideally these should be computable.
In some cases they will relate to reference data:
i.e. if the value of this = x then the value of y should = z
OR if the value of x = y then you must complete fields a, b, c.
Some rules should be managed as a matrix using a grid type view.
Business rules tend to be "constraints" rather than data quality / cleaning rules.
For example: a list of business rules for the model
And the validation rule itself:
Note:
1) Name, ID, Description, Version
2) Metadata tab - this is expandable (click on the metadata link to expand it) - it can include any additional metadata needed to describe or implement the rule
3) Data Classes - the data classes that provide context for the rule i.e. that the rule is applicable to or that the rule references
4) Data Elements - the data elements that are used within the rule or should be validated by the rule.
3 and 4 are useful for a governance reasons i.e. if you change something in one system that has knock on repercussions on another system it often isn't updated.
Documenting it here highlights the fact and it becomes easier to manage