The Connected Framework Rules Team Blog

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 top of the WF Rules Engine.
• It is a framework technology that is targeted towards developers and ISVs, not towards business analysts. We expect developers and ISVs to leverage this framework technology and build higher level abstractions and tools targeted towards the business analysts. Infact, our partners InRule and AcumenBusiness have done just that.

Most vendors who participate in showcasing this at the Business Rules Forum are showing their business analyst capabilities - they're showing how to model this solution using their suite of products.

One of the webcast attendees was confused as a result after he looked at our sample. The sample is demonstrating technical feasibility and is a starting point for an ISV or developer who wants to leverage the WF Rules Engine and the .NET Framework and build richer experiences. It is not trying to showcase WF Rules as an out of box business analyst experience. The sample re-uses the RuleSet editor which is a developer UI for authoring rules and is available in the .NET Framework 3.0.

-Kavita

I am doing another webcast on WF Rules, this time more advanced and extensibility scenarios.

Cheers,

Kavita

I will be giving a webcast on Introduction to WF Rules. Hope to see you there.

http://blogs.msdn.com/kavitak/archive/2007/05/17/intro-to-wf-rules-webcast.aspx

Cheers,

Kavita

Acumen Business has added support fow Windows Workflow Foundation in their Business Analyst friendly Rule Manager product. Acumen's solution went up on Microsoft's Solution Showcase site a few weeks back.

In addition to the InRule support that also came online in April, WF Rules users now have multiple options for choosing a business analyst interface for creating and managing rules. This also goes to say that the WF Rules Platform is extensible enough for ISVs to add custom authoring and management frameworks and integrating into their products.

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 availability of InRule™ for Windows Workflow Foundation. This product extends the power of Windows Workflow Foundation by providing rules technology for business logic automation: rule authoring and verification designed for business and technical users with Business Language Authoring and centralized rule management.   

InRule for Windows Workflow Foundation is integrated with Visual Studio and uses the Windows Workflow Foundation rules engine.  It provides advanced capabilities designed to simplify the inclusion of complex business logic and calculations in Windows Workflow Foundation applications, such as:

• Business Language Authoring intuitive enough for business users, yet with enough technical depth to create complex decision logic and calculations
• Integrated, real-time testing to verify the integrity of business rules
• Advanced capabilities to extend the Windows Workflow Foundation rules engine, including decision tables and over 90 built-in functions
• A centralized rule catalog to manage rule check-in/check-out and permissions across systems

InRule for Windows Workflow Foundation joins InRule™, the premier business rules software for .NET, to help even more Microsoft customers automate complex business logic in a high performance environment.

To download the product data sheet, visit http://www.inrule.com/pdf/InRuleForWF.pdf  To download a free 30 day trial version, register at http://www.inrule.com/Rule_Engine_Survey.aspx.

Hear customer perspectives from management and technical users who have used business rule technology to automate core business processes and exploit the power of .NET, view a replay of the informational webcast "Exploiting the Power of a .NET Rule Engine: The Final Frontier of Business Logic Automation," viewable at any time. Click here to register.

InRule Technology is a member of Microsoft's Business Process Alliance, an alliance of ISV partners focused on creating solutions that further enhance the enablement of mainstream business process management (BPM) solutions on the Microsoft platform. For more information on InRule, visit http://blogs.msdn.com/controlpanel/blogs/www.inrule.com%20 or contact Theresa O'Neil, VP Business Development oneil@inrule.com.  

-Kavita

http://wf.netfx3.com/files/folders/rules_samples/entry9178.aspx

-Kavita

The first .NET Framework 3.5 "Orcas" CTP has been released!

The .NET Framework 3.5 brings no breaking changes. New technology is being added including LINQ, AJAX, WF, WCF and WPF Developer Tools and BCL Enhancements. The release will ship with Visual Studio codename "Orcas" and will also be available for download from MSDN.

For Rules you will find the following enhancements -

1. Runtime and parser support for Extension methods (introduced in C# 3.0)

2. Operator Overloading

3. Support for new() operator to create objects and arrays

-Kavita

I just wanted to post a quick note that the rules team is interested in getting feedback from you on the samples we're posting on the community site - http://wf.netfx3.com - If you'd like to see specific samples, please contact us and give us feedback through the blog.

-Kavita

Another tester on the team, Charlie, wrote a sample to demonstrate how a rule can be authored against XML data. Read about it here

Kavita

Maggie, a tester on the Rules team, has written a PolicyFromFile custom activity which shows how you can externalize the rules outside your workflow. Read about it here

-Kavita

Using rules for page flow is a common question on our internal discussion aliases and in the WF forums. We're happy to share that Kushal Shah, a tester on the Rules team, has just posted a sample on the community site which uses rules (standalone, that is, without WF) in an ASP.Net application to drive page flow. The sample shows how rules can be used standalone in driving the page flow and the business logic for an ASP.Net application.

Check it out here:

http://wf.netfx3.com/files/folders/rules_samples/entry8431.aspx

-Kavita

Stephen Kaufman is a Principal Consultant in MCS (Microsoft Consulting Services) who works with customers on BizTalk, WF and Rules

A common question we get is how the WF Rules Engine relates to the BizTalk Business Rules Engine. With input from the rules team, Stephen has put together this excellent presentation comparing the WF Rules Engine to the BizTalk Rules Engine here: http://mnbiztalk.com/Presentations/TwinCitiesBizTalkUserGrup%20-%20Rule%20Engines.ppt

-Kavita

You can now download the final version of the .Net Framework 3.0 from here:

This includes WCF (Windows Communication Foundation, Indigo), WF (Windows Workflow Foundation) and WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation, Avalon). WF contains the Rules SDK and the Rules authoring environment for you to build on! It's been a wonderful journey for a lot of us on the product team and we're ecstatic to get this release out the door and in your hands.

-Kavita

Today I posted sample code for a policy cache service that caches rule set (so you can get better performance) and the corresponding custom PolicyActivity that leverages this caching service to get the rule set it has to execute.

-Kavita

I posted this on my blog today after we saw a question about this on the WF MSDN forums. In future releases we are looking at providing more analysis capabilities on your rules which should make a lot easier for you to tune your rules.

-Kavita