OpenL Tablets is a

business rule management system A BRMS or business rule management system is a software system used to define, deploy, execute, monitor and maintain the variety and complexity of decision logic that is used by operational systems within an organization or enterprise. This logic, a ...

(BRMS) and a

business rules engine A business rules engine is a software system that executes one or more business rules in a runtime production environment. The rules might come from legal regulation ("An employee can be fired for any reason or no reason but not for an illegal re ...

(BRE) based on table representation of rules. Engine implements optimized sequential algorithm. OpenL includes such table types as

decision table Decision tables are a concise visual representation for specifying which actions to perform depending on given conditions. They are algorithms whose output is a set of actions. The information expressed in decision tables could also be represente ...

decision tree A decision tree is a decision support tool that uses a tree-like model of decisions and their possible consequences, including chance event outcomes, resource costs, and utility. It is one way to display an algorithm that only contains co ...

spreadsheet A spreadsheet is a computer application for computation, organization, analysis and storage of data in tabular form. Spreadsheets were developed as computerized analogs of paper accounting worksheets. The program operates on data entered in ce ...

-like calculator.

History

The OpenL Tablets project was started as an in-house development project in 2003 and later in 2006 was uploaded to

SourceForge SourceForge is a web service that offers software consumers a centralized online location to control and manage open-source software projects and research business software. It provides source code repository hosting, bug tracking, mirrori ...

.Project Details
/ref> Initially it was an

open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

business rule A business rule defines or constrains some aspect of business. It may be expressed to specify an action to be taken when certain conditions are true or may be phrased so it can only resolve to either true or false. Business rules are intended to as ...

engine for

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mo ...

. Starting from version 5 it became a

BRMS A BRMS or business rule management system is a software system used to define, deploy, execute, monitor and maintain the variety and complexity of decision logic that is used by operational systems within an organization or enterprise. This logic, ...

Technology

OpenL Tablets engine is specially designed for

s and uses table rules presentation. Table format enforces rules to be structured and format itself is close to tables found in various business documents. OpenL Tablets is based on OpenL framework for creating custom languages running on Java VM. The engine is designed to allow pluggable language implementations. Currently, it uses 2 languages: table structure for rules format and java-like for code snippets in rules. Java-like language is

5.0 implementation with Business User Extensions. OpenL Tablets rules are mixture of

declarative programming In computer science, declarative programming is a programming paradigm—a style of building the structure and elements of computer programs—that expresses the logic of a computation without describing its control flow. Many languages that a ...

for rules logic and

imperative programming In computer science, imperative programming is a programming paradigm of software that uses statements that change a program's state. In much the same way that the imperative mood in natural languages expresses commands, an imperative program co ...

for workflow control. Table formats are flexible enough to match the semantics of the problem domain. Tests, traces, benchmarks are integral part of the engine. It also provides powerful type definition capabilities to handle rules domain model inside rules files. The project is written in

, but can be used at any platform using

Service-oriented architecture In software engineering, service-oriented architecture (SOA) is an architectural style that focuses on discrete services instead of a monolithic design. By consequence, it is also applied in the field of software design where services are provided ...

approach, e.g. via web service.

Patents

The OpenL Tablets engine has patent pending validation feature.Hybrid use of rule and constraint engines
/ref> There are usages of OpenL Tablets which may be patented.
/ref>

BRMS

OpenL Tablets includes several productivity tools and applications addressing BRMS related capabilities. They include web application to edit rules called OpenL WebStudio, web application to deploy rules as web services, Rules Repository to store and manage rules, Eclipse plug-ins to work with rules projects.

Related systems

* CLIPS: public domain software tool for building expert systems. * ILOG rules: a business rule management system. * JBoss Drools: a business rule management system (BRMS). * JESS: a rule engine for the Java platform - it is a superset of CLIPS programming language. *

Prolog Prolog is a logic programming language associated with artificial intelligence and computational linguistics. Prolog has its roots in first-order logic, a formal logic, and unlike many other programming languages, Prolog is intended primarily a ...

: a general purpose logic programming language. * DTRules: a Decision Table-based, open-sourced rule engine for Java.

References

External links

* * * {{SourceForge, openl-tablets, Openl Tablets
OpenL Tablets at Eclipse marketplace
Rule engines Free software Free business software Free software programmed in Java (programming language)