Data Tables Wrappers

Providing Wrapper

• Data Table and external Database Table structure must be same.
• Data-Admin-DB-Name
• Data-Admin-DB-Table
• Rule-Connect-SQL
For: Select,Insert,Update,Delete
• Decision Tables

Save the following default activities into our Rule Set:
•ListEditor
•ListEditorSettings
•ListEditorProcess
•ListItemAdd
•ListItemSave
•ListEditorDelete

ListEditor : Activity for display Of records.
HTML’s called :
•ClassListDisplay
•ListEditorDisplay
Activities called:
•ListEditorSettings
•ListEditorProcess

ListEditorProcess: Setting the Mode
Activities called:
•ListItemSave
•ListItemAdd

•Save Data-Gadget.Accelerators HTML into our Rule Set.
• Rename the activity that is called in the HTML to our newly defined activity name for all the customizations done to be reflected for Data Tables.

•Reasons for moving for User Interface:
Tables with more than 1000 records.
Tables with Valuelists.
• Advantages:
User is able to see all the records.
Can perform all operations similar to data tables.

Declarative Processing

Declarative Processing

•Declarative processing simplifies your application and reduces the number of activities you must create
•Dynamic evaluation of properties based on the changes in dependent properties
•Checking the state of a property (constraint) automatically based on the changes in dependent properties
•Running a specified Activity automatically when the value of a property changes either during processing or upon database commit


Declarative Rules


•Declarative rules provide the necessary capabilities required necessary for declarative processing
•Dynamically retrieve the necessary data for the situation
•Reduce the need for complex procedural logic and manual exceptional handling
•Makes complex processes significantly easier to automate
•Deliver time and cost savings for both BPM and BRM solutions


•Constraints rules (Rule-Declare-Constraints rule type)
•Declare Expression rules (Rule-Declare-Expressions rule type)
•Declare Index rules (Rule-Declare-Index rule type)
•Declare OnChange rules (Rule-Declare-OnChange rule type)
•Declare Trigger rules (Rule-Declare-Trigger rule types)
•These rules belong to the Decision category.


•Declarative rules are not referenced explicitly in other rules. Use of a property that's referenced in an expression or constraint rule causes the expression or constraint rule (and perhaps many other rules) to run.
•Process Commander uses an inference engine and an internal data structure known as the dependency network to support declarative processing


FORWARD CHAINING


•Forward chaining provides the automatic propagation of changes in one property value to cause recomputations of another property's value
•E.g.:- Area = Length * Width
Volume = Area * Depth
The value of Volume is automatically recomputed whenever there is any change in Length, Width and Depth

For those Declare Expression rules that have Whenever inputs change in the Calculate Value field, the system creates an internal dependency network, identifying which properties have values that may depend on which other properties

Delegation

In addition, a Declare Expression rule can be delegated to business managers who have the PegaRULES:WorkMgr4 access role. The business managers can see and update only fields on the Expressions tab.

Backward Chaining


•Backwards chaining executes Declare Expression rules when a value is needed for a property, rather than when inputs change
•The Process of computing the values of one or more dependent properties in order to calculate the value of a property is known as GOAL SEEK. Currently available for Declare-Expression rules only.
•Backwards chaining applies to Declare Expression rules that have a Calculate Value field set to one of the following:

When used if no value present
When used, if property is missing
Whenever used

•E.g.:- Area= length* Width


If whenever used option is selected in the calculate value field then each time the system accesses the Area property for a value the Declare Expression rule recomputes
•Standard rules support experimentation with backwards chaining. The flow actions attempt to find a value for the pyResolutionCost property:

VerifyProperty flow action
VerifyPropertywithListing flow action
PromptGoalSeekProperty HTML rule
VerifyProperty activity

Declarative Processing

Data Table Wrappers

Pega Installation Steps

PEGA INSTALLATION STEPS ( >= PRPC 4.02 SP1)

1). Install JDK 1.4.1

2). Install Oracle 9i ( > 9.01 )

---> Install PEGARULES SCHEMA

3). Install Tomcat ( > 5.0 ) under
---> Use unique port
---> Goto Tomcat Manager ( Manager Servlet)
---> Copy classes12.jar/xerces.jar under Tomcat\common\lib
---> Deploy prweb.war under \Tomcat\webapps\prweb
---> Open \Tomcat\webapps\prweb\WEB-INF\classes\pegarules.xml
---> Enable JDBC driver, change UserId,Passaword which were used for installation of oracle

4). Start the Tomcat server5). Access server unsing the following URL:
5). Access server unsing the following URL: http://url:port/prweb/PRServlet

CLIENT CHANGES
1). Install Microsft VISIO
2). login with Admin rights
3). Open internet explorer
4). Goto Tools-->InternetOptions-->Security-->Custom level, enable all the radio buttons

Pega V5.4 Features

Add-ons Menu in Tools Menu:

Using XML rules, you can add items to the menu structure of the Developer portal. Your menu choices appear in the Tools > Add-ons menu group

New Methods for Activities:

Three new methods for activities provide simpler, higher-performance alternatives to the Obj-List method for efficiently searching and selecting objects from the PegaRULES database.The three methods:

Obj-Browse :- Use the Obj-Browse method to search instances of one class and copy the entire instances, or specified properties, to the clipboard as an array of embedded pages.
Obj-Filter :-Use the Obj-Filter method to filter the embedded pages of a results page (such as a Code-Pega-List page produced by the Obj-List, RDB-List, Obj-List-View or Obj-Browse methods) based on one or more when condition rules.
Obj-List-View :- Use the Obj-List-View method to execute the retrieval and sorting operations, but the not the formatting and display processing, of a list view rule.These 3 methods improve CPU, Memory, DB demand performances compared with Obj-List (deprecated in v5.4)

Refactor on Import menu:Use the Refactor on Import wizard to rename classes in a RuleSet archive or product archive as it is imported. This allows you to integrate the imported class structure into the existing class hierarchy on your system.For example, you could import a RuleSet or Rule-Admin-Product containing features developed for another Process Commander project and rename the classes to integrate with the inheritance patterns in your application.

Shortcut Keys:

To speed user input, developers can define a keyboard shortcut for buttons on a work object form, as defined by harness rules This is an optional capability available in all applications, and is recommended for accessible applicationsThe ampersand '&' can be located anywhere in the button caption. The letter following the ampersand '&' will become the shortcut key for the button .To use a custom-defined shortcut key for a button, hold the Alt button while pressing the appropriate key. For instance, if you defined a shortcut key for a create button with ampersand '&' located before the 'c' in create, you would press ALT+C in order to activate the create button

Smart Labels:SmartLabel is a label on a harness, section, or flow action form that provides a pop-up window when the user holds the mouse pointer over the label text. A SmartLabel can be useful to provide users with runtime explanations for a field. The contents of the pop-up window are defined by a section rule, which can contain conditional fields, be localized into multiple languages, and so on.

Integration with MS Outlook Calendar:

Two standard flow actions SendMeetingRequest and GetAppointmentList allow direct interconnection with the appointment calendar in Microsoft Outlook.

SendMeetingRequest - Send a meeting request- Local Action to send a meeting request to the group of email ids.

GetAppointmentList – To get the list of meeting appointments with given email id of a userTo enable Process Commander to communicate with Microsoft Outlook, you must add these local actions to your existing work flow.The user who executes the flow action must have Microsoft Outlook installed on their workstation. The first time a user selects Send Meeting Request, Process Commander uses the PegaOutlookAddInCaller ActiveX control to register with Microsoft Outlook.


Test Manager from Run Menu:

When Automated Testing is enabled, you use the Test Manager portal to schedule the running of test suites and to examine their results. This window contains three tabs:

Dashboard — Lists the results of all the test suites that were run for you in the past five days.
Suites — For the test suite you select, displays the results from each time it ran for you in the past week.
Schedule— Lists all the test suites in the system and lists those that are currently scheduled to be run. Use this tab to schedule the test suites.A test suite, less commonly known as a validation suite, is a collection of test cases that are intended to be used to test a software program to show that it has some specified set of behaviors.

A test suite often contains detailed instructions or goals for each collection of test cases and information on the system configuration to be used during testing.

Why PEGA is known as a BRE

Extensible, Object-Oriented Rulebase

PegaRULES uses an object-oriented model for its rulebase, and powerful inheritance and hierarchical algorithms to apply the right business rule at the right time. This hierarchical rule structure delivers flexibility, personalization capabilities, rapid application configuration, modification, and deployment.For example, general quality rules, compliance rules, and services rules can be defined as valid for the corporation, while specialized versions of these rules can be made available for specific organization units and/or applications.

Common Enterprise Rulebase, Distributed Rule Execution

The PegaRULES enterprise rules engine runs as a series of loosely coupled “nodes” that bring the execution of rules in close proximity to the requesting user or system. Distributed nodes provide the option to share a common rulebase and behave as a single system, enabling the ability to provide “local” performance over distributed physical machines.

The Right Rule at the Right TimeAt runtime

The PegaRULES enterprise rules engine dynamically selects the right business rule depending on the business purpose, product, organization, RuleSet and version, date, time, customer-associated circumstance and security. Once selected, the rule is converted to Java and executed at Java speed.Rules can be defined to apply during specific system dates and/or during an application-defined effective date. For example, this capability provides insurance companies with the ability to process claims in accordance with the rules that were in effect when the policy was issued.

Forward and Backward Chaining Offers Application Flexibility:

PegaRULES provides rich application capabilities by allowing both forward chaining (procedural logic) and backward chaining (goal-based logic). By utilizing dependency networks, PegaRULES determines known and unknown dependent facts.For example, when evaluating an expression or constraint, if a required fact is not available, PegaRULES invokes goal-seeking logic to compute that fact — from other known values.PegaRULES retrieves or computes the missing value, either by interacting with other enterprise systems or by asking a user to supply the value. Once that fact is known, it is automatically used to continue the evaluation of expressions or constraints until the final value is determined.

Intuitive Rule Forms Ease Business

User Change PegaRULES provides intuitive rule forms to build, manage and configure all rules — reducing the need for programmers to write and maintain code.
1. Over 70 different Fit-for-Purpose HTML rules forms are provided, allowing for easy rule creation
2. IT can allow specific rules and/or sections of rules to be managed by business users, increasing business agility and reducing IT costs
3. Users can view the history of changes made to each rule, meeting compliance needs
4. Once a rule is changed and checked back in to the system, a review and approval process can be initiated.

Dozens of Fit-for-Purpose Rule Types

Where other products require developers to utilize Java or a proprietary rule language to build complex rules, PegaRULES provides a family of rule types to help organizations get started quickly and maximize productivity.

1. Declarative Rules: A set of rules that, utilizing dependency networks, compute values or enforce constraints as other properties change, ensuring that data remains consistent
2. Decision Tree Rules: A family of rules that conduct fact-based inferencing (forward chaining) to execute “if-then” types of logic
3. Process Rules: As part of PegaRULES Process Commander, Pegasystems’ Business Process Management (BPM) product, these rules manage the receiving, assignment, routing, and tracking of work

Build Rules Applications Graphically:

Complex applications can be efficiently built using diagrams to design the rule-flow logic. PegaRULES integrates Microsoft Visio as a graphical front-end to its rulebase, enabling users to connect and link a variety of built-in rules to create a complete rules-based application.

Intelligent Agents Automate Key Activities:

PegaRULES includes agents to identify and act on events. This capability offers an extremely powerful mechanism to create business alarms that take appropriate action when business metrics step out of line.

Product Configurator Framework

How Product Configurator Framework in Pega Rules Insurance Domain?
Insurance client to meet the increasing the market challenges and fast growing business need embarked on a business IT initiative to automate the business process for quick turn around and higher process efficiency. Client also faced challenges in maintaining and updating the underwriting and rating rules embedded in their legacy system. Following are the challenges face by the customer in the existing business / IT environment.

Business Challenges:
1.Manual capture of policy related information.

2.Rating is done manually by using the spreadsheets, where the business logic and premium generation logic are embedded.

3.Tightly couple legacy system with business rules, underwriting rules and rating rule embedded in legacy system makes incorporation of dynamic business needs a time consuming process.

4.Tracking and follow up on pending quote awaiting underwriters action was difficult due to non availability of aging reports on policy quotes and issuance.

Pega Solution:

Pega solution is aimed at bridging the gap between business goals and information systems. Pega process-based integration technology helps organizations model and automate business process workflows and integrate them with applications, systems and partners.· Implementation of product configuration framework through which new product configuration and modification in product feature can be done and made available in quick time. This frame work provides purpose-based rule forms for configuring product groups, products and product components that help you organize and manage the rules associated with products.· New Business Quote / All underwriting rules per line of business – data capture for underwriting / policy quote.· Online Policy Issuance / Endorsement, Claims tracking and Billing history.· Reports – To generate various policy tracking reports, business performance metrics reports.

The Product Configuration Solution Framework offers best-practice rule forms and administrative tools for maintaining product configurations in the context of business rule and business process management applications. Product Configuration provides purpose-based rule forms for configuring product groups, products and product components that help you organize and manage the rules associated with products.

Technical Brief:

Product Configuration also provides you with activities, flows and flow-actions that help you access product rules managed with the Product Configuration framework from within your application. The Product Configuration Framework provides you with rule forms for defining products as a collection of components, sub-components and features and organized into product groups. To access these rules from a process management application, you will still need to create a work object corresponding to the action you are performing with this product and the work- and data- classes associated with this work object.

From within the flow for that work object you can access the product configuration rules by calling one of the flows or flow actions defined in the Product Configuration framework. Likewise, components and sub-components typically reference display sections which reference properties and validation rules that will need to be defined independently within your application.

Key objects associated with a Product Offering structure include:

• Product Group (package of products)
• Product
• Components (making up the product)
• Features (making up the components)

The Product Configuration Framework RuleSets include:
• PegaSP — the rules for creating a new product by configuring components,features, pricing, eligibility, validation, and display of the objects
The Process Commander RuleSets include:
• Pega-ProCom — workflow support and portal facilities
• Pega-IntSvcs — system interface support, including connectors and services
• Pega-WB — internal logic and facilities
• Pega-RULES — activities, Java generation, rule resolution, and other basicrules engine operations

Technical Detail- Classes, Rules, Activities, Flows

Data classes define the data structures for supporting information that the Framework uses to process work. The data classes used in this Framework are listed below.
• PegaSP-Data-PricingFactor
• PegaSP-Data-Product-Data classes define the data structures for supporting information that the Framework uses to process work. The data classes used in this Framework are listed below.
• PegaSP-Data-PricingFactor
• PegaSP-Data-Product-

Embed- classes define the structure of pages embedded within other pages. The Embed- classes used in this Framework are listed below.
• Embed-PegaSP-ComponentFeatures
• Embed-PegaSP-GroupProducts
• Embed-PegaSP-ProductComponents
• Embed-PegaSP-SPFindRules


Flow rules consist of shapes and connectors, each with associated parameters and values. Flows specify how work objects are initiated and then proceed to resolution.

They specify who works on work objects in what sequence, what conditions apply to the work, which aspects of the work occur automatically or manually, and other governing principles. Flow rules used in the Product Configuration Framework are listed below.

Advantages of using the Product Configurator Framework are
1. Enables you to define products (saleable packages of insurance coverages / benefits and services) in terms of standard and optional packages, components, subcomponents, and features.Ex: Product: Commercial AutoComponents: Driver Information, Vehicle Information, Policy Level Information
2.To rapidly develop, maintain, and uniquely deploy product (or service) specifications in a controlled and consistent manner.
3. Designing time is less as the framework itself provides the step by step procedure to fill in the blocks for putting the business logic.
4. Enhancing business revenue by dynamically configuring the components and features and pricing the products actually purchased at or near the point of sale.
5. Improved turn around time in policy issuance process resulting in higher customer satisfaction.
6. Decision making and easy tracking of new policies / endorsement.7 Quick and easy access to agent on policies billing / claim information.

Why we need to go for PEGA

Pega RULES: Powerful Deployment Flexibility Tool

Bring the Power of Rules to Enterprise Systems Using a Variety of Deployment Styles

a. User Interface Integration: PegaRULES can be accessed directly from HTML, Java Server Pages, and Portlets

b. Service Oriented Architecture: PegaRULES can be included with other systems in enterprise via popular protocols such as Web Services, IBM WebSphere/MQSeries, Java Messaging Services, Sun Microsystems J2EE Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) and COM objects

c. Batch Processing: PegaRULES can process flat-text files in an offline mode to address batch requirements

d. Embedded in a Java Application: PegaRULES provides direct application programming interfaces for Java applications, including the JSR-94 rules engine API and a PegaRULES-specific API


Rules-Based Applications to Meet Regional Needs

PegaRULES leverages its ability to dynamically select rules to drive the presentation of locale-dependent information, allowing individuals around the world to access and benefit from a common set of business rules.

a. All work object-related data is stored in Unicode, enabling easy presentation of common data in many languages

b. Through the use of language-specific RuleSets, language-appropriate HTML can be dynamically selected and displayed

c. Using Java standard ICU conventions, currency, dates, time, and other information are presented in the most appropriate way for the specified locale

PegaRULES delivers a feature-rich enterprise rules engine that is ready to implement out-of-the-box. With PegaRULES, an organization gains an easy-to-use developer environment — enabling IT staff to move applications into production with speed and ease of maintainability.

1. Easy to develop, deploy and manage business rules within an object-oriented rulebase

2. Built-in versioning of processes and rules allows fast, easy changes (including rollback) to production — in real time

3. Rule-move features make it easy to package rules and associated data for deployment to other PegaRULES systems

4. Single-click ability to review rules referenced by another rule speeds application design and debugging

5. Integrated rule “form builder” tools allow developers to define new rule types that leverage all PegaRULES capabilities

6. Tools for trace, debug and performance management ensure that systems and rules are running efficiently

7. Intuitive browser interface provides access to all development and application functions, enabling quicker deployment and reduced user training costs

8. Fit-for-Purpose rule forms offer safe rules delegation and design simplicity that business users will understand

About BPM

Meaning of BPM :
Business processing management or BPM is the orchestration of various business systems into identifiable and controllable systems. BPM can be used to solve a single glitch or inefficiency in the company, or it may be used to create a single unifying system to consolidate a myriad of different company processes.

Business process management activitiesThe activities which constitute business process management can be grouped into three categories: design, execution and monitoring.

Process design: Process design encompasses the design and capture of existing business processes, as well as the simulation of new ones. The software used to do this includes graphical editors that document processes, repositories that store process models, and business process simulation tools to run a process a large number of times in order to measure performance parameters such as average time and cost. Good design reduces the number of problems over the lifetime of the system.

Process execution: The commercial BPM software market has focused on graphical process model development, rather than text-language based process models, as a means to reduce the complexity of model development. Business rules have been used by systems to provide definitions for governing behavior, and a business rule engine can be used to drive process execution and resolution.

Process monitoring: This monitoring encompasses the tracking of individual processes so that information on their state can be easily seen and the provision of statistics on the performance of one or more processes. An example of the tracking is being able to determine the state of a customer order (e.g. ordered arrived, awaiting delivery, invoice paid) so that problems in its operation can be identified and corrected.

BPM application includes the following components:

Process Designer — allows a trained user to analyze and model a process, step by step, as well as assign logic to it.

Process Engine — executes the actual process flow, assigning manual activities to people and automated activities to applications as the process unfolds.

Rules Engine — manages the flow of information and activities within a process according to the formulas and rules assigned to it.

Process Analytics — provide continual feedback on the process itself so that improvements can be made in the future.

Direct Capture of Objectives (DCO)

Overview

Pega defines Direct Capture Of Objectives as “a set of Application rules and wizards designed to capture and tie the business objectives, project goals, requirements and use cases to actual implementation”.

OverviewPega defines Direct Capture Of Objectives as “a set of Application rules and wizards designed to capture and tie the business objectives, project goals, requirements and use cases to actual implementation”.

Pega sees DCO to be a way of maintaining Requirment Tracebility and reduce costs due to rework and fixing bugs created during the course of fixing some bugs. It ensures accountability because it can check if all the requirements/use cases has been met/addressed.

Key Components of DCO:

(1) Application Profile :Application profile is an Auto-Generated word document designed to help the information gathering phase of the a project life’s cycle. The document is created as part of an automated tool called the Application Profile Wizard. The wizard guides the user through each step on what data it would need for it to generate the AP document. The data that is input into this wizard finally produces 3 components.

a) Application Profile document : This document provides a holistic view of the application with all the business requirements, use cases and other details (org structure, class structure, rulesets, frameworks etc.) of the application.

b) Project Sizing and Estimation Document : This is the sizing and estimation document of how much effort would it be for the actual development of the application.

c) Application Accelerator : this is the wizard that generates all the rules that defines the application. Based on the input to the Application Profile, the accelerator creates all the rules starting from the Org Structure to rulesets to flow etc.These profiles are typically worked upon by Business Analysts, Lead Pega Architects and some developers who gather and define the business requirements and also the implementation strategy. Pega insists that the effort to enter these information into the application profile would take about ‘2-3’ days of dedicated effort. The users can save the information they capture during the middle of creating the application profile and before the creation of the application.The template for the document is saved as a PegaAccel-Task-ProposeApp.ApplicationProfile. This rule file can be customized to the users standard and have them generate the information.

(2) Application Accelerator : The Application Accelerator is a wizard that automates the creation of applications or application frameworks or even extends existing framework. The Application Accelerator has been the part and parcel of old PRPC versions starting from 4.2 SP4. The AA in the latest version of PRPC is a more robust tool when compared to its earlier Avtaars. The wizard in the current release can be run independently or also as a part of the application Profiler. Just like the Application Profiler which captures information regarding Work Details, Actors, Roles, Requirements, reports and correspondence, the AA too provides a set of guided screen flows to the user to capture the information. If the AA is part of the AP then, the data entered into the AP is what gets carried onto the application.

(3) Application Document Wizard :This is a new feature available only on DCO SP2. This wizard creates a set of application specific documents to be used by the business and developers, all throughout the project life cycle. These documents are based on some predefined templates which can be customized for by the clients. The uses can select the contents that need to pulled out onto the document and also provide a template to define the way it would be pulled out. To update they use the PegaAccel-Task-DocumentApp.ProjectDocument & ApplicationDocument.The wizard also can capture screenshots of the existing application to be used as a reference in the profile document. This screen capture functionality is pretty useful during creating training manuals. The wizard also creates ER Diagrams based on the classes/class structure within the application. The ERD are stored as a .vdx file.

(4) Requirement Document Rules : A new feature as part of DCO SP2, this are rules which are used by Pega to define business requirements. They are part of the Rule-Application-Requirement Class. Requirements are provided by the final uses/owners of the application, but by definition it can be defined as an inventory of events, conditions, or functions that need to be satisfied and tracked in the project. The requirement rules are captured as part of the application profile which is then carried onto the Application accelerator which creates the requirement rules. These rules are then modified and tracked throughout the project life-cycle. DCO also provided for a Traceability Matrix that keeps track of changes to the business functionality and the rules that are impacted due to that change.The rules that reference Requirement rules include.Application Rules.Use Case Rules.Flow Ruels

(5) Use Case Requirement Rules : Also a new feature of DCO SP2 which allows the business users upload their use cases into the application. The Use Case rule is an instance of Rule-Application-UseCase which the uses inputs during the application profile data entry stage. Pega expects all the use cases to be atomic as that is what is tracked within the system. The application expects that the use cases should be detailed enough as it makes it easier for the developer to code.The rules that reference Use Case Rules include#Application Rules#Flow Rules#Local and Flow Actions#New Harnesses via the starting shape of a flow#Activities