Release Notes 10.5.0

Feb 19, 2025. OpenRules Release 10.5.0 allows our customers to organize and maintain their rule repositories at two highly popular storage systems:

Release 10.5.0 also includes several functional enhancements and comes with a new Reference Guide.

Please note that Release 10.5.0 makes changes in the OpenRules foundation in preparation for the next major release. So, if you are not interested in the new features included in Release 10.5.0 you may continue to use LTS releases 10.4.0 or 10.4.1.

1. OpenRules-SharePoint Integration 

MS Sharepoint is a highly popular single platform for storing and sharing documents across the organization. It allows employees from different departments, offices, or regions to access important documents securely. SharePoint’s version control ensures employees are always working with the latest version, while older versions are preserved. Using SharePoint Teams can collaborate on documents in real-time using Microsoft Office integration (Word, Excel, PowerPoint). All these features make SharePoint a natural choice for storing and maintaining OpenRules-based rule repositories.

Release 10.5.0 allows our customers to host their decision models directly in SharePoint. To use OpenRules repositories with SharePoint as a rule repository they need to configure a special OpenRules application on SharePoint and set up the proper runtime environment. The proper OpenRules-SharePoint integration process is described here.

After completing this SharePoint integration, our customers may migrate their decision projects from local files to SharePoint. They only need to make the proper changes in the properties “model.file” and “test.file” in the local file “project.properties“.

For example, we moved Excel files from our standard decision model “VacationDays” to OpenRules SharePoint installation and modified these properties as follows:

• model.file=https://openrules.sharepoint.com/sites/OpenRulesSamples/Shared%20Documents/VacationDays/rules/DecisionModel.xlsx
• test.file=https://openrules.sharepoint.com/sites/OpenRulesSamples/Shared%20Documents/VacationDays/rules/Test.xlsx

You can find a new sample project “VacationDaysSharePoint” with the above “project.properties” in the standard OpenRules installation. You may use it as a prototype for your own decision projects on SharePoint.

You may keep in SharePoint not only your Excel files but also your CSV, JSON, and other files.

Note. SharePoint integration requires the use of the most recent update of your JDK installation starting with JDK 8u441 or later.

2. OpenRules-Amazon S3 Integration 

Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) or AWS S3 is an object storage service offering industry-leading scalability, data availability, security, and performance. It provides cost-effective storage classes and easy-to-use management features with a very simple configuration. To keep your decision models at AWS S3, you only need to have an active AWS account and set up your security AWS Credentials (access key ID and secret access key) in the default file ~/.aws/credentials. Release 10.5.0 supports a special protocol “s3://” to access files saved at AWS S3.

We’ve added the sample project “VacationDaysS3” to the standard OpenRules installation. It includes the following “project.properties”:

model.file=s3://openrules-rulesets/VacationDays/rules/DecisionModel.xlsx
test.file=s3://openrules-rulesets/VacationDays/rules/Test.xlsx

Of course, you need to use your own AWS S3 folder instead of “openrules-rulesets”.

3. Other OpenRules Enhancements in the Release 10.5.0

3.1. Simplified Test Cases

Now the columns in the tables of the type “DecisionTest” may use the following names:

• Define (a synonym for ActionDefine)
• Expect (a synonym for ActionExpect)
• UseObject (a synonym for ActionUseObject)
• UseJson (a synonym for ActionUseJson)

We made the proper changes in all OpenRules samples and plan to deprecate the old names in future releases.

3.2. Custom Properties for 3rd Party Products that use OpenRules

Customers who developed their own products on the top of OpenRules Decision Manager now can add their own standard properties directly to their product instead of adding them to each project that uses their product. To do this, they should add the file “openrules.properties” to their Java library in the source folder “src\main\resources\META-INF”.

For example, the OpenRules product “Rule Learner” uses the following file “com.rulelearner\src\main\resources\META-INF\openrules.properties”:

environment.attributes=learning.attribute, learning.concept, learning.classifier, learning.filter, learning.classifier.options, learning.filter, cross.validation
glossary.usedas=class, target

It makes all declared properties “legitimate”, otherwise a syntax error is “Unknown property” will be produced.

3.3 Sorting Variables are Shown in Debugger

If you use OpenRules decision tables for sorting collections of objects such as this one

from “openrules.samples/AnalyzeEmployeesWithoutLoops”, you will be able to see both intermediate decision variables “Salary of Employee1” and “Salary of Employee2” in the graphical Debugger.

3.4. New Reference Guide

Release 10.5.0 comes with a new online Reference Guide that lists major decision modeling building blocks with brief descriptions and examples of use. With a simple Ctrl+F you may quickly find any OpenRules topic of interest. 

3.5. Upgrades and bug fixes

Release 10.5.0 upgrades some 3rd party dependencies to avoid vulnerabilities and fixes a few bugs found by our QA in rare situations not noticed by users.

The evaluation version of the Release 10.5.0 is available for free from here.