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Decision rules Concepts and terms

The Decision category of includes five declarative types and five other rule types. For an
introduction to the five declarative rules, see Declarative rules Concepts and terms.
The others are:
When conditions (Rule-Obj-When rule type)
Decision Tree rules (Rule-Declare-DecisionTree rule type)
Decision Table rules (Rule-Declare-DecisionTable rule type)
Map value rules (Rule-Obj-MapValue rule type)
Hierarchy rules (Rule-Define-Hierarchy rule type)
All of these define computations and comparisons that cause processing to continue along
one path or another.
For the first three rule types, a reference to a rule arises in your application, which causes
the rule to be evaluated. The results of the evaluation affect later processing. In contrast,
the Declare Expression and Declare Constraint rules execute autonomously when
required, through an internal mechanism known as forward chaining.

When conditions
When conditions are the simplest decision rules. A when condition rule evaluates a
relationship among one or more property values, and returns true or false. This
corresponds to the familiar IF-THEN construct used in many rules systems and
programming or scripting environments.
For example, a business rule can state "If the next Monday is a holiday, then orders for
next-business-day delivery can be accepted only until 2 P.M. Friday, not the regular 5
P.M. closing time." This rule can be captured in a when condition, as a Boolean (truefalse) test among the properties that describe holidays, today's weekday, and the current
time.
You can reference when condition rules in numerous other rules. For example, each step
in an activity can reference a precondition when condition and a transition. You can
conditionalize HTML and XML stream processing based on the when directive (which
can reference a when condition rule).

Decision trees
Create a decision tree rule to capture complex IF-THEN situations that involve multiple
tests and criteria. Decision tree rules contain a list of one or more input properties, and
can return a property value as a result.
For example, a decision tree rule can compute and return "today's order cutoff time" as 5
P.M. on most business days, but 2 P.M. if today is a Friday before a Monday business
holiday.
In addition to returning a property value result (not limited to true or false), decision tree
rules present the conditions and computations attractively. One decision tree may be
easier to compose and understand than five interrelated when conditions.
You can reference decision tree rules in flows through a decision task, and in any activity
that executes the Property-Map-DecisionTree method.

Map values
A map value rule, like a decision tree rule, has inputs and results. Use a map value rule to
convert one or two input values (text, numbers, or dates) into a single resulting value,
where the decision criteria fit a table or matrix structure. This is a straightforward way to

present decisions and computations that depend on ranges of the input values. For
example:
"If the test score falls between 91 and 100, assign a grade of A. If the test score falls
between 81 and 90, assign a B. Assign C for 71 to 80."
and so on.
You can reference map values in flows through a decision task, and in any activity that
executes the Property-Map-Value or Property-Map-ValuePair method.

Hierarchy
Create a collection of related hierarchy rules to define, through rules rather than data
objects, a tree structure that can be searched. See About Hierarchy rules.