Rule Builder > Business Object Models > Business Object Models and Template Libraries

To be able to create template libraries and edit their contents, you need the Library Editing plug-in installed, see Installing and Uninstalling Plug-ins.

Template libraries are project elements that allow you to create a set of templates that are used to create new rules, decision tables, decision trees, and other elements in your packages as shown in Figure 8.1. In a repository, the BOM is part of a template library.

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Figure 8.1    BOM and Template Library in the Project Explorer Pane

There is only one BOM per template library. The BOM of a template library allows you to define the classes to be used by the rules, decision tables, or decision trees created from the templates of that template library.

A BOM as an object model is very similar to a Java object model. A BOM definition consists of classes grouped in packages. Each class has a set of attributes, methods, and possibly other nested classes.

Every class in the BOM must have a corresponding execution class, and the BOM specifies the mapping between the BOM classes and the execution classes of the Execution Object Model (XOM). Execution classes are those used when business rules are translated into execution rules in IRL and executed by the engine. The XOM references native Java classes, and dynamic classes translated from XML Schemas or Web services. Before deploying your rules, you must set up the XOM and create a default rule extractor. For more information on the XOM, see Figure 18.1 and the Rule Engine User's Manual.

If a class in the BOM maps directly to an execution class in the XOM, then the mapping (or translation) does not need to be specified. However, if a class in the BOM does not map directly to an execution class, it is referred to as a virtual class and has a translation specified using the translation property provided. You can set up this translation in the Rule Builder. The relationship between the BOM classes and the execution classes is shown in Figure 8.2.

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Figure 8.2    BOM Classes and Execution Classes

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