Samenvatting

The results in this document are written for Accenture/ATS Netherlands, a company which delivers technical solutions for large companies. 800 employees working together to give customers IT related solutions with services like Quality and testing, CRM, BI, Oracle etc. My assignment is offered by the Oracle Siebel cell. The Oracle services can be offered with Oracle Siebel, a CRM package with many possibilities, like call centre software, portals, Self-service etc.
Oracle Siebel is a standard CRM package which can be optimized to the requirements of the customer. Integrated configuration tools as: Siebel Tools, Visual Basic, Workflows and program languages as JAVA and JavaScript, makes it possible to modify Siebel almost too every requirement or whish of the customer. A customer wish can be to implement Business logic into the Siebel environment. With a configuration tool like Visual Basic (with JavaScript) it is possible to insert Business Logic by inserting Business Rules. The main problem is the way to manage those Business Rules; it is most of the time a complex and time consuming process. This document compared the configuration methods with the possible solution: manage Business Rules with a Rule Engine, a rule based mechanism which create, deploy and import Business Rules into the Siebel environment. The meaning of this document was not to choose between both methods, but a clarification of the differences between both methods.
To get a good end result in this document, this thesis is based on 4 sub-research questions and which result in the answer of the main research question, integrated in the conclusion and recommendation.
After answering the sub-research questions we know that Business Rules are a way to describe Business Logic like: policies, processes, constraints and regulations. This kind of Rules can be used as means to support business goals through simple 'natural English' statements. Business Rules are not able to change the lay-out of an application, but are only able to change Business logic. Siebel 8.0 use HaleyAuthority as Rule Engine to import Business Rules in an IT application. Business Rules in this Rule Engine are written on an understandable (natural English) way, so the rules are manageable for all kind of Business/IT people. Optimal use of Business Rules will work in the next four situations: Dynamic business processes (companies with lot of business process changes), Complex business processes (like law changes), Field validations (like data approval) and Auto-populating field values (relational fields which can change a lot). In these situations can Business Rules, in a Rule Engine, be used to calculate, validate, update etc. by readable English statements for ITers and non ITers. A project or project-situation with a lot of static Business Logic is better off with configuration. Business Rules are more manageable, but it takes a long time to set-up. Configuration is difficult to manage but is (relative) quicker to set-up.
Conclusion: Business Rules are more flexible and accessible than most configuration methods, but at this moment there are no international standards to organize the Rules. This disadvantage and the lack of information in terms of: time savings, features and practical use for non ITers will raise the question:"are Business Rules better, quicker and more accessible then current configurations"? At this moment it is not clear how Business Rules will act in Siebel projects at long term and if Business Rules are really a good alternative for configuration. A technical follow-up project will clarify those ambiguities.