Technical Articles
SAP Cloud Platform Business Rules – Try it Yourself
We are thrilled to announce our brand-new service “SAP Cloud Platform Business Rules” to be available now for use in SAP Cloud Platform trial account and for enterprise consumption.
Business Rules can be used to encapsulate business logic from application logic, enabling business and key users to change the decision logic without re-writing the application. Try out numerous capabilities of this service to build and use rules in your cloud applications or workflow-based applications or to extend your existing Fiori web-based applications.
You can access this service in few simple steps. All you need is SAP Cloud Platform trial account
Assuming you have access to SAP Cloud Platform trial account, let us now see how in few minutes you can access this service in your trial account. Let’s begin …
- Login to SAP Cloud Platform cockpit
https://account.hanatrial.ondemand.com/#/home/welcome
- Go into your trial account
- Select Services option from the left pane
- Select Orchestration category from the drop down and then select Business Rules tile
- Click on the Enable button to enable the service in your account
- After few seconds, you will see the status of the service will change to Enabled
… now you can start using the rule service in your applications.
New to business rules and looking for help to get started? Here are some quick tips
- Assign RulesSuperUser role to your user via Configure Business Rules Runtime option. This role will give you privilege to deploy and run the rules from rules web editor
- Assign RuleSuperUser role to your user via Configure Business Rules Repository option. This role will give you privilege to create, edit and save the rules from rules web editor
- Finally click on Manage Rules Project to open the web-based rules application URL
- For more information on working with rules editor and knowing various modelling notations and guidelines, you can refer our official beta documentation:
https://help.sap.com/viewer/product/BUSINESS_RULES/Cloud/en-US
Everything you need to get started with rules authoring and execution is now available as a free software service to use in SAP Cloud Platform.
Get started with Business Rules! and we are there to help you with all your queries.
Do write to us of any suggestions on the service and follow us to know more on what’s happening with business rules service general availability release. Stay Tuned!
Is it another product of BRM（Business Rule Management）? Can it replace Process Ochestration(PI/BPM)?
Hello Changlin,
No, this is business rules in SAP Cloud Platform. While BPM/BRM are on-premise products, this is rules capabilities on the cloud. It will not replace BPM/BRM.
When will Business Rules Service be available for partner accounts (e.g. as part of the innovation pack)?
Hello Christian,
We are still working on it. No planned date, but by-or-after GA I can confirm.
Hi Archana, any news on this yet?
Not yet. Please expect some news in few days on the rules release.
Hi ,
Great Blog .
While trying to consume the Repository API's as mentioned in the Document cannot find the Base URL. Below screenshot from my trial account:
But i found the BASE URL from SAP Cloud Platform Cockpit's Destination for API repository.
Am bit confused.
Hello Aisurya,
I am glad that you liked the blog.
Yes, destinations are where you find the base URL for repository and runtime APIs. In SAP Cloud Platform cockpit, you can goto destinations and there you will find two destinations: One for runtime with name: bpmrulesruntime and another for repository with name bpmrulesrepository. Former is used to execute/run the rules runtime APIs and latter for repository APIs. Please note, runtime and repository APIs are meant for different purpose. More information you can find the our guides.
Let me know if you need further information.
Regards,
Archana
Hello Archana,
thanks for this introduction. I am trying to create a demo BRM project in the "Manage Projects" area. But when i click the plus sign, nothing happens. Do i miss someting?
Thanks
Oliver
Hello Oliver,
You need to have roles assigned to your user to be able to manage rule projects. For that, please goto the Business Rules service in your SAP Cloud Platform cockpit and then assign role 'RulesSuperUser' via Configure Business Rules Repository and Configure Business Rules Runtime options to your user. For more information, you can refer to official documentation:
https://help.sap.com/viewer/9d7cfeaba766433eaea8a29fdb8a688c/Cloud/en-US/3da89523952a4146ab6b05eaad649426.html
Regards,
Archana
Archana
thx so much. I did it for the Runtime but missed to do it also for the Repository. Now it is working
Regards
Oliver
Hello Archana,
I can only see this service in my trial account, but not in our company account. Do we have to do something to make the service visible or is special licensing required for this?
Also, are there already some blogs which describe the usage of these rules in HCI or workflow?
Hello Peter,
Business Rules is now released. It is available for free in trial landscape, but if you have a factory account then you need to purchase SAP Cloud Platform Workflow license (8005306) and Business Rules comes with it.
There is no blog to describe how rules can be used in Workflow or with integration. When you deploy the rules – a rest-based service is created and then you can call this service using Business Rules Runtime public APIs.
In workflow, you can call rules using Service Task and in Cloud Integration you can use an HTTP Receiver to call the rules.
For accessing public APIs of the rules, you can read this documentation:
https://help.sap.com/doc/86a35248e2c540fa9062201bb9fdb95c/Cloud/en-US/rules-service-runtime-api.html
For accessing rules using Cloud Integration, you can see a blog written by me on how-to-call-workflow, you can use something similar for rules as well:
https://blogs.sap.com/2017/04/13/initiate-your-workflow-from-sap-cloud-platform-integration-services/
and other references could be:
https://blogs.sap.com/2017/05/01/model-your-workflow-scenarios-in-the-cloud/
https://blogs.sap.com/2017/05/02/overview-of-business-rules-in-cloud-platform/
Hope that helps.
Regards,
Archana
Hi Archana,
In our tenant (on neo-eu1) we have Workflow Service available (I believe as part of the innovation pack), but Business Rules Service is not available yet. Are there any specific steps necessary to enable it?
Hello Christian,
Nothing specific required, please go ahead and just click the Enable button on the Business Rules.
If you do not see the Enable button then do as mention in this blog to enable it.
Regards,
Archana
Hi Archana,
Thanks for your reply! Unfortunately the service isn't available at all on the tenant yet.
Aah, we are in process of enabling Business Rules in all the customer/partners accounts that already have Workflow service. It will take sometime. You can write to me separately with the account details
Hope that is fine.
Regards,
Archana
Hey there,
I've added my trial account to the respective permissions and it's still telling me that I do not have the right authorisations. Any ideas?
Cheers,
Jath
Hello Jath,
It cannot be. To ensure and check if you have done everything fine, can you please send me the screenshots of your roles screen and the business rules URL, you are trying to access.
Regards,
Archana
hello Archana,
We intend to use a rule based approach in our project on SAP Hana cloud platform. We develop in HANA XSC with persistency I7D, which means we can access to all ABAP tables but not functionalities, trasnactions, RFCs etc. We are making pure HANA development. Our UIs are in support portal, mainly this URL for dev environment:
https://supportshell-waeb84638.dispatcher.int.sap.hana.ondemand.com/
I saw the two alternative solutions : SAP Hana Rules Framework (HRF) VS SAP Business rules Service (BRS)
I understand that the HRF is more general and can be used with HANA dev.
BRS is simpler than HRF and does not embed complex decision logic like in HRF.
Is my understanding correct ? can you please provide more hints as to the difference between these two ?
Thank you,
Cheers,
Hello Zied,
SAP HANA Rules Framework is build on top of SAP HANA with XS Classic. You can build rules based on decision table or text-based If-then-else. You can model rules using SAP HANA Studio or web-based application. Here the runtime artefact is SQL Procedure.
SAP Cloud Platform Business Rules is based on SAP Cloud Platform. Here you can build rules only of Decision Table type and modelling tool is a easy-to-use web-based tool. Here the runtime artefact is a rest-based service that can be executed via publicly business rules runtime APIs.
If your project is intended for SAP Cloud Platform, then I would suggest you use SAP Cloud Platform Business Rules. If you feel that there is anything missing for your project then please let me know.
Hello Archana,
Did the cofiguration steps indicated into the tutorial.
When opening the rules editor, I get an infinite loading image. As it can be seen in the attached screenshot, there is one resource: rules-editor.Component that cannot be found
Any idea?
This is also happening on other trial accounts.
Thanks,
Adrian
Hello Adrian,
Nothing has been changed. I am able to open the rule editor from my trial account. There might be some upgrade happening during that time - which could have had a downtime.
Does the issue still comes?
Regards,
Archana
Hey, Archana,
Unfortunately this issue is present in the last 3 days or more, and not only in my trial account, but also in some colleagues trial accounts, from Europe Roth trial data center. I doubt that this is a maintenance issue.
It looks rather as a deployment issue or plain bug. I would really like to know if the version for this service is the same on my trial account, as in yours.
Any way to get this information from the trial cockpit?
My user is assigned to the RuleSuperUser role for both, runtime and repository.
What can I do to have this issue fixed?
I am about to do a demo of Business Rules Framework demo to a customer in NZ, and I will not be able to do it.
Since your account works, may I ask you to start the business rules editor and trace the messages like I did, to see if the request
is invoked, and if it is, what is the content of its answer.
In case you are not aware, that would mean pressing F12, before launching your business rules editor, then launch the business rule editor, then copy the screen and attach it in your response
Thanks,
Adrian
Also, is there any dependency (any other service) that is used by the BRF service and that needs to be enabled, prior running the business rules editor? That could be a possible cause.
No it does not require any dependency on any other service.
Hello Adrian,
From our provider traces we do not see any issues with your trial account. May be do a hard refresh and open the rules editor: https://bpmruleseditor-i33616trial.dispatcher.hanatrial.ondemand.com/index.html#//Projects
Please ping me separately and I can look into the issue.
Hi Archana,
I seem to be having the same issue. When I launch the the rules editor, I get an infinite loading. I am 100% sure that I have the RuleSuperUser for repository and runtime. I have also cleared my browser cache. I have tried both Chrome and IS and the editor is not opening properly on both (infinite loading).
Was this ever resolved for Adrian?
Regards,
Jing
Hello Jing,
please send me seperate email with you user-id for trial account and I would get it resolved.
Thanks,
Hi Archana,
Apologies for the late reply as I was away. Can I please have your email address so I can send you my trial account user-id?
Regards,
Jing
Hi Archana,
This is still not working for me. Please advise.
Regards,
Jing
Hello Archana,
I am currently trying to use rules for a demo case. My requirement would be that I have a date in the result set. Is it somehow possible to define a date target field based on today + x days? I have tried today + 5 for example, but it does not work.
Hello Peter,
Date expressions are not yet supported. It would be available soon.
Hello Archana,
Is it available in SCP Cloud Foundry too? If not , is there any plan or road map?
Regards,
Pranjal
Hello Pranjal,
Yes, it will be very soon released in SAP Cloud Foundry as well.
If you are interested, please write back to me
Hi Archana,
Thank you for the details on the Rules service.
If we develop and maintain rules in the Neo environment, can we use these rules from cloud Foundry Applications using REST APIs?
Thank you,
Venu
No Venu,
You cannot use rules across environments. We would be very very soon releasing Business Rules on CF in trial account and then you can try your stuff. Please send an email if you need further and detailed information.
Regards,
Archana
Thank you Archana..
Hello Archana,
Thanks for the great article! We are considering using the rules engine for an upcoming project. I’d like to view the documentation, but the following link provided in the article doesn’t work. Can you please post an updated documentation link? Thanks!
https://help.sap.com/viewer/9d7cfeaba766433eaea8a29fdb8a688c/Cloud/en-US
Thank you Mark for pointing this out. Here is the new link. I have updated the blog as well:
https://help.sap.com/viewer/product/BUSINESS_RULES/Cloud/en-US
Regards,
Archana
That’s great, thanks so much!