Adopted from [The Truth about Business Rules]
What is a Business Rule?
“A rule is a principle or condition that customarily governs behavior”
Business Rule
“Business rules represent policies, procedures, and constraints regarding how an enterprise conducts its business”
- In the past, with S1000D programs, business rules were deemed to only apply to the author/creator of the given information
- As knowledge grew, within the programs, multiple aspects were identified that affected business
- Contractual
- Organizational
- Geographical
- Etc.
Categories of Business Rules
- Within S1000D, it was decided that guidance was needed to identify the various types of business rules applicable.
- These would group together “alike” rules and would cover aspects such as:
- Product Definition
- Maintenance Philosophy
- Concepts of Operation
- Security
- Business Processes
- Data Creation
- Data Exchange
- Data Integrity
- Data Output
- Other Possibilities
- Legacy Data Conversion
- Management
- Handling
Categories
- S1000D Business Rules Category
Category I: General Business Rules
These business rules cover all decisions made by a project and/or an organization that are not covered by any of the BR categories below. They can serve as overall decisions showing direction for implementing S1000D.
- These decisions, include but are not limited to:
- Decision on which version(s) of S1000D is (are) to be implemented
- Identification of the portion of S1000D to be implemented in the project
- Definition of terms used throughout the project, so there is a clear understanding of their meanings and there is no ambiguity.
- Examples:
- A decision example on an organizational level: the technical documentation of all new vehicles is to be produced on the basis of S1000D Issue 2.1 and higher but not below.
- A decision example on a project level: Overall technical documentation in this project is realized on the basis of S1000D Issue 2.1. Exceptions/Additions: authoring rules for wiring will be adopted from S1000D Issue 2.2; Layout Rules will be implemented on the basis of Issue 2.3
Category VI: Data Creation Business Rules (BR)
- These BRs give information to aid data creation. They can be for the creation of text, illustrations, and multimedia.
- The Data Creation BRs include:
- Business Rules on creation of textual data
- Business Rules on creation of graphics, 3D content, and multimedia.
- BR Category Via: Data Creation Business Rules – Text
- These BRs consist of writing rules (including terminology rules) and mark-up rules.
- Writing rules give information about how the technical content is written and specify, for example, the use of dictionaries, how numbers are to be expressed, how the author is to refer to technical terms, and the establishment and use of a terminology database.
- Mark-up business rules provide information about which mark-up elements and attributes are to be used and how they are to be used and populated. These rules are often project specific.
- To summarize, the Data Creation BRs for Text may include:
- Writing rules (including terminology rules)
- Markup rules.
- Examples:
- The ASD Simplified Technical English Dictionary shall be used
- Use S2000M Units of Measure
- All fault data modules must have their fault codes listed in the fault code index
- The applicability block mark-up requirements are
- The <techstd> element must not be used
- The <dmsize> element must contain
Category VII: Data Exchange Business Rules
- Rules for how data is to be exchanged between partners and customers are covered here. This includes, for example, the use of the Data Dispatch Note (DDN) and how the Data Module Requirements List (DMRL). As well as, the CSDB Status List (CSL) is to be used. The rules under this category, include how the S1000D file based transfer protocol is to be used, the periodicity of data exchanges, if unverified data is to be exchanged, the rules for data module and graphic issue numbers, and the acceptance and rejection criteria.
- To summarize, the Data Exchange BRs may include:
- Rules for use of DDN
- Rules for use of DMRL
- Agreement on periodicity of data exchanges
- Rules for issue numbers for DMs
- Rules on information objects coded with ICN
- Agreed criteria for acceptance and rejection.
- Examples
- Data is to be exchanged using the S1000D file-based transfer method
- The inwork number must be used in the filename
- Data modules must be exchanged in XML format
- Data module exchanges must only contain data modules and illustrations
- Comments, DMLs, etc. must be exchanged in separate exchange packages
- The DDN must conform to the following business rules…
- Data module deliveries will be made once per calendar month
- The exchange of unverified information is not allowed
Layering
Business rules should be layered. By that we mean there is an inherent hierarchy in their applicability within a program.
S1000D Business Rules Layers
Advantages of Layered BRs
Implementation consistency:
- More agreement for Joint Projects
- Joint Service projects will know some of their BRs in advance
- More agreement means more reuse
- Component vendors will not need to charge for re-authoring
- More sharing of tools
- Maintainers/operators across the services will easily recognize the meaning and use of content
- Authors will easily be able to produce data for any service