How to get Corticon modules 'code reviewed'

Posted by Ollie on 05-Jan-2015 14:10

Hi,

The organization that I work for has computer systems that are certified after code reviews. Now that we are planning to use Corticon there is no longer any code. We just have rule sheets, rule flows and system generated documentation. I'm expected to explain to our certification bureau how Corticon does things and basically tell them how they can do their audits in this non-code environment.

Does anybody know how to expose the nuts and bolts of a Corticon decision service in a way that is equivalent to a traditional code review?

Thank you,

Ollie

All Replies

Posted by mparish on 05-Jan-2015 14:42

There are a number of things you can do:

1.       Make sure that every condition and action is documented with a natural language equivalent (this makes it easier for a non Corticon person to understand the intent of every rule – it’s also very useful in clarifying your own understanding of what the rules are supposed to do). You can even create them in several different languages – particularly useful if you are based in Europe.

2.       Make sure that every rule column has one or more rule statements attached to it – you can attach different rule statements with different amounts of detail and post them to different objects to generate more or less detail on demand. The audit trail produced in this fashion provides the equivalent to “code”. There’s also a new brms.proprties setting that allows you to control whether info, warning or violation messages are returned.

3.       Use the “report” function in Corticon to generate an HTML representation of all of the rules (or vocabulary or test cases). This can then be viewed by people who do not have a copy of Studio.

4.       For the more adventurous you can also use the Corticon rule modeling APIs to introspect the rule model and generate your own custom audit review report (see example below).

 

Example of an impact analysis diagram produced using the Corticon rule modeling API:
Based on this rule flow
It’s possible to generate a dependency diagram that shows how the rule sheets and attributes affect each other:
Blue oval  = attribute, red box = rule sheet, blue arrow = input, black arrow = output, red arrow = dependency between rule sheets.
The dependency diagram shows that actually there are two distinct things happening.
 
A similar kind of thing could also be done to show how the attributes are interdependent (ignoring the rule sheets):
 
NOTE: This is not out-of-the-box functionality (yet) – You would have to write some java code to use the Corticon APIs to read the rule model and do the analysis. There are some examples that come with Studio.
 
Mike

 

 
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From: Ollie [mailto:bounce-olafjanssensmhplancom@community.progress.com]
Sent: Monday, January 05, 2015 12:11 PM
To: TU.Corticon@community.progress.com
Subject: [Technical Users - Corticon] How to get Corticon modules 'code reviewed'
 
Thread created by Ollie

Hi,

The organization that I work for has computer systems that are certified after code reviews. Now that we are planning to use Corticon there is no longer any code. We just have rule sheets, rule flows and system generated documentation. I'm expected to explain to our certification bureau how Corticon does things and basically tell them how they can do their audits in this non-code environment.

Does anybody know how to expose the nuts and bolts of a Corticon decision service in a way that is equivalent to a traditional code review?

Thank you,

Ollie

Stop receiving emails on this subject.

Flag this post as spam/abuse.

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Posted by Ollie on 06-Jan-2015 09:03

Thank you, Mike.
I noticed that you wrote some documents about health insurance. Some actually relate to Michigan, which is our primary market. Do you have experience with compliance and certification in this industry, using the methods you described?
 
Ollie
 
[collapse]
From: mparish [mailto:bounce-mparish@community.progress.com]
Sent: Monday, January 05, 2015 3:43 PM
To: TU.Corticon@community.progress.com
Subject: RE: [Technical Users - Corticon] How to get Corticon modules 'code reviewed'
 
Reply by mparish
There are a number of things you can do:

1.       Make sure that every condition and action is documented with a natural language equivalent (this makes it easier for a non Corticon person to understand the intent of every rule – it’s also very useful in clarifying your own understanding of what the rules are supposed to do). You can even create them in several different languages – particularly useful if you are based in Europe.

2.       Make sure that every rule column has one or more rule statements attached to it – you can attach different rule statements with different amounts of detail and post them to different objects to generate more or less detail on demand. The audit trail produced in this fashion provides the equivalent to “code”. There’s also a new brms.proprties setting that allows you to control whether info, warning or violation messages are returned.

3.       Use the “report” function in Corticon to generate an HTML representation of all of the rules (or vocabulary or test cases). This can then be viewed by people who do not have a copy of Studio.

4.       For the more adventurous you can also use the Corticon rule modeling APIs to introspect the rule model and generate your own custom audit review report (see example below).

 

Example of an impact analysis diagram produced using the Corticon rule modeling API:
Based on this rule flow
It’s possible to generate a dependency diagram that shows how the rule sheets and attributes affect each other:
Blue oval  = attribute, red box = rule sheet, blue arrow = input, black arrow = output, red arrow = dependency between rule sheets.
The dependency diagram shows that actually there are two distinct things happening.
 
A similar kind of thing could also be done to show how the attributes are interdependent (ignoring the rule sheets):
 
NOTE: This is not out-of-the-box functionality (yet) – You would have to write some java code to use the Corticon APIs to read the rule model and do the analysis. There are some examples that come with Studio.
 
Mike

 

 
[collapse]
From: Ollie [mailto:bounce-olafjanssensmhplancom@community.progress.com]
Sent: Monday, January 05, 2015 12:11 PM
To: TU.Corticon@community.progress.com
Subject: [Technical Users - Corticon] How to get Corticon modules 'code reviewed'
 
Thread created by Ollie

Hi,

The organization that I work for has computer systems that are certified after code reviews. Now that we are planning to use Corticon there is no longer any code. We just have rule sheets, rule flows and system generated documentation. I'm expected to explain to our certification bureau how Corticon does things and basically tell them how they can do their audits in this non-code environment.

Does anybody know how to expose the nuts and bolts of a Corticon decision service in a way that is equivalent to a traditional code review?

Thank you,

Ollie

Stop receiving emails on this subject.

Flag this post as spam/abuse.

Stop receiving emails on this subject.

Flag this post as spam/abuse.



Olaf Janssens
Meridian Health Plan
Technical Business Analyst
777 Woodward Ave, Suite 600
Detroit MI 48226
www.mhplan.com

p. 313-324-3700 x1126

 

 

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