In this blog I have gathered some frequently asked questions about HANA Rules Framework (HRF) and Decision Service Management (DSM) (and BRFplus)... I hope you find them useful!
Q: Is HRF competing with DSM (and BRFplus) ?
A: No. HRF and DSM (and BRFplus) are complementary technologies. For solutions that run on native HANA, HRF is the preferred rules technology as the rules generates native HANA code. For solutions with an ABAP stack, DSM (which includes BRFplus off-course) is the preferred rules technology as the rules generates ABAP code. Both HRF and DSM (and BRFplus) are significant parts on SAP's future architecture for rule management.
Q: So now I am confused! My solution has an ABAP stack on top of HANA DB - what rules framework should I use?
A: It depends. If your rules are transactional or operational rules (e.g., rules that requires no or minimal data from DB) - you should use DSM. If you have also analytical rules (e.g., rules that requires a lot of data from DB) - you should use HRF, as well.
Q: Can you give examples for transactional rule and analytical rule?
A: Sure! Here are some examples:
- A rule that verifies that all input fields in an online form are correct - is a transactional (operational) rule.
- A rule that verifies that all input fields in a mass of forms which are already persisted are correct - is an analytical rule.
- A rule that determines what offer to give to a consumer by the consumer's IP address - is a transactional (operational) rule.
- A rule that determines what offer to give to an user (or a bunch of users) by a very complex analysis of his historical behavior compared with historical behavior of similar consumers - is an analytical rule.
Q: What are the future plans regarding DSM and HRF?
A: These days and during the whole of 2016 we are going to work on tighter and broader integration between DSM and HRF:
- In this integration, the developer will be able to create DSM (BRFplus) rules and HRF rules from the BRFplus workbench of DSM, utilizing a new modern UI5 rules control (similar to the current HRF controls).
- This UI5 rules control will be available also for custom Fiori applications as a standard UI5 control. So a business user would be able to fill up a decision table or a rule, in a Fiori app without actually knowing whether a DSM (ABAP) rule or HRF (HANA) rule is created in the back-end :!: .
- For a better lifecycle management, all of the rules and relevant design-time artifacts originating from DSM (no matter what the target technology stack is) will be managed in the same (ABAP) repository. In a native HANA implementation, the rules and relevant design-time artifacts will be still managed on SAP HANA itself.
Q: When will these exciting features be ready?
A: We are planning and aiming to provide these features before the end of 2016 - more detailed information will be published in the future.
Q: How much does HRF cost?
A: HRF has no pricing. You are entitled for an HRF license if you buy any SAP solution that has HRF in its bill of materials (for example:SAP Fraud Management, SAP Operational Intelligence, SAP HANA Enterprise Edition...).
Q: Can I use HRF in HCP (SAP HANA Cloud Platform)?
A: Unfortunately not. HRF is not licensed yet to run on HCP. Naturally, we do plan to support it - more detailed information will be published in the future.
Q: I always get the HRF web app in my IE browser in another language (different to the one I would like to have). What should I do?
A: You should simply change your browser's (IE) language preferences by doing the following steps:
- Open IE.
- Click on the cog wheel icon on the top of the screen.
- On the menu, select "Internet options".
- On the "Internet options" popup, click "Languages" button (on "General" tab).
- On the "Languages" popup, click "Set Language Preferences" button
- On the "Change your language preferences" pop-up, choose the desired language and close the pop-up.
- Click OK on the previous popups.
- Restart your browser.
Q: I have assigned my user to all the required HRF roles, but still I cannot create or edit rule as I get an error message. Why is that?
A: Assuming you did assign all the required HRF roles, probably the issue is with missing package privileges. You should verify that your user is assigned to all the required packages. For more details read "User Administration and Authorization" chapter on HRF Security Guide in SAP Marketplace (SMP).
Q: I am interested in the vision of SAP for Decision Management Systems/Business Rules Management Systems, where can I read about it?
A: In the next document Dr. Shuki Idan portrays the SAP Decision Management Vision and Roadmap...
