Do you ask yourself if a business rule is something you need to follow from your employee handbook? No, it is not. Business Rules are a new way to apply logic to forms without being a developer. No need-to-know JavaScript or create a plug-in. It is a real-time action that you will see once the condition is met, unlike workflows that will run once the record is saved. Business Rules give you the look and feel of creating JS-like functions in an easy-to-use drag-drop interface.
Access to Business Rules
You are provided a simple interface to maintain common business rules against the entity of your choice.
Actions you can complete in Business Rules
Below is a list of actions you can complete using a Business Rule:
- Set Field Value
– Take a value from one field and apply a new value, a different field or clear the value.
- Lock/Unlock field
– Lock/Unlock field when a condition is met. Great to use to keep specific data from being updated. A business rule can also unlock already locked fields on the form.
- Show Error Message
– Use for validation against a field.
- Set Default Value
– Provide a value to prevent a user from mistakenly adding wrong data to field.
- Set Visibility
– Show or Hide fields depending on the condition to reduce clutter on the form and display what is needed.
- Set Business Required
– Make fields required or not required based on the condition. It eliminates the need to set up your field as Business Required on creation. Very helpful to make sure the users enter all the necessary data and help with user adoption.
Is the Condition Met?
With this easy-to-use interface, the only way your logic is going to work is by writing a Condition first to trigger your actions. The condition is the purple component that you will start to write your expression. From here, go to the properties tab to create your rule. In the rule logic area, you can add a new rule using the AND or OR operator to combine clauses to the condition by pressing “New.”
Once your rule is complete, head to the menu bar in the upper right-hand corner and save your rule. The system will then automatically validate if the expression is correct and then activate your rule. Once activated, you can now begin testing your new Business Rule.
Conclusion
Microsoft Dynamics Business Rules is a convenient tool for non-developers to build simple expressions that quickly help improve user adoption and prevent data integrity. It offers more to the low-code avenue Microsoft is developing. I hope Microsoft will continue to build off this and provide more actions and the possibility of bringing relational entities into the mix.
For more information, please reach out to our BOLDEhthusiasts.
