Integrating Decision Tables and Executable Statemachines

Enterprise Architect provides extensive modelling of decision tables via the DMN 1.2 MDG. Decsion Tables can be used to model business rules of any complexity in a concise and understandable way. These decsion table models can be simulated using mutple input data sets to ttes the business rules. Once tested program code, such as Java, can be generated for use in applications.

Enterprise Architect also provdes modelling and simulation of state machines. State machines model the dynamic behaviour of applications. 

At the recent EA User Group 2022 meeting held in Reading UK, I presented how decision tables can be integrated with state machines to provide a simulated model of the dynamic behaviour invoking business rules. The example used was for the application for a car insuarbnce quotation. The business rules for determining the insurance premium based upon certain inputs were modelled as a decsion table, and the dynamic process of applying for a quotation was modelled using a UML executable state machine. The language used for code generation in both cases was Java.

To supplement this presentation I have created a comprehensive step-by-step tutorial which is far too long to reproduce here, therefore this step-by-step guide is provided as a download.

I hope you find the step-by-step guide a useful aid to using this very useful feature of Enterprise Architect. The example has been implemented and tested in EA v 15.2 and EA v 16.

Phil Chudley

Dunstan Thomas

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