Boomi's Business Rules Step for Easy Error Detection

Based on my (admittedly) limited review of Dell Boomi Atomsphere processes in production, the Business Rules step is under-utilized as an error detection approach.  Which is a shame, as it is specifically designed to make error detection easy.

What is Dell Boomi's Business Rules Step?

The Business Rules step has several features that make it a powerful error detection asset.  You can set up multiple business rules, each with its own source data, logic, and error message.  If any one of the rules fails, the document is routed down the failure branch, otherwise down the success branch.  

The logic for each individual rule can be quite complex.  Input parameters to the logic can come from almost anywhere - the source profile, properties of all types, and even connector calls.  A special document property is created for failing records which holds all of the error messages for all of the rules that flagged the document in error.

 In the Above screen shot, you see a required fields business rule.  In this rule, three fields from an input profile are tested to be not empty.  If any one of the fields are empty (the OR qualifier),

• The Document is marked rejected, and follows the Rejected path from the step;
• The customized error message is generated, which contains the document internal ID
• The error message is out into a special Base Document property which is accessible in subsequent steps

In subsequent processing, I process rejected documents, as follows:

• I push the Error message (which is an XML document) into the Document stream using a Message step, so that I can apply a profile to the xml
• I use a map to pull out the error message or messages (there can be multiple, if the document fails multiple rules) , usually into a Dynamic Document Property
• I route the rejected document into the path I'm using to alert users to a failure - most often a post-back to a message field on the originating record
• Sometimes I also (or instead) send an email alerting a user to the error

There are a few challenges in using Business rules: The dedicated UI is complex, and not intuitive.  The controls used to set up the logic are also a bit confusing.  And some gyrations are needed to pull out the error message for failing records.  

Boomi's Business Rules Required Fields & Processing Rejected Documents

But the Business Rules step does allow you to test for multiple complex rules at one time, route the record down an error path if any rule fails, and capture a customized error message for each error.  Well worth learning how to use, and a great way to bulletproof your Boomi processes.