Decision Table with Expressions as output

RE: Decision Table with Expressions as output

Mike Schmitt — Mon, 11 Oct 2021 20:08:41 GMT

Somewhat recently I did come upon a particular use case - something that assigns different arbitrary text output values to various arbitrary combinations of input status IDs (in some cases keying off a main status id and a substatus id, and in other cases just the main status id). That works well, and the same thing in an expression rule would've been, while not very hard, a painful amount of if() handling, etc.

However, so far this has been the only time I've used one (and i had to be OK with the hardcoding of values involved, which I just kinda had to overlook in this case), -- but all other occasions I've investigated the possibility I've found that they just don't cut it.

RE: Decision Table with Expressions as output

Chris — Mon, 11 Oct 2021 20:03:33 GMT

[quote userid="50400" url="~/discussions/f/user-interface/22171/decision-table-with-expressions-as-output/86889#86889"]Though at that rate, it seems hardly worth it to even bother with the decision rule anymore - which is why I've ended up hardly ever using them.[/quote]

Just wanted to chime in to agree with this - without expressionable outputs for decision rules, I haven't been able to find any use cases to actually implement one in production, in my environment. This might be a case for a new "Feature Request" thread..

RE: Decision Table with Expressions as output

Mike Schmitt — Mon, 11 Oct 2021 19:52:29 GMT

Your decision could just return integers 1 - N, then an expression rule wraps it in a choose() statement, to avoid a thousand nested if() levels.

But yes I agree, decisions will only ever be actually useful for any use cases more complicated than very simple ones and/or demos, when they're more expressionable in the inputs and/or in the outputs.

RE: Decision Table with Expressions as output

naomip0001 — Mon, 11 Oct 2021 19:45:38 GMT

Kind of. The use case is perfect. I don't want to create some giant if statement, but it looks like that's the only option.

RE: Decision Table with Expressions as output

Mike Schmitt — Mon, 11 Oct 2021 18:44:51 GMT

This is super ghetto but you could always wrap the decision in an expression rule and direct the expression rule to call different [expressionable] outcomes based on a particular plaintext output from the decision.

Though at that rate, it seems hardly worth it to even bother with the decision rule anymore - which is why I've ended up hardly ever using them.