ABSTRACT
Business rules are perhaps the most important deliverable en route to a shared data environment. Business rules reflect, in natural language, the true business meaning behind business information. This chapter discusses a formalized approach to capturing, validating, managing, and automating business rules. A business rule is a statement written in natural language describing terminology, definitions, rules, and policies about information that is used in conducting the enterprise’s business. Data specialists have had to make assumptions about business rules because their importance was not truly recognized by enterprises. Business rules must be written in clear, concise statements using proper grammar. Abstract or, ambiguous phrases make the meaning of the business rule confusing to the reader. The business rule administrator’s primary responsibility is to ensure the quality and integrity of all business rules submitted to data administration. Business rule maintenance is initiated by the business rule guardian and performed by the business rule administrator.
