User Interface
It is true that the Code Effects business rules engine is VERY fast. It is also true that it takes just a few days to implement it into any new or existing .NET project. We have outlined these and other topics in greater detail in our online documentation. But the feature that made Code Effects really famous is our revolutionary user interface.
Let's consider some examples of current business rules formats and user interfaces used in BRM industry and compare them to Code Effects:
Decision Tables
This is the business rules format used by most BRM software. The table above displays a very simple (if not primitive) business rule. Yet, a rule author would obviously need to have extensive knowlege of DT format from this particular vendor in order to successfully manage these rules. This is the reason why decision table management almost always becomes a joint effort between the business team and an experienced IT department.
Open Source Business Rules Engines
Above is a rule example from Microsoft's latest open source engine. Again, it is a very simple rule... with no visual representation whatsoever. Note that this is just a raw definition of the rule. Things can really get complicated when you look at a typical open source development environment in which rule authors have to manage their rules:
Drag and Drop Desktop Interfaces
Can you really visualize the business logic displayed by the typical D'n'D interface in the example shown above? In real-life scenarios, the convenience of on-screen manipulation of rule elements is always overshadowed by the complexity of the editor. Users have to lay out each rule's conditions first, then define each and every action or value setter by either using a ton of dialogs and panels or by use of a proprietary programming language.
Most commercially available BRM vendors claim that their products "require no IT involvement". In reality, rule authors need to use at least some programming in order to properly express real-life business logic amongst all the different types of user interfaces and business rules formats.
Code Effects' User Interface
Shown above is a screenshot of Code Effects' Rule Editor taken from the Live Demo page on this website. We just quickly typed a made-up set of conditions into the rule area that don't make much sense logically, yet show the ease and simplicity of our web-based user interface. See how easy and natural it is to "read" the logic of the rule just by glancing at the rule area. You can even set the editor to display all of its elements including the rule itself in (and even dynamically translate it on-the-fly into) any language of your choice.
Modern BRM software vendors go above and beyond in trying to pack more and more UI functionality into their rule editors (that is, if they even provide one), effectively creating business rules management systems by developers for developers. With this approach in mind, they disconnect business managers, data analysts, and product owners from controling the core business logic of corporate products. We believe that we changed all that when we introduced our Code Effects UI back in 2009.
End-Users
Another feature of Code Effects' UI that is crucial for many projects is the ability to allow public users to define and manage their own business rules. Obviously, you can't just let your "retail" users to manage decision tables or author their rules using one of the D'n'D interfaces. Before the first version of Code Effects was released, companies had to create their own in-house web editors and usually hook them up via an open source engine:
Development of a form, such as the one shown above, and integrating it into a host project together with the rule evaluation functionality, overall testing, and deployment could take weeks if not months for a typical web development team. That is not counting the initial discovery phase, planning, and design. Still, such an interface would be a challenge to the end-users. On the contrary, it usually takes just days to implement Code Effects into any .NET project for the fraction of the cost of an in-house solution.
If you are researching the BRM market, you probably have already noticed that Code Effects Software is the only company in the industry with the actual live demo page. It's because you are the public user of our site and we trust that you can simply open that page and figure out how to create a basic rule completely on your own without even knowing the data model. Other vendors have to schedule an appointment with you to make sure their representative could lead you through the demo in order for you not to get lost and confused. That, in and of itself, speaks volumes.
Capabilities
Having the simplest and most intuitive web-based UI doesn't mean that our product lacks the key features commonly found in other BRM softwares. In fact, we offer features that most other engines lack themselves. Collection data types, built-in numeric calculations, in-rule methods, and rule actions with optional parameters, parentheses, reusable rules, rule templates, multiple evaluation modes, automatic rule validation, dynamic help, automatic detection of circular dependencies and mutually recursive rules - these are just some of the great features of our Rule Editor.
However, the editor accounts for just the rules management side of our product. Evaluation of your rules is handled by the Rule Engine which is a highly efficient thread-safe component delivered as a .NET Standard library and, therefore, is usable in any platform that exists out there. It compiles your business rules into the machine native code right before the evaluation kicks in, effectively making them part of your project's execution code. This means that the performance of your business rules is only limited to the power and capabilities of your hardware. We have performance testing demo projects that you can use to test the incredible speed and efficiency of the Code Effects rules engine on your own hardware and environment. Request one now using our Support form.
Cost
Code Effects offers several perpetual licenses. The most common and cost effective is the Engine Unlimited. With all our licenses, you only pay once and you own it forever regardless of the number of rules your organization evaluates or the number of developers it employs. There are no hidden fees of any kind. Each license covers your product and everything associated with it unless you need to distribute it with embedded Code Effects engine to your end-users, or unless you want to get the full source code of Code Effects in order to be able to modify or extend its functionality, compile it with different frameworks, and so on.
We are quite flexible in our terms. Please use this form to request our price list or ask any licensing question.