Oracle Policy Automation


Oracle Policy Automation is a suite of software products for modeling and deploying business rules within enterprise applications. Oracle Corporation acquired OPA in December 2008 when it purchased Australian software company RuleBurst Holdings, then trading as Haley. Oracle Policy Automation was designed by RuleBurst to transform legislation and policy documents into executable business rules, particularly for the calculation of benefit entitlements and payment amounts. Although OPA was originally developed for and sold to the public sector, it can be used in other industries.
Oracle Policy Automation continues to be available as a standalone offering and an integrated rules solution for SAP and Siebel.

Features and components

Oracle Policy Modeling is a Windows desktop application for transforming legislation and policy documents into executable business rules. Rules are written in Microsoft Word and Excel documents using phrases in languages such as English, Chinese and French. These rule documents can be shared amongst business and information technology stakeholders, and commentary can be added into the documents without affecting the structure of the rules themselves. Other features of Oracle Policy Modeling include integrated test case execution and debugging capabilities, and the definition of interviews for interactive rule-based assessments. Interview screen order and branching logic can be defined using visual flow diagrams.
The Oracle Policy Automation run-time comprises three technologies:
Both OPA Web Determinations and OPA Determinations Server are supported on a wide variety of application servers, including Oracle WebLogic Server, Microsoft IIS, IBM WebSphere AS and Apache Tomcat.
Connectors for enterprise applications such as Oracle's Siebel and SAP are also available.

Versions

The product now known as Oracle Policy Automation has been sold under several different names, including Haley Office Rules and RuleBurst.
RuleBurst 7.0 was the successor to STATUTE Expert. Although customers of STATUTE Expert were able to upgrade to the later versions, RuleBurst 7.0 was the first version of the product that has become known as Oracle Policy Automation today.
Oracle has released several versions of Oracle Policy Automation since it was acquired:
Product VersionReleasedComments
10.0A major release with significant enhancements for both policy modeling and deployment.
10.1Update release with several minor enhancements, including ability to build and continue in the rule debugger while retaining session data.
10.1.1Maintenance release. Included critical fixes from 10.2. Replaces 10.1
10.2Major release. New features included translation support for interview content, and ribbons for Word 2007 and Excel 2007 for marking up rule documents.
10.3Incremental release. Added ability to use Oracle BI Publisher to define documents to generate during an interview. New syntactic language parsers were also added for Italian, Japanese, Portuguese and Russian.
10.3.1Maintenance release. Replaces 10.3
10.4Major release. New features included what-if analysis, a new batch processor and modules.
10.4.1Maintenance release. Replaces 10.4
10.4.2Maintenance release. Replaces 10.4.1
10.4.3Maintenance release. Replaces 10.4.2
10.4.4Maintenance release. Replaces 10.4.3
10.4.5Maintenance release. Replaces 10.4.4
10.4.6Maintenance release. Replaces 10.4.5
10.4.7Maintenance release. Replaces 10.4.6
12.0Major release. First release of Oracle Policy Automation for Private Cloud.
12.0.1First release of Oracle In-Memory Policy Analytics.
12.1Minor release.
12.1.1Maintenance release. Works side-by-side with 12.1
12.2Minor release. New features included inferred entity rules in Excel, custom language support, Finnish and Turkish parsers.
12.2.1Minor release. New features included policy usage statistics, project inclusions, reference tags, signature and photo capture on mobile devices, and an enhanced data mapping experience.
12.2.2Minor release. New features included interview checkpoints, touch-friendly interviews, free navigation in interviews and multi-level value lists.
12.2.3Minor release. New features included multi-channel interviews, interview checkpoints, signatures in forms and HR self-service example.
12.2.4Minor release. New features included RuleScript and enhancement of interview statistics and relationship handling.
12.2.5Minor release. New features included next-generation interviews, dynamic interview behaviour, enhanced navigation and access control for policy models.
12.2.6Minor release. New features included Service Cloud connection enhancements, programmatic & identity manager-based Hub user management, an integration user account type and exporting project data model.
12.2.7Minor release. New features included PDF form templates, interview extensions, embeddable interviews and batch Assess REST API.
12.2.8Minor release. New features included checkpoints for Service Cloud agents, mobile assessments for Service Cloud and deployments REST API.
12.2.9 / 17DMinor release. New features included dynamic reference data loading, Engagement Cloud interview styling and Identity Cloud Service integration.
12.2.10 / 18AMinor release. Enhancements included populating lists from rules, obsolete API warning and managing API clients programmatically.
12.2.11 / 18BMinor release. Enhancements included embeddable JavaScript models, inline customer portal interview widget, session-based REST API licensing and the Integration Cloud Service OPA assessment adapter.
12.2.12 / 18CMinor release. Enhancements included locale awareness enhancements, OPA Hub Connections REST API and the Hub action audit log.
12.2.13 / 18DMinor release. Enhancements included enhancements to file uploads, pinning the version of a Policy Modeling project and client authentication for web service connections.
12.2.14 / 19AMinor release. Enhancements included using uploaded images in generated forms, using any interview data in interview extensions and providing conversational auditable advise via the OPA Chat API.
12.2.15 / 19BMinor release. Enhancements included enhancements to the OPA Chat API, interview extensions API and deployments REST API.
12.2.16 / 19CMinor release. Enhancements included Integration OPA interview adapter, generic integration protocol for interviews, importing batch assess REST requests into Policy Modeling debugger and single-click updating all project inclusions.
12.2.17 / 19DMinor release. Enhancements included new Hub user interface, Entity level forms, and the ability to modify and resubmit interview data

Applications and academic interest

The Oracle Policy Automation software has been publicly deployed within several government web-sites. Australia's Department of Immigration and Citizenship uses it for visitors to check their eligibility for visas. The UK Revenue and Customs agency uses it for their Employment Status Indicator assessment tool; the UK government's old online portal for businesses also used OPA for over 60 interactive tools, while the United States IRS uses the software for guidance on tax law.
Oracle Policy Modeling's controlled natural language approach to rule authoring has been the subject of some research. The product was also used to help establish the viability of the Legal Knowledge Interchange Format standard developed by the Estrella Project

Acquisition and product confusion

RuleBurst acquired the assets of Haley Systems in November 2007.
At the time, RuleBurst and Haley were both marketing "natural language business rules" software and were considered competitors. Prior to being acquired, Haley Systems had licensed its HaleyAuthority rules product to Siebel Systems. HaleyAuthority was made available in Siebel 8.0 under the name Siebel Business Rules. When RuleBurst acquired Haley, it adopted the better-known Haley name for both its company and product branding. HaleyAuthority then became known as Haley Expert Rules and the RuleBurst product became known as Haley Office Rules. When Oracle acquired RuleBurst, Oracle also began jointly marketing OPA with the Siebel CRM solution. The plurality of names has led some commentators to incorrectly refer to Oracle Policy Automation and Haley products interchangeably as Haley or Haley Rules. However, the two products are separate and distinct offerings.