Biztalk Business Rule Engine Interview Preparation Guide

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Click on the map grid and in properties tab specify the location where custom XSLT is stored against the property "Custom XSLT path".

The fact is the user data to which rule conditions are applied. At design time a fact is a reference to that data.
Facts have two categories – Short Term Facts and Long Term Facts. Consider a loaning process of any Bank. We can think a “loan application” as short term fact. Short team facts are business information which changes per occurrence. On the contrary, “interest rates” do not change very regularly. This business information is steady and we can consider it a long term fact.

Maps are graphical representations of XSLT (Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformation) documents that allow us to perform, in a simple and visual manner, transformations between XML messages. A map file basically is the XML file that defines the correspondence between the records and fields in one schema and the records and fields in another schema. You create a map when you want to transform or translate data that you receive or send from one schema to another.

A policy is a logical grouping of rules. You compose a version of a policy, save it, test it by applying it to the facts, and, when you are satisfied with the results, publish it and deploy it to a production environment.

You need to use the Business Rules Composer. This is a graphical tool used for authoring, versioning, and deploying policies and vocabularies.

Rete Algorithm is an efficient pattern matching algorithm for implementing production rule systems. BRE's inner working is based on the Rete algorithm.

Yes. Choosing inline code allows us to declare global variables outside the method declaration. These are accessible throughout the map from within all inline code scripting functoids.

Rule alone cannot be published or deployed, it has to be wrapped under Policy and then published and deployed. When a policy is deployed it is ready to use and can't be edited whereas when published, policy aren't ready for use.

A run-time inference engine that can link highly readable, declarative, semantically rich rules to any business objects (.NET components), XML documents, or database tables. It can evaluate rules against facts and initiate actions based on the results of that evaluation.

No. After policies are published it can't be edited. But if there is a need to have a change in policy then new version of policy is to be created.

Transformations are more flexible and fast when they are executed from a send or receive port. We can replace map on the ports without any development effort. But if we replace map in orchestration we have to recompile and redeploy the orchestration assembly.

This database is a repository for:
☛ Policies, which are sets of related rules
☛ Vocabularies, which are collections of user-friendly, domain-specific names for data references in rules.

The mapper grid plays a critical role in the definition of maps, containing the links and functoids that control how data in a source instance message is transformed into an instance message that conforms to the destination schema.
The grid view can have multiple layers, called grid pages, allowing you to organize complex maps into logical subdivisions of mappings. BizTalk 2010 no longer has the limitation of 20 grid pages that exist in the previous versions of the product.

No there is no limit for versions of policies

The Vocabulary Definition Wizard is used to create vocabulary definitions.

No, there is no provision of adding ELSE but else logic can implemented with extra IF.

Multiple pages enable you to organize your links so that any one page does not become too cluttered and confusing.It is also very helpful to label the pages and the links.

The Call Rules shape in the Orchestration calls only the latest version of the policy. To call an older (specific) version from within an orchestration, the Business Rules Framework APIs is used, which can be called from within an expression.

The Muenchian Method is an algorithm for grouping of data used in XSL Transformations that identifies keys in the results and then queries all nodes with that key. It can be applied with custom XSLT within a BizTalk Map.

Yes. But to do so custom XSLT is to be provided to the map.

No, as the call rules shape calls the latest version of the policy deployed.

It is a rule markup language in XML format for declarative rule definitions.

.btm is a BizTalk Server map file.

Please share your experience.

Yes. Firstly it needs to be declared (policy name which is to be called), passed in the fact instance and finally executed.