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Business Rules Admin Screen

Within the Chrome River app, business rules are used extensively to implement policies and business controls that are tailored to your organization's needs. A wide variety of rules fire at different points in the application.

This article covers the mechanics of viewing, editing, adding, cloning, deleting and deactivating rules via the Business Rules Admin screen.

At this time, the Business Rules Admin screen supports the following rule types:

  • EXPENSE Line-Item Compliance
  • EXPENSE Submit Compliance
  • EXPENSE Approval Routing
  • PRE-APPROVAL Submit Compliance

  • PRE-APPROVAL Routing

To create and manage other types of rules, you should continue to work with Chrome River's Configuration team via the Chrome River Help Desk.

Access Business Rules Editor for the First Time

The first time you access the Business Rules Editor admin screen, you may be required to complete a simple conversion before you can begin. This process will convert your organization's compliance rules to a new format accessible via Chrome River while retaining the rules' logic and behavior.

In order for the conversion to be successful, you must complete the following steps first.

1. Verify that you have no cases open with Chrome River's Configuration team to change your compliance rules. If your organization has a QA/UAT environment and the version of your rules in QA/UAT does not match the version in Production, the conversion process will fail.

2. If you are logged into Chrome River in the Production environment when you see the one-time conversion message on the Business Rules admin screen, log out and log back in to the app in the QA/UAT environment.

3. When you navigate to the Business Rules admin screen, you will see the one-time conversion message again. Click CONVERT. If you selected the Live changeset, you will first be prompted to either select a draft changeset or create a new changeset. All changes to business rules are grouped together into a changeset, and when that changeset is published, all changes contained within the changeset will be published.

4. Now publish your rules changeset in QA/UAT.

5. It is recommended that you conduct provisional testing of your rules in QA/UAT before promoting the changes to Production via cross-publishing.

6. To publish your rules to Production, follow the steps in "Cross-Publish Changesets Between Environments" in the Changeset Manager Admin Screen article. Once your rules have been applied to Production, you will not be prompted to do a rule conversion again. From this point forward, you may create new rules and edit existing rules using Business Rules Editor.

Business Rules Editor

The Business Rules Editor admin screen lets you create, manage, and publish your organization's business rules.

If you are not yet live with Chrome River, it is recommended to coordinate with your Project Manager before attempting to update your business rules.

If you are live with Chrome River, it is always recommended to adjust and test your business rules in the QA/UAT environment and then use cross-publishing to promote the changes to Production. See "Cross-Publish Changesets Between Environments" in the Changeset Manager Admin Screen article for complete details.

1. Click ADMIN SETTINGS > USER INTERFACE > BUSINESS RULES.

2. Select the changeset you would like to use to publish your business rule updates, then select the type of business rule—in this case, COMPLIANCE—to be taken to the Rule Builder.

Rule Builder

The Rule Builder allows you to see and manage all your rules in the selected type (Compliance, Submit Compliance, Approval Routing). Use the arrows at the bottom to page through long lists of rules, or use the Items Per Page drop-down to show more on one screen.

  • A green dot to the left of the rule name indicates the rule is active.
  • A gray dot indicates the rule is inactive.

Click the headings across the top of the list to sort the list:

Compliance and Submit Compliance Headings

  • Rule: The name of the rule.
  • Action: What happens when the rule fires.
  • Tags: Add tags to categorize rules into groups (e.g., Warnings, Violations, Hotel) for easier searching.
  • Rank: The order in which the rule fires.
  • Indicates whether the rule was recently edited.
  • Indicates whether the rule was recently published.

Approval Routing Headings

  • Rank: The order in which the rule fires.
  • Rule: The name of the rule.
  • Routing Type: Indicates whether the routing is to a specific user, to users assigned to a particular role(s), or to a user group.
  • Message Code: Identifies the message text displayed to the approver.
  • Indicates whether the rule was recently edited.
  • Indicates whether the rule was recently published.

Use the search box to find a rule by name or tag, if applicable.

In addition, Expense and Pre-Approval Routing headings provide filtering options based on Rule, Routing Type and Message Code.

Clicking on any of the filtering icons opens a box containing various options to help find the particular rule you are looking for.

Click the arrow to the left of the rule to see its conditions.

Download Entire List of Rules

Downloading your company's entire list of rules is a great way to understand how they work. You'll be able to see which rules have been defined and understand how line-item compliance, submit compliance and approval routing work. This will also show you who the Routing Safety Net Person is (sometimes referred to as the "Find Me/Fix Me" person) for each rule, and it's helpful when you need to change violations to warnings or vice versa.

If you are in a live changeset and viewing Expense Compliance, Submit Compliance, Expense Approval Routing, Pre-Approval Submit Compliance, or Pre-Approval Routing rules, a DOWNLOAD button will appear in the upper right corner.

This allows you to download an Excel file snapshot of the live rules. The spreadsheet lists all the details of each rule, including Rule Name, Rule Number, Rank, Messages, Conditions and any Short and Long Descriptions.

Edit a Rule

If you just need to edit a rule's short or long message, this is easily accomplished via the Rule Messages Admin Screen.

1. Hover over the rule name in the Rule Builder, then click EDIT.

If you had selected the Live changeset on the Rule Type selector page, you will be prompted to either select an existing draft changeset or create a new changeset.

2. You will be taken to the Rule Editor screen. Here you may edit the rule's name, status, rank and tags, as well as its conditions and actions.

  • Name: The rule name will be in edit mode by default.
  • Status: Click the button to change it from ACTIVE to INACTIVE or vice versa.
  • Rank: Enter the number corresponding to the desired rank.
  • Tags: Click ADD TAGS to create a new tag for categorizing the rule into a group (e.g., Warnings, Violations, Hotel) for easier searching. Click the X next to a tag to delete it.

If / Then

The rule's "If" conditions and "Then" actions determine when the rule will fire (IF) and what will happen when it does (THEN). Each rule may have multiple sets of conditions and actions. See Rule Builder Attributes for the list of available conditions and actions.

3. Once you have completed all your edits, click SAVE.

When you have finished applying all changes to the rule, click the back arrow to return to the Rule Builder.

4. Click PUBLISH to promote the changes via your changeset.

Once you receive the publish confirmation, the updated rules will be live in that environment.

Deactivate a Rule

Rather than delete a rule, you may wish to make it inactive. This allows you to easily reinstate the rule later.

1. Hover over the rule name in the Rule Builder, then click EDIT.

2. On the Rule Editor, click ACTIVE to change it to Inactive, then click SAVE.

Click the back arrow to return to the Rule Builder.

3. The rule will still appear in the Rule Builder list but will be grayed out. Click PUBLISH to promote the change.

Delete a Rule

1. Hover over the rule name in the Rule Builder, then click DELETE.

2. In the confirmation box, click DELETE.

3. If you are not currently working in a changeset, you will be asked to select one from the drop-down or create a new one. Then click EDIT and the deletion will occur.

Clone a Rule

Cloning lets you create new rules based on existing ones without re-creating all the conditions and actions from scratch. It also lets you test minor adjustments to existing rules: Simply clone the rule, deactivate it, edit the clone and then publish the clone to see the changes. The original rule can be easily reactivated, if necessary.

1. Hover over the rule name in the Rule Builder, then click CLONE.

 

2. A new, active duplicate with "CLONE" appended to the name will appear below the existing rule. Hover over it and click EDIT to make the desired adjustments, including renaming the rule.

Create a Rule

Chrome River's business rules comprise "If" conditions and "Then" actions that determine when a rule will fire (IF) and what will happen when it does (THEN). Each rule may have multiple sets of conditions and actions. See Rule Builder Attributes for the list of available conditions and actions.

1. Click ADD RULE.

2. If you are not currently working in a changeset, you will be asked to select one from the drop-down or create a new one. Then click EDIT.

3. Enter the name of the new rule in the active box at the top of the Rule Editor screen. You will be unable to save until the rule has a name.

4. Change the rule's rank and add tags, if desired. The status will remain incomplete until conditions and actions have been added.

5. Click ADD CONDITION to select a primary object. For a compliance rule, this might be an allocation, an expense owner or attributes of the line item or header. A list of primary object types to choose from will appear on the right.

What you see in the menu on the right will vary depending on the choices you make at each step.

6. Now select an attribute of the primary object that will determine whether the rule fires. If necessary, you may use the search box at the top to narrow the list of choices.

If the primary object is a line item or header, you will also see your organization's UDAs (user-defined data) in the list, as indicated by the star in the upper right corner.

7. Next select an operator to specify the relationship of the attribute to the value. The type of attribute you chose in the previous step will determine which operators appear in the list.

8. Now select a value type. In this example, the only option is to enter a custom value type.

9. Enter the desired value and click APPLY.

10. Once you have created an IF condition, you may click the squares icon to duplicate it and then change any aspect as necessary. Click the trash icon to delete a condition.

Click ADD CONDITION to create more conditions.

You may also drag and drop conditions to rearrange the list if you have a preferred reading order.

11. Now you will add the THEN action that determines what happens when this rule fires. Note that the rule actions are different for Compliance/Submit Compliance rules and Routing rules.

Expense Compliance and Expense/Pre-Approval Submit Compliance ACTIONS

A. Click ADD ACTION.

B. Choose the desired action from the Select Action list on the right.

C. In this example, you would click SELECT MESSAGE to choose the message that users will see when this rule fires. Use the search box to find and select the desired message, or click CREATE NEW MESSAGE to create one from scratch.

D. If you choose to create a new rule message, enter the message code, the title (short message) and the description (long message).

  • Optionally for Compliance and Submit Compliance rules, you may choose to create a button that hyperlinks to a URL (e.g., your company's travel policy). There is no need to enter the "https://" portion of the URL.

Then click CREATE.

E. Once you have created a THEN action, you may click the squares icon to duplicate it and then change any aspect as necessary. Click the trash icon to delete an action.

Click ADD ACTION to create more actions. You may also drag and drop conditions to rearrange the list if you have a preferred reading order.

F. Skip to Step 12, below.

Expense ROUTING ACTIONS

A. Click ADD ACTION.

B. Choose the desired Routing Type from the Select Routing Type list on the right.

Routing Types

  • Route to User: Route to either a specific person (Custom) or a person associated with the line item, allocation, or report (Relative). An approval email notification will be sent.

  • Custom: Select a person from the complete set of company users defined within Chrome River.

  • Relative: Specify that routing should go to one of the following...

  • The expense report owner.

  • The person the expense report owner reports to.

  • The personUDF1 associated with the selected allocation.

  • The personUDF2 associated with the selected allocation.

  • The Expense Routing Safety Net Person person. See "Approval Routing" in the Customer Preferences Admin Screen article for details.

  • Route to Auto-Approve: Create a routing step that does not route to anyone but can contain such secondary actions as Watcher. This allows you to send a watcher notification independently of another rule that physically routes to an approver. See Customize Watcher Email Instructions for details.

  • Note: An auto-approve watcher rule cannot be the last rule in your routing. There must be an actual approval routing step after the watcher notification rule in order to ensure the watcher notification is sent as expected.

  • Route to Single Role: Route to all people who are assigned the specified role. An approval email notification will be sent. It is important to note that all people with the role will be asked to approve the report. When configuring a Single Role routing rule, there is an option to specify a Fallback approver. The report will be routed to the Fallback approver if the system is not able to find a user who is assigned the role configured for the route-to action.

  • Route to Dual Role: Route to all people who are assigned to two specified roles. An approval email notification will be sent. It is important to note that all people with both roles will be asked to approve the report. When configuring a Dual Role routing rule, there is an option to specify a Fallback approver. The report will be routed to the Fallback approver if the system is not able to find a user who is assigned the roles configured for the route-to action.

  • Route to Group: Route to a particular role that is enabled for group routing. Group routing means that the report is sent to a queue rather than to specific people. The people who are assigned to this group role will all be able to access the report, but only one person will be allowed to act on the report. As soon as the first person approves or returns the report, it is removed from the queue. When configuring a Group routing rule, there is an option to specify a Fallback approver. The report will be routed to the Fallback approver if the system is not able to find a user who is assigned the roles configured for the route-to action.

  • Note: Group routing does not send approval email notifications to members of the group.

  • Route to Gatekeeper: This option ensures the completion of all prior routing steps for all line items on a report before it moves forward in the routing steps. It is a way to ensure all line items on a report are approved prior to moving on to the next step in the routing chain. Typically, this rule will be set up by your organization's Chrome River Project Manager during implementation; it is not something you would modify without first consulting a Chrome River Support Analyst.

C. Optionally, you may click the Secondary Actions icon and choose the desired action from the Secondary Actions list on the right.

 

Secondary Actions

  • Override Vacation Delegate: Force routing to the route-to approver even if they have approval delegation enabled.

  • Allow Route to Expense Creator: Route to the approver even if the approver is also the expense report creator. (Otherwise, the default behavior is to auto-approve the routing steps that go to the expense report creator.)

  • Watcher: Allow the configured person or role to be CCed on approval email notifications so they can watch specific reports or line items as they route through the approval process without being able to approve or return them.

D. Once you have created a THEN action, you may click the double squares icon to duplicate it and then change any aspect as necessary. Click the trash icon to delete an action.

Click ADD ACTION to create more actions. You may also drag and drop conditions to rearrange the list if you have a preferred reading order.

E. After configuring the route-to action, you must finally specify the message that will be displayed to approvers when they are previewing the report in their approval queue. Click on SELECT MESSAGE CODE to choose the message they will see when this rule fires. Use the search box to find and select the desired message, or click CREATE NEW MESSAGE to create one from scratch.

12. Click SAVE when you are done creating the rule. The rule must be complete in order to save it.

13. The rule will automatically be active once it is saved. Click PUBLISH to promote the new rule via your changeset.

CUSTOM Conditions

When viewing your rules in the Rule Builder, you may see a condition or action shown with the prefix "CUSTOM."

This indicates that the rule condition contains additional logic specific to your organization that cannot be edited directly in the Rule Editor. If you edit the rule and select the condition or action with the CUSTOM indicator, you will see in the Toolbox that the Label description for the condition can be updated but the syntax is read only.

Due to the complexity of the syntax, only Chrome River's Configuration team is able to update CUSTOM conditions. Please open a case via the Help Desk for assistance updating the condition description.

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