AI and Business Rule Engines for Excel Power Users: Capture and scale your business knowledge into the cloud – with Microsoft 365, Decision Models, and AI tools from IBM and Red Hat

Paul Browne · Alex Porcelli

Mar 2023 · Packt Publishing Ltd

About this eBook

A power-packed manual to enhance your decision-making with the application of Business Rules using KIE, Drools, Kogito, MS Excel, Power Automate, Office Script, and MS Forms

Purchase of the print or Kindle book includes a free PDF eBook

Key FeaturesExplore the business rule tools by implementing real-world examples to write sophisticated rulesDiscover how decision services solve current business challenges using AICombine rules with workflows and scripting to deploy a cloud-based production environmentBook Description

Microsoft Excel is widely adopted across diverse industries, but Excel Power Users often encounter limitations such as complex formulas, obscure business knowledge, and errors from using outdated sheets. They need a better enterprise-level solution, and this book introduces Business rules combined with the power of AI to tackle the limitations of Excel.

This guide will give you a roadmap to link KIE (an industry-standard open-source application) to Microsoft's business process automation tools, such as Power Automate, Power Query, Office Script, Forms, VBA, Script Lab, and GitHub. You'll dive into the graphical Decision Modeling standard including decision tables, FEEL expressions, and advanced business rule editing and testing.

By the end of the book, you'll be able to share your business knowledge as graphical models, deploy and execute these models in the cloud (with Azure and OpenShift), link them back to Excel, and then execute them as an end-to-end solution removing human intervention. You'll be equipped to solve your Excel queries and start using the next generation of Microsoft Office tools.

What you will learnUse KIE and Drools decision services to write AI-based business rulesLink Business Rules to Excel using Power Query, Script Lab, Office Script, and VBABuild an end-to-end workflow with Microsoft Power Automate and Forms while integrating it with Excel and KogitoCollaborate on and deploy your decision models using OpenShift, Azure, and GitHubDiscover advanced editing using the graphical Decision Model Notation (DMN) and testing toolsUse Kogito to combine AI solutions with ExcelWho this book is for

This book is for Excel power users, business users, and business analysts looking for a tool to capture their knowledge and deploy it as part of enterprise-grade systems. Working proficiency with MS Excel is required. Basic knowledge of web technologies and scripting would be an added advantage.

About the author

Paul Browne is a product and program manager currently working for Europe's largest VC by deal flow. Most recently, he led a team from three partner institutions that won an EFMD award for ecosystem development, training over 100 eurozone companies to implement digital solutions together. This continues Paul's previous work leading business and technical projects in the public, financial, and life science sectors across Ireland, the UK, the US, the Netherlands, Belgium, and New Zealand. Paul's qualifications include a degree in European business and French from Ulster University and more recent certifications in finance (ACCA), procurement (CIPS), and business strategy (ESMT). He has technical certifications from Microsoft, Oracle, and IBM and holds a master's in advanced software engineering from University College Dublin. Paul is the author of JBoss Drools Business Rules, by Packt Publishing, and has lectured in Excel and Visual Basic at the third level.