Back Forward Available rule

AvailabilityA rule is available if the value of the pyRuleAvailable property is set to Yes or Final (and is not blocked; see below). Developers determine this value as they create or save a rule.

A green icon at the upper right of the rule form indicates the current setting. When presented in reports, the icon is brown.

Five availability settings

This property may have any of five values:

Yes
Yes
yes

A circle and dot indicates that this rule is available. Rules with a Yes value are visible to rule resolution processing and can be executed.

No
No/Draft Mode
Note

An empty circle indicates a rule that is not available. Set the Availability of a rule to No/Draft Mode to cause the rule to become invisible to the rule resolution algorithm for all users (including yourself), and to bypass validation of non-key fields. The No/Draft Mode setting is useful in experimentation and troubleshooting to assess the effect of two rule versions. C-1119

Blocked
Blocked
blocked

A circle within an X indicates that this rule has Availability set to Blocked. Set the value of this property to Blocked if you want rule resolution processing to halt (with no rule found) when it encounters this rule. The rule form colors change from greens to grays. B-17118

This is a stronger form of No/Draft, because it affects all lower-numbered versions of the rule, and versions (in other RuleSets) that are below this version in the user's RuleSet list. A blocked rule does not prevent rule resolution from finding (and running) higher-numbered versions in the same RuleSet, or finding rules with the same visible key in a different RuleSet that is higher on the RuleSet list. CLINB FOXW 4/11/05

Final
Final
final

An arrow and barrier in the key area indicates that this rule has Availability set to Final. Set this value of this property to Final if you want this rule to be available (equivalent to Yes), but want to prevent others from overriding this rule in any other RuleSet.

A final rule can be superceded by a higher-numbered version in the same RuleSet, but not by any version in any different RuleSet.

Withdrawn
Withdrawn

Withdrawn

This image indicates that the rule has Availability set to Withdrawn. A withdrawn rule is never selected by rule resolution. In addition, a withdrawn rule masks from rule resolution any other rules which meet all of these tests: C-2555 5.2

  • The other rule belongs to the same RuleSet
  • The other rule belongs to the same major version of the RuleSet, but a lower minor version or lower patch version
  • The other rule has the same Applies To class (if relevant and other key parts match)
  • If circumstance-qualified, is qualified with the same circumstance type and value.

How availability works with circumstances and time-qualified rules

A time-qualified rule or a rule containing a non-blank Circumstance Property has its own Availability value that may differ from the Availability value in the base or underlying rule.

If a rule request meets the conditions of a time-qualified rule or circumstance rule, the Availability of that rule applies, not the Availability of the base rule. For example, if the base rule has Availability set to Blocked but a time-qualified rule (with the same key, RuleSet, and version) has Availability set to Yes, the time-qualified rule is visible and usable throughout the time interval between its Start Time and End Time values.

NoteClass, library, RuleSet Name, and version rules are always available. You cannot change the availability of instances of these rule types.

Definitions blocked rule, circumstance, final rule, override, RuleSet list, rule resolution, time-qualified rule, withdrawn rule
Related topics How to change availability of a rule
How to enter rule keys using Save As
Identifying parts of rule and data forms
Completing the new rule dialog box

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